It takes more than 14 different instruments to play Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Performing this complex piece of music requires a lot of behind-the-scenes teamwork. Groups of musicians start working together long before the conductor assembles the entire orchestra. If even one of the instrument sections doesn’t prepare and ultimately play their part, the entire performance will suffer.
Like an orchestra, a business is the sum of its parts. Businesses thrive when each employee, team, and department completes their work to the best of their abilities. Just as musicians all work toward the same performance, teams work toward the same overall business goals. While smaller goals and key performance indicators may differ across teams, in general, team goals create structure, alignment, and a shared vision. Explore why team goals matter and learn how to set them.
What are team goals?
Team goals are a set of clear, defined objectives applied to a specific group within a company. Strong goals provide structure and motivation—they tell employees what they need to accomplish and provide clear benchmarks for success. Strong goals also encourage accountability by making a clear statement about team performance and expectations. Team leaders typically set goals after reviewing company objectives and collecting input from team members.
Companies need high-functioning teams to achieve success. Many common, high-level organizational goals—such as increasing sales revenue or improving customer satisfaction ratings—require work from multiple departments. Improving customer satisfaction ratings, for example, might involve customer service, marketing, and product teams. Setting team-specific goals helps ensure that every part of the organization is aligned and working toward the same larger targets.
Types of team goals
- Performance goals
- Collaborative goals
- Project-specific goals
Team goals can serve a variety of purposes, from establishing performance benchmarks to improving processes. Here’s how different types of team goals can help your employees achieve success:
Performance goals
Performance goals are measurable objectives tied to team or company initiatives. These typically have a quantitative component, so establishing a clear target makes it easier for team members to track progress against performance goals.
For example, an ecommerce marketing team could set a performance-based goal to increase email subscribers by 5% by the end of Q1. Team members can track progress by periodically checking subscriber growth during the quarter. If a mid-February check-in shows 1% growth up to that point, the team might decide to try a new approach or adjust the goal.
Collaborative goals
Collaboration goals are process-based goals designed to improve communication and teamwork. These goals help you establish efficient workflows that make it easier for team members to reach their other targets.
An ecommerce engineering team, for example, could set a goal to develop a clear reporting process that provides regular updates on project statuses. Sharing this information might help team leaders spot projects that are falling behind so they can step in to remove roadblocks or provide additional resources, which in turn will help the whole team stay on track. Collaborating on this goal allows multiple viewpoints to fully capture all necessary elements for a functional reporting process while sharing the actual workload of building out the process.
Project-specific goals
Project-specific goals are tied to initiatives. They’re designed to keep projects on track and can be either collaborative or performance-based. While overarching team goals are often developed at the beginning of the year or quarter, project-specific goal-setting may occur on a rolling basis as initiatives launch.
A performance-based project-specific goal could be: “Drive 1,000 visitors to a specific landing page.” A collaborative project-specific goal, on the other hand, could look like: “Partner with engineering to curate products and develop shoppable landing pages.”
How to set team goals
- Align with company goals
- Identify objectives
- Work with your team
- Use SMART team goals
- Share goals
- Monitor progress
- Make adjustments
1. Align with company goals
Start by reviewing your business goals and considering the role your team can play in reaching them. Organizational objectives are often very broad; an example might sound like “increase average order value by 5% by the end of Q2.” An overarching target like this can serve as a guiding light for incremental team goals.
2. Identify objectives
Businesses often work with OKRs—objectives and key results—to structure team targets that build up to larger company goals. OKRs are a two-part tool. The first portion—the objective—clarifies what your team will do. The second half—key results—addresses how you will approach and measure the objective.
Here are two examples of OKR structure:
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Team objective 1: Increase brand awareness.
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Key results 1: Increase social media engagement by 5%.
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Team objective 2: Improve customer loyalty.
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Key results 2: Increase repeat purchasing behavior by 10%.
OKRs lay the groundwork for strong goal creation. Once they are established, team leaders can develop specific, relevant goals to support a business’s primary objectives.
3. Work with your team
Goals will have a direct impact on your team members; they determine what your employees spend their time on. Team participation can help generate ideas and drive employee buy-in. Consider hosting a brainstorming session to get your team involved in the goal-setting process. Start by sharing OKRs and requesting feedback. Ask employees to reflect on how your team can contribute to broader company goals.
Remember that certain goals may not apply to your team—a goal of increasing employee job satisfaction, for example, might not require work from the product development team.
4. Use SMART team goals
Setting achievable, measurable goals is crucial for team success. Overly ambiguous or vague goals can harm morale; if employees feel that their goals are unreachable, they may become disengaged. The SMART framework can help you create high-quality goals. SMART is an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Each one of your goals should satisfy all of these criteria.
5. Share goals
Once you’ve developed a strong set of goals, share them with your team. Communicate expectations and make space for feedback. Confirm that each team member understands the team goals and how they connect to their personal goals. Ask your team what they need to achieve these goals. Creating shared resources to help team members keep track of progress and deadlines can help keep team goals top of mind.
6. Monitor progress
Keeping track of your progress can help your team accomplish its goals. Teams typically have multiple objectives—they may have several types of goals with different KPIs and deadlines. It can be easy to lose track of deadlines without regular check-ins, especially when it comes to long-term goals.
You might use a project management tool to track goals or dedicate a portion of team meetings to progress updates to keep everyone on track. Take time to celebrate achievements and show appreciation for your team as they make progress on your goals.
7. Make adjustments
Team goals aren’t set in stone. You may need to tweak your goals in response to current events, shifting corporate priorities, or team turnover. Leaders may also make adjustments if it’s clear that initial goals were unrealistic or if the team exceeds a target far before the deadline.
Team goals FAQ
What are team goals?
Team goals are a set of defined objectives or targets for a specific set of employees. Team goals are more focused than broad business objectives. While company goals define expectations and corporate direction, team goals describe the work that a certain team will do to help the company achieve success.
What are SMART goals?
SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Using the SMART goals structure helps leaders develop reasonable, effective team goals that can be evaluated objectively.
What’s an example of a team goal?
Team goals can be performance-based or process-based. A performance-based team goal could be “Increase page load time by three seconds by the end of Q1” or “Increase March sales revenue by 3% month over month.” A process-based or collaborative goal might look like, “Reduce project turnaround time by 5% by next quarter” or “Hold regular team-building activities to support employee satisfaction.”