Almost all management and leadership teams focus on their work by establishing goals. It is reasoned that decisions and actions in the organization must be directed towards the desired state described by the goals. Just like in all organizations, goals and the actions undertaken to achieve them do exist on several levels. It is important to examine the nature of the goals when defining and achieving them requires the participation of stakeholders with different types of expertise. In all organizations, decisions are made for several purposes, and goals are set at three levels to guide decision-making and improve performance.
Strategic Goals
At the broadest level, organizations have strategic goals which describe the purpose of the organization, and the conditions leaders expect to be true. They are usually captured in mission statements that are adopted by the leaders at the highest levels. In schools, the strategic goals are focused on graduating students who are “smart.” The specific language depends on the local priorities and preferences, but most will agree that the purpose of schools is to help young people learn. The challenge for educators and school leaders is defining what exactly represents “smart.” There are many types of knowledge, and some of the proxies commonly used to define it (like test scores) are notoriously unreliable and tend to focus on only one type of knowledge. In addition, closers inspection reveals cultural and other biases that are unrecognized.
School leaders regularly convene strategic planning meetings at which they define the strategic goals that will focus on their efforts. The goals defined in these meetings are typically intended to address problems that are identified by regulatory or legislative changes, local or regional political situations, data indicating academic weaknesses, emerging teaching practices, or the preferences or expertise of leaders. For many reasons, strategic goals are typically updated each year for schools even if the mission statements are not.
In the vocabulary of planning, organizations that achieve their strategic goal can be labeled “efficacious.” The chief information officer of a school can expect they will both frame their departmental goals in terms of strategic goals and to support other departments as they support the same goals.
Logistic Goals
Strategic goals are necessarily broad, and they are accomplished only through the cooperation of disparate departments. Especially in schools, strategic goals are also open to interpretation; what is seen as success in reaching the strategic goal may be seen as failure to others. While educators and support staff, including IT professionals, may keep the school’s strategic goals in mind as they go about their work, those goals are rarely sufficiently focused to guide daily tasks.
The daily work of IT professionals is defined by logistic goals which are the things they need to accomplish as they are designing, improving, configuring, and managing IT systems. While strategic goals are typically defined by the school leaders, with the input of other stakeholders, the logistic goals are typically established by departmental leaders. For school IT professionals, most logistic goals are defined in collaboration with educators or business office staff.
When defining logistic goals, the best planners ensure there is a clear connection between the strategic and logistic goals of the organization. When the goals are aligned in this way and the goals are being achieved, planners would label them “effective.”
Efficiency Goals
School IT departments are typically understaffed, so IT professionals working in schools will define goals and design systems to improve the efficiency of the department. These can include technology solutions (for example ticketing or messaging systems to speed up triage and repair and defining replacement plans to ensure devices are in good repair), training solutions (both those to help users be more independent and those to improve the skills of technicians), and procedural solutions (for example, assigning technicians to specific places or a regular schedule so that users can get support at known times).
Typically, the efficiency goals are defined by the members of the IT department, and they have the most control over their definition and the systems to improve their efficiency and productivity. Ideally, there is alignment and connection between the different types of goals in organizations. When IT professionals meet their efficiency goals, they will be more effective in meeting the logistic goals they have set with other stakeholders, so that the school can achieve strategic goals.