Developing Goals and Objectives
Introduction
As defined by Ohio EPA's A Guide to Developing Local Watershed Action Plans in Ohio, a goal is "the desired change or environmental outcome you wish to achieve and is driven by your problem statement" (p. 37). Goals can range from general to specific and short-term to long term. Goal statements should be clear, concise, measurable, motivational, and compatible with your group's mission. Whenever possible, goals should be developed with input from relevant stakeholders so that they reflect the shared values of the community.
Objectives are specific solutions that will lead to your goals. One way of distinguishing objectives from goals is to ask yourself, is this an end or a means to an end? Goals are typically an end and objectives a means to those ends. For example, "enhance aquatic habitat" is a goal (end); an objective or means to reach this goal might include "restore riparian habitat."
For any given problem, stakeholders will likely have several goals in addition to water quality goals. For example, they may wish to minimize costs or increase community understanding about a problem in addition to improving water or the surrounding environment. We believe you can improve your objectives by having they meet multiple goals. This approach stems from decision theory and the techniques presented in this module are geared to help you focusing in on just one goal at the expense of others (e.g., cost) that might also be important.
In this module, you will develop goals and objectives to address identified problems. In addition, you will evaluate your objectives based on how effective they are likely to be in helping you reach your goals by using decision criteria (also known as performance measures).
Decision criteria can help you to describe the expected impact of management options on your plan objectives, focus the planning process on things that matter to stakeholders, compare management options, and potentially monitor progress over time. For the example objective stated above "restore riparian habitat" a possible decision criteria could be "the length of stream course in miles with adequate habitat to support aquatic life." According to Ohlsen (n.d.) the primary considerations for decision criteria include the following:
1. Practical--Are data sources available for developing the criteria?
2. Predictable--Are the criteria able to predict the expected impact of management options?
3. Relevance--Are the criteria sensitive for the types of management options under consideration?
4. Scalability--Are the decision criteria scalable to multiple levels of planning?
Ideally, the assignments in this module will be completed with your watershed group. If this is not possible, it is still beneficial to work through the exercises on your own. Note these techniques for identfying goals and objectives and improving them should be helpful no matter what the enviornmental management situation.
Learning Objectives
After completion of the module the learner should be able to:
- Develop goals, objectives, and decision criteria that will address known problems.
- Critically evaluate and refine objectives.
Background Readings
Required:
- Ohio EPA. (1997). A Guide to Developing Local Watershed Action Plans in Ohio. Chapter 4 Setting Goals and Developing Solutions (Pp. 36-49).
http://www.epa.state.oh.us/dsw/nps/wsguide.pdf (PDF format) - US EPA. (2005) Set Goals and Identify Load Reductions. In EPA Handbook for Developing Watershed Plans to Restore and Protect Our Waters. (Pp. 9-1 thru 9-14)
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Gregory, R., & Keeney, R.L. (2000). Making Smarter Environmental Management Decisions. Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 38 (6), 1601-1611. [Academy students receive a copy of this article].
- Baird, A. & Bonnell, J. (2004). Multi-stakeholder Watershed Planning: Getting to Decisions that Make a Difference. Poster presented at the 4th Natural Resources Extension Professionals Conference. View on-line at http://ohiowatersheds.osu.edu/conferences/presentations.html.
Additional Resources: