Goal-Setting in 2021: Play as a Team

[#1]

Goal setting in a large distributed team is like setting up a new Health App - you need to choose reasonable metrics, focus on consistency and always be ready for compromises. 

Me.

As I shared recently, I'm not a new-year-resolutions person. If we strive to play as a team, the picture is slightly different. For the sake of progress, the beginning of the year is a good time to outline our desires and move forward with common goals and a bright vision. January is close to its end, and time still manages to fly like snowflakes. I would love to hear your thoughts, experiences, and recommendations on team goal-setting! Until then, enjoy reading my suggestions on how to handle the year as part of a growing marketing team.

I. My only rule in life: keep it simple.

Simplicity is key to a good and healthy workflow. No matter how large and complicated your activities are, simplifying them will allow your team to take one step at a time and confidently move forward resolving small but critical tasks.

If Rule I was a Health App feature: break your goal to small daily actions you are 100% sure you can stick to.

II. Use your tools.

Jira & Confluence are not only for the dev teams. Being part of the Atlassian Ecosystem means knowing, learning, and using it to its full potential. Find the best way to create and set up your workflow using the tools your company and technical teams use. Enhancing your Atlassian Stack with a few apps can help you create a decent visual process and stay confident that no information may get lost or missing.

If Rule II was a Health App feature: research your built-in capabilities before spending a fortune on subscriptions. 

III. Set reasonable goals that align with your personal vision of growth.

This is a hard one. As a driving force and ambassadors of product growth, we want to have mindblowing results, multiply our earnings, maximize our reach, and finish with insanely high numbers. Most times, we have the capacity to make just one of all these points. Dig into some retrospectives and shake hands on what feels comfortable for you and your team.

If Rule III was a Health App feature: don't set your daily step goal on 10k before trying to reach them at least 30 times in a row. 

IV. Lower the noise.

Meetings. That Devil in our lives. 

Let's face it; sometimes, all these live discussions only make things worse. Keep it low, let your team share their thoughts on paper (by 'paper' I mean Confluence), do a quick sync, and move forward. Productivity and reasonable feedback cannot be forced, despite the fact we always want them here and now. 

If Rule IV was a Health App feature: don't spy on the progress bar after each step. Focus on the bigger picture; steps are always bringing you closer to it.

V. Stay curious

Having teams all around the Globe it's frustrating and charming at the same time. Language, culture, and time-zone differences may trick you in So-Many-Ways (yes, speaking by experience). Staying curious about how each team works and performs always helps keep you on track, expand your horizon, and even bring insights into how we can perform better together.

If Rule V was a Health App feature: browse the Community page; every day is a good way to learn from others.

💙

[Jimmy Seddon]

Great read @Teodora _Old Street Solutions_!  Thank you for sharing!

[Jacob Young]

Thanks for publishing @Teodora _Old Street Solutions_

[Teodora _Old Street Solutions_]

Thank you @Jimmy Seddon, @Jacob Young!  

[Mirek]

Nice and clean! Great work @Teodora _Old Street Solutions_ :)

[Teodora _Old Street Solutions_]

Thanks, @Mirek! :) 

[Veronique DUFOUR]

Great article!

[Sharon Helms]

This was fun to read -- I really liked your "If X was a Health App feature" formatting -- such a great idea!

[Teodora _Old Street Solutions_]

Thank you @Sharon Helms @Veronique DUFOUR 💙

[Alexander Bondarev]

@Teodora _Old Street Solutions_ , thanks for the article! 🤩

Well structured content, really comfortable and interesting reading!

[Teodora _Old Street Solutions_]

Thank you for your feedback, @Alexander Bondarev!