Departmental objectives
Featured in the Setting Objectives and Seeing Them Through training manual
By Beverley Williams
Category: Performance Management
Credit price: 3 download credits (Single user)
Departmental objectives need to be set in order to establish the direction and aims or goals of the department. Departmental objectives address the objectives set at the organisational level in greater detail. Departmental objectives may be developed by departmental heads in conjunction with those who set organisational objectives. However, this is not always the case. Objectives will sometimes be presented to departmental heads rather than agreed with them. Every single member of the department needs to be aware of the departmental objectives and to understand how individually they play their part in achieving them. During this training activity, participants examine how departmental objectives fit in to the bigger picture and identify the benefits off some of their own departmental objectives.
You open by explaining that this is where objectives start to get more specific, giving a clear view of the targets and expectations of departments and functions. You cover the objectives cascade showing where departmental objectives fit in. You move on to acknowledge the many different organisational structures and agree the terms to be used in your own objectives cascade. Next, you examine some examples of departmental objectives, eliciting participants’ responses to show why the theory may not always translate into practical application. Then the participants work with some of their own departmental objectives to show where they fit in to the cascade and what they see as the key benefits of the selected objectives. They present their findings to the rest of the group. Finally, you close by covering the key learning points of the training activity.
Who is it for: This training resource is intended for use by trainers with participants to examine departmental objective setting and asks them to show where their own departmental objectives fit in to the bigger picture.
| Resource Type: | Activity |
| Min Group Size: | 4 |
| Max Group Size: | 10 |
| Typical Duration: | 01:30:00 |
| No of Pages: | 11 |
Resources: View standard resources for Fenman training activities
Purpose: This training resource is intended for use by trainers with all members of staff as everyone needs to understand where departmental objectives fit in. This training activity is a brief overview of the topic and is not designed to be used to set objectives at departmental level. Ideally, participants should already have covered ‘Objectives: What they are and why they exist’.
Download the training activity, Departmental objectives as featured in the Fenman training manual; Setting Objectives and Seeing Them Through