Setting Meaningful Targets

Setting targets is a fundamental practice that helps each department align with the overall strategic goals of the organization, maintain motivation to improve results, and become aware when strategies aren’t helping you make progress. Yet, the target-setting process can often be skipped, rushed or default to arbitrary methodologies. 

There are many different approaches to target-setting, as well as key terminology and expressions of targets that will help you set meaningful, logical and ambitious targets that inspire progress and results. 

We took considerable inspiration from USAID’s Performance Monitoring & Evaluation primer to write this article. 

Key Definitions

Baseline: A baseline is the value of a performance indicator (i.e. metric) before projects or activities are implemented. If baseline data exist prior to the start of a project or activity, additional data collected over the life of the project must be collected in a consistent manner in order to facilitate comparisons. 

Target: A target is the specific, desired result you want to achieve within an explicit timeframe. Targets are essentially flags for managers; if the targets are wildly exceeded or well below expectations, the program manager should ask, “Why?”. 

Qualitative vs. Quantitative Targets: Targets for quantitative indicators are numerical, whereas targets for qualitative indicators are descriptive. To make them more comparable, it’s sometimes possible to convert qualitative data into a quantitative measure. For example, agreed-upon standards that are rated and scored. Other examples include scales, indexes, and scorecards.

Ways to Express Targets

Targets can be expressed in different ways:

• Absolute level of achievement, for example, 75% of all trainees obtained jobs by the end of the program or 7,000 people were employed by the end of the program.  
• Change in level of achievement, for example, math test scores for students in grade nine increased by 10% in Year One, or math test scores for students in grade nine increased by three points in Year One.
• Change in relation to the scale of the problem, for example, the proportion of households with access to reliable potable water increased by 50% by 2023.
• Creation or provision of something new, for example, a new regulation or policy.
• Quality—Other targets may be concerned with the quality of expected results, for example, customer satisfaction, based on a scale.

Context is King: A Note on Thresholds and Allocations in Sustainability  

Look at any sustainability report and you’ll notice that sustainability targets are usually expressed in absolute terms with no mention of context. For example, H&M’s latest sustainability report reads “In absolute terms, we have reduced our freshwater consumption by 14% compared to 2022”. This sounds positive but this metric doesn’t mention ecological thresholds so it doesn’t tell readers whether H&M is using water in a way that doesn’t deprive others of access to water. For that, we would need to know the carrying capacity for H&M’s various water resources. Is H&M taking more than its fair share of water from water-stressed areas for example? Without knowing that we cannot evaluate whether H&M is sustainable. 

This is an example of applying context—considering planetary boundaries and social norms—to evaluate corporate sustainability performance. The planet has ecological thresholds and negative tipping points, so companies must start factoring in what the world needs, rather than setting targets and reporting on year-to-year trends divorced from that context. The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and R3.0 have released a set of metrics that companies can use to link their sustainability performance with ecological and social thresholds. 

How to Set Targets 

To set appropriate targets, organizations need to strike the balance between being realistic but also ambitious enough to ensure that staff and stakeholders will stretch to meet them. When done well, they provide staff, partners, and stakeholders with benchmarks to document progress toward achieving results. 

Key Considerations:

• Be SMART: SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. It’s a sound watchword to guide you in setting meaningful and useful targets for your organization.
• Resources: Targets need to consider organizational resources, the implementation period, and the desired outcomes of the program or initiative. 
• Historical Trends: It’s critical to understand the underlying historical trends associated with your target. Consider the patterns that have occurred in the past five to ten years.
• Expert Judgments: Ask experts for their opinions on what is possible or feasible. Research and evaluation findings can also help you choose realistic targets.  
• Stakeholder Expectations: While targets should be based on objective evidence, it’s also important to ask stakeholders what they want, need, and expect you to achieve. This helps you to measure what matters to your audiences. You can gather this through formal interviews, focus groups, or informal conversations.
• Achievement of Similar Programs: Benchmarking means comparing how similar interventions and programs have made progress over time. You can look to other departments within your organization, your partners, or even competitors to understand the rate of change that can be expected.

Be sure to document how and why targets were selected. This will help you determine what targets to set in the future, and respond to any questions about the targets and how they were set.  

Approaches for Target Setting

There is no single best approach to use when setting targets; the process is an art and a science. Although much depends on available information, the experience and knowledge of your team members will add to the thinking behind the performance target. Here are some possible approaches:

• Projecting a Trend and Adding Your Projected Value: This involves estimating what would happen without your intervention, and then adding gains that you can expect from your intervention. Looking at historical data can help you predict the trend line.
• Start with the End in Mind: This approach involves deciding on the program’s performance target for the final year of the planning period, and then defining a path of progress for the years in between.
• Predict Annual Changes to Determine Future Targets: Alternatively, you can consider what might be possible to achieve each year ahead, instead of working backwards from the end point. In both cases, what can be reasonably achieved within the planning period, and in the interim, based on the intervention’s stage of implementation, resources and other constraints.

Need help creating targets for your sustainability and social impact strategies that align with what the world needs? We’re here to help. Contact us to start a conversation.