"Confidence" Definition:
A visual indicator on Teaming’s Goals and Key Results that lets the responsible team members communicate their "level of confidence" that the targets will be achieved on time, based on their more in-depth knowledge of the situation. Used to help guide the team's focus, conversations, and actions toward the goals that need the most attention.
Background
Teams and individuals that use goals and key measurements to create alignment and track progress understand that there's often important context that is not communicated by the quantitative measurements such as Progress and Pacing. To address this, Teaming provides an attribute called Confidence on both Goals and Key Results that is detached from any of the automated progress and pacing tracking.
What's the purpose of "Confidence"?
The functional purpose of the Confidence indicator is to allow those responsible for a Goal or Key Result to communicate their "level of confidence" appraisal on the likelihood that the targets will be achieved in the allotted timeframe. Yet, this is really just an enabler of the actual value for the team. The primary objective and real value of these Confidence assessments are to prompt the critical conversations and discussions that lead to productive actions necessary to achieve their goals.
Why "Confidence"?
Most goal tracking tools offer a "Status" indicator or something similar. These indicators typically support options like "On Track", "Progressing", and "Off Track". At Teaming, we believe that these don't tell the full story. We believe that goals rarely follow a smooth linear progression. Instead, it's most likely that the progress on a goal is made in periodic batches. This means that at times, a goal may be well behind its time-based pace (Off Track) but the people working on the goal know of upcoming outcomes that will soon push the progress ahead of the ideal pace. The opposite may be true as well. A goal could be ahead of pace (On Track) at the current moment but the team knows that there are future impediments that will make achieving the final goal targets unlikely. Teaming believes that supporting a "level of confidence", set by the people with the most in-depth knowledge and understanding provides a more accurate picture of the situation to help guide the team to take the right actions to achieve their objectives.
"Confidence" Best Practices:
Teams should establish a consistent and frequent practice of reviewing their Goals and Key Results.
Before a Goals and Key Results review, the responsible team members should make an honest and accurate assessment of their level of confidence for achieving the target within the timeframe provided.
When reviewing Goals and Key Results, the team should first focus attention on those that are of Medium or Low confidence.
Use the Confidence indicator to drive critical discussions focusing on what the team can do collectively to move Low or Medium levels of confidence to High.
Confidence should never be used as a critique of team members' performance or confidence in those team members.