Writing Objectives: Where Are You Going?

Objective writing. It’s probably one of the least favorite parts of a trainer’s job. Why? “Because it’s hard,” said Becky Pluth, CEO of The Bob Pike Group, speaking at the annual Creative Training Techniques conference in September. Objective writing is one of the most important, and most often ignored parts of a trainer’s job, she said.  After all, how are you going to reach a goal without knowing how you plan to get there? 

Objective writing is important, but unfortunately, many trainers aren’t doing it right. The first and most common mistake trainers make is writing goals instead of objectives. According to Pluth, “An objective is measurable, action orientated, written for the learner and behavior based while a goal is the broad spectrum or the big picture of the desired behavior.”

Setting goals helps us to improve, but they’re particularly flawed in their vagueness and aren’t very useful without objectives to measure them. For example, let’s say Tim has a goal of living a healthy lifestyle. In a month and a half, he loses 10 pounds, bringing him down to a 184 pounds, the healthy weight that has been prescribed by his physician. Did he achieve his goal? It’s hard to tell, because a lot more goes into living a healthy lifestyle than just losing a few pounds. Presumably exercise, diet, relaxation time and social interaction would also be involved.

To reach his goal of living a healthy lifestyle, Tim needs numerous objectives to get him there. One of his objectives could be getting down to his doctor-prescribed weight of 184 pounds in 2 months. This objective would work well because Tim has a specific achievement to reach that is constrained to an exact amount of time, making it easy to measure. All objectives should be measurable!

Let’s take a look at a few training goals and objectives to further explore what makes an objective an objective and a goal a goal.

1. Becoming familiar with computer based training works better as a goal, because it isn’t easy to measure. However, if it was written as “Apply computer based training in the company’s simulator,” it would then be measureable.
2. This is an objective because it’s easy for you to tell if someone circled a problem statement in a paragraph.
3. How does one exhibit a dedication to one’s occupation? It’s hard to say. This is why this doesn’t work very well as an objective. It better describes the big picture of the behavior that is to change, making it necessary to have objectives to help you decipher whether or not the goal has been met. Now, if the sentence was written as, “Exhibit a dedication to one’s occupation by following the assigned dress codes for employees,” it would be something that you could easily measure.

There’s a lot that goes into making a strong objective, but the most important thing is to ensure that you’re aiming towards writing an objective, rather than a goal. To learn more about the specific components that go into objective making, check out our instructional design course, which will help you create the objectives you need to succeed.

By Jordan Meyers