Dec 25 2007
Why “Goals For Next Week” Should Never Appear In Your Status Report
I’ve reviewed many status report templates where employees are asked to state their “Goals For Next Week” as one of their entries. I believe that an entry such as this has no business appearing in a status report!
By using a broad entry to capture your plans for the coming week, you’re showing that you’ve failed to plan! The whole purpose of a status report template is to detail the expectations of you. Those expectations cannot be listed until careful planning has occurred. If you’ve followed the process for creating your status report templates carefully, you don’t need to include a “Goals For Next Week”; they’re already listed!
Besides a failure to plan, an entry for “Goals For Next Week” indicates a failure to understand the difference between a goal and an expectation. Your goals are just that - yours. A status report details your accomplishments against the expectations others have of you. A status report isn’t about your goals, it’s about meeting the expectations of others. One might argue that the expectation here is for you to list that which you are expected to do next week. But, once again, this would be a duplication of effort if the template were laid out properly. A properly laid out status report template would already answer the question through the proper listing of the expectations on you, i.e. that which you’re expected to do in the coming week!
Too many people look at a status report and think “Static Report”. When done correctly, a Status Report is anything but static!
Finally, including a question such as this is a poor excuse for not taking the time to properly follow the process of status reporting. It’s the cheap way out, the “catch all”. There’s no place for such a question as this. You need to detail the expectations, not use broad sweeping questions (see 7 Rules For The Proper Use Of Status Reporting). Don’t allow yourself to fall into using bullets to document the routine, expected, and/or mundane tasks just because it’s “safe”. While employers rarely encounter legal trouble for the “mundane”, it’s very demoralizing!
Here are three steps you can take to move towards better status reporting:
- Take the small amount of time required to review your status report template. If you have anything resembling “Goals For Next Week” or “Plan For the Week”, restructure your template so that the expectations are properly captured.
- Pull out your oldest status report which is based on the same template you’re using today. If the template is more than six months old, consider revising the template or reviving your career! Remember: your career isn’t static, so your status reports shouldn’t be static either!
- Review the template and ask yourself if all the expectations placed on you are properly captured. Imagine someone walking up to you and asking, “What do you do here?” Don’t stop there! This time, imagine you’re the manager or boss and ask yourself the question, “Why should you be given that promotion or raise?” If you can’t answer the expectations of you, it will be difficult at best to expect that next promotion or raise!
I hope this post has raised your awareness that status reports are anything but static!
