Facilitating workshops for goal-setting

Overview

Setting clear and realistic goals helps keep your team aligned, focused, and better equipped to prioritize their work. However, the process of defining meaningful goals is challenging and is most effective when done collaboratively, ensuring diverse perspectives are incorporated.

Result

Our Product Ops Assistant will help you plan and facilitate a goal-setting workshop for your team, ensuring that the goals are measurable, realistic, and aligned with the broader organizational objectives.

Share playbook

Process

Gather key organizational materials

Product Leader

Inform your Product Ops Assistant that you'd like to organize a goal-setting workshop for the team, specifying the type of goals you'd like to focus on (e.g., quarterly goals, long-term product goals) and the goal-setting framework you wish to use (e.g., OKRs, 4DX, SMART Goals). If your organization uses a specific framework for company-wide goals, it's best to apply the same framework for your team’s goal-setting efforts.

Gather relevant organizational materials, such as the company's vision, mission, purpose, and existing goals, to provide context for your team’s goal-setting. Share these materials with the Product Ops Assistant before your planning session.

Product Ops Assistant

Take time to research and fully understand the goal-setting framework that the Product Leader has chosen to ensure you’re well-prepared for the workshop.

Review the materials provided by the Product Leader, and also gather any additional product-specific documents that might be relevant for the workshop, such as the product vision, strategy, and roadmap.

Summarize these key organizational and product materials in a shared workspace, where you and the Product Leader can review the goal-setting framework and plan the workshop together.

For your reference, here are overviews of few popular goal-setting frameworks: Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), The 4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX), and SMART Goals. Lenny’s Newsletter provides a helpful breakdown of how strategy, vision, mission, goals and roadmap interact. Additionally, Miro offers excellent templates for goal-setting workshops, such as an OKR drafting board, OKR planning template, and an OKR board for product, UX, and engineering teams.

Plan the goal-setting workshop

Product Ops Assistant & Product Leader

Meet to review the materials prepared by the Product Ops Assistant. Plan the agenda for the goal-setting workshop, focusing on setting team goals that align with organizational objectives. Consider how this process can be iterated upon frequently to refine and improve the goals over time.

When planning, consider the following:

Who will attend: Ensure cross-functional participation (designers, product managers, developers, data analysts) but keep the group to a manageable size (3-10 people).
Meeting purpose: Clearly state the meeting’s purpose and ensure the outcome will be well-defined, agreed-upon goals for the team.
Background and context: Provide the necessary background on the goal-setting framework and review organizational goals.
Collaboration and input: Plan to encourage brainstorming and open discussion, but be prepared to navigate any disagreements that may arise.
Achievable goals: Ensure goals are ambitious but realistic, time-bound, and measurable. It’s important that the goals set are achievable given the team’s current workload, available resources, and other constraints.
Accountability: Assign ownership for each goal to a person or department, ensuring someone is responsible for tracking progress.

For tips on facilitating a successful OKR workshop, watch this video hosted by Johan Holst at AJ&Smart. Additionally, review Meeting Catalyst’s guide on managing conflict in meetings to help you handle challenging conversations effectively.

Send out pre-workshop information

Product Ops Assistant

Send out a meeting invite, including the agenda, background materials and access to the collaborative workspace. Ask participants to review the organizational artifacts and familiarize themselves with the goal-setting framework prior to the workshop.

Facilitate the workshop

Product Ops Assistant & Product Leader

It’s ideal for the Product Leader and Product Ops Assistant to co-facilitate the workshop. The Product Ops Assistant should act as the timekeeper, ensuring the agenda is followed and that the workshop progresses efficiently. Meanwhile, the Product Leader should take on the role of decision-maker, resolving any disputes and guiding the team toward setting clear goals. Striking the right balance between encouraging open discussion — so participants feel invested — and keeping the meeting focused and productive is key to success.

Gather feedback and iterate

Product Ops Assistant

At the end of the workshop, or shortly after, send a request for feedback. Collect suggestions for improving the workshop process to ensure the next goal-setting session is even more effective.

Share and track the goals

Product Ops Assistant

Once goals are finalized, share them broadly as outlined in our “Documenting and communicating team goals” playbook, and ensure the goals are being tracked according to our "Tracking progress against goals" playbook.