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17 Examples of Development Objectives

John Spacey, updated on August 05, 2023

Development objectives are actionable plans to improve in your career, profession and role. This goes beyond your performance objectives to plan meaningful steps that bring you closer to your career goals. A common way to do this is to simply repackage your performance objectives to show how they will help you improve as a professional. Alternatively, you can identify side projects, training and experiences that you are planning to bring you closer to career goals. The following are illustrative examples.

Management

Goal	Gain experience in managing a budget.
Objective	Plan, submit and control a budget for the ABC project by the end of Q1.
Measurements	On time completion of budget, compliance to budget process, budget variance

Project Management

Goal	Gain project management experience.
Objective	Manage a challenging project and deliver to schedule and budget.
Target date	end of Q2
Measurements	Schedule variance, budget variance, stakeholder feedback

Training

Goal	Improve architecture and design skills.
Objective	Complete architecture and design training.
Target date	end of Q2
Measurement	Successful completion of training

Professional Certification

Goal	Certify capabilities as a project manager
Objective	Complete project management training and obtain professional certification by Q4.
Measurement	Successful certification

Strategy

Goal	Develop strategic planning abilities
Objective	Develop and pitch a business case for a new product.
Target date	end of Q3
Measurements	Successful completion of business case, feedback, approval of budget

Leadership

Goal	Improve ability to influence and motivate teams and stakeholders.
Objective	Lead the development team for the ABC project to represent the team with stakeholders, clear issues and deliver to commitments.
Target date	End of year
Measurements	Feedback from stakeholders and team members, on time delivery of commitments

Time Management

Goal	Improve time management skills.
Objective	Experiment with a new format to cut weekly team meeting to 30 minutes from 90 minutes without losing any value. Measure results and improve.
Target date	start in Q1
Measurements	Time consumed by weekly meeting, participant feedback

Productivity

Goal	Improve work habits to increase my throughput.
Objective	Work from home one day a week where my environment is free from distraction to deliver at least 1000 lines of a code in a day.
Target date	start in Q1
Measurements	Throughput in lines of code.

Creativity

Goal	Develop creative abilities.
Objective	Work to improve my designs to significantly exceed client expectations.
Target date	start in Q1, ongoing
Measurements	Client feedback

Communication

Goal	Improve communication skills.
Objective	Take the lead to resolve production incidents by coordinating efforts across technology teams and business units.
Target date	end of Q4
Measurements	Mean time to repair

Public Speaking

Goal	Gain experience in public speaking.
Objective	Complete two presentations by the end of Q2.
Measurements	Successful completion of two presentations, participant feedback.

Technical Skills

Goal	Learn the ABC cloud platform API.
Objective	Complete training and write code that uses the ABC cloud platform API.
Target date	end of Q4
Measurements	Completion of training, check in code that uses the ABC API.

Customer Satisfaction

Goal	Improve customer service skills.
Objective	Carefully tailor service to each customer by listening to their problems and reading their emotions and needs.
Target date	end of Q2
Measurement	Customer feedback, customer satisfaction

Decision Making

Goal	Improve decision making skills by developing innovative ways to measure alternatives.
Objective	Develop risk scores for projects to incorporate the risk of failure in funding approvals.
Measurement	Successful development of risk scores for at least 70% of project proposals in the Q4 planning cycle.

Problem Solving

Goal	Improve troubleshooting skills by gaining experience in resolving incidents.
Objective	Participant in production support to resolve incidents.
Target date	end of Q4
Measurements	Number of incidents resolved, mean time to repair

Analysis

Goal	Improve analysis skills.
Objective	Produce a gap analysis to identify inefficiencies in the order fulfillment process.
Target date	end of Q3
Measurement	Reduce the turnaround time of the order fulfillment process by at least 10%.

Planning

Goal	Develop project planning skills.
Objective	Deliver a project charter for the ABC project by Q2.
Measurements	Completion of project charter, stakeholder sign off