Writing Goals that Hold Up

Scenario-Based Learning | Articulate Rise 360 | Manager Development

Help employees write goals they understand and can work toward.

Project Overview

Writing Goals That Hold Up is a self-paced course for people managers who help employees set goals. It starts with a familiar problem: a goal can sound reasonable when it’s written, yet leave the manager and employee with different ideas about what’s expected.

For this portfolio project, I used a fictional customer-support team to explore the conversations behind a SMART goal. Learners consider what a manager should clarify, follow Alex and their manager as they work through a goal together, and then revise a goal for another employee. A downloadable worksheet gives them somewhere to organize their thinking during the course and prepare for similar conversations with their own teams.

The Learning Experience

The course opens with a simple goal: “Get better at resolving billing disputes this quarter.” Learners consider what “better” would mean in practice and use the SMART criteria to identify details the manager and employee still need to discuss.

Alex’s story carries that question through the course. As Alex and their manager review billing disputes, they discover why counting every supervisor transfer would give an unfair picture of Alex’s work. Some cases require approval Alex cannot provide, while others could be handled independently with more practice. Those details shape the target they agree on and the coaching needed to support it.

After seeing how Alex’s completed goal fits the SMART criteria, learners turn to Taylor, an employee preparing for a team lead role. They draft a goal using the information provided, then compare their version with an example and review questions. The course ends with four scenario questions about decisions managers face when setting goals.

A closer look at June’s disputes shows which transfers Alex could reasonably prevent.

Feedback explains what each choice would mean for Alex and their manager.

Learners draft Taylor’s goal before opening the example to review their work.

Key Design Decisions

Give the employee a voice. I included Alex’s perspective so learners could see how a conversation about the work changes the goal. Alex helps identify where practice would be useful and what support would make the target reasonable.
Show why the measure matters. A lower transfer rate could look like improvement even if customers received incorrect resolutions. The goal therefore includes a quality standard and preserves required approvals.
Give learners a chance to write. After working through Alex’s example, learners draft Taylor’s goal themselves. They can then use the sample and SMART questions to find gaps in their own version.
Explain the reasoning behind each choice. Practice feedback addresses why an answer is useful or what it overlooks, giving learners something to consider when they try again.
Make the worksheet part of the activity. I placed the download before the drafting exercise so learners could use it immediately and keep it for future goal conversations.

Supporting Resource

The Goal Drafting Worksheet helps learners take an initial idea through the questions they need to answer before agreeing on a goal. It includes space to consider each SMART criterion, write a revised version, and record the support and progress checkpoint they’ve discussed.

Learners can type into the fillable PDF or print it, both for the course activity and for later conversations with employees.

Download Goal Drafting Worksheet

Reflection

One of the most useful questions I worked through in this project was what makes a goal fair to the employee. Alex’s transfer rate gave me a concrete way to explore that. A target of fewer transfers might sound sensible until you look at which cases Alex is actually allowed to resolve and what could happen if required approvals are skipped.

Revising the course also helped me see where learners needed a clearer connection between the example and their own task. I added the SMART breakdown so they could examine specific parts of Alex’s agreement before drafting Taylor’s goal, and I revised the dialogue and instructions to sound more like a conversation someone might have at work.

I’d like to pilot the course with people managers and look closely at the goals they write. Their drafts would help me understand what they can apply on their own and where the course needs more explanation or practice.