How to Set Realistic Goals as a Product Manager

As a Product Manager (PM), setting realistic goals is one of the most critical aspects of your role. Goals define the direction for your team, shape the product roadmap, and influence stakeholders’ expectations. Setting unrealistic goals can lead to frustration, missed deadlines, and lost trust, while realistic goals help your team stay focused, motivated, and on track for success. Here’s how to set achievable and effective goals as a PM:

1. Understand the Bigger Picture

Before you dive into specific goals, take a step back and understand the broader business context. Align your product goals with the company’s vision, mission, and objectives. Ask yourself:

• What are the company’s long-term goals?

• How does this product contribute to those goals?

• What market or customer needs are you solving?

By ensuring your goals align with the company’s strategy, you can create a solid foundation for prioritising work that matters.

2. Incorporate SMART Criteria

A widely used framework for setting achievable goals is the SMART method. Ensure your goals are:

• Specific: Clearly define the goal with enough detail that anyone can understand the objective. Ambiguity leads to confusion and misalignment.

• Measurable: Establish how progress will be tracked. Whether it’s product adoption, revenue, or customer satisfaction, measurable goals help you stay focused and evaluate success.

• Achievable: Evaluate your resources, team capacity, and timeline to ensure the goal is realistic. Set goals that stretch your team but remain attainable.

• Relevant: Your goals should directly contribute to the success of the product and the company’s vision. If a goal isn’t relevant, it’s not worth pursuing.

• Time-bound: Define a clear deadline or time frame. Open-ended goals can lead to delays and lack of accountability.

Example: Instead of saying, “Improve the product’s user experience,” try something like, “Increase user satisfaction scores by 15% in the next quarter through improved onboarding and reducing bug reports.”

3. Collaborate with Cross-Functional Teams

From experience, I feel this is one of the most important steps. As a PM, you work with teams across engineering, design, marketing, and sales. Collaborating with these teams early helps set goals that are realistic from both a technical and resource standpoint. Engage in discussions to:

• Understand technical constraints and feasibility.

• Align on timelines that the development team can realistically meet.

• Consider market dynamics that may impact marketing and sales efforts.

Open communication with cross-functional teams helps prevent overcommitting or setting goals that don’t reflect real-world capabilities. Setting goals without considering the team’s capacity will often make the team look like a failure

4. Leverage Data and Customer Insights

Data-driven goals are not only realistic but also provide a strong foundation for decision-making. Use analytics and customer feedback to understand your product’s performance, user behaviour, and pain points.

5. Break Goals into Manageable Milestones

Big, ambitious goals are essential, but they can be overwhelming for the team. To avoid this, break large goals into smaller, manageable milestones. Each milestone serves as a checkpoint and keeps the team motivated by providing frequent opportunities for progress tracking and celebration.

6. Balance Short-Term Wins with Long-Term Vision

While it’s important to deliver quick wins to show progress, you also need to keep an eye on the long-term vision of your product. Setting only short-term goals can lead to feature bloat or a product that doesn’t evolve with market needs. Similarly, focusing too much on long-term goals can lead to missed opportunities for quick improvements or market responsiveness. Balance your goals by:

• Setting tactical goals (short-term) that drive immediate value.

• Keeping strategic goals (long-term) aligned with the broader product vision.

This balance ensures that your team delivers value consistently while moving toward the larger vision.

7. Account for Risks and Uncertainties

This is one step that most PMs fail to consider while setting goals. Every product roadmap has risks and uncertainties — whether it’s technical challenges, market shifts, or unexpected resource constraints. Acknowledging these factors early on allows you to set realistic goals while building contingencies. Include buffer time for unexpected delays and always have a plan B in case things don’t go as expected.

8. Regularly Review and Adjust Goals

The product landscape is constantly evolving, and so should your goals. Regularly review progress against your goals and be willing to adjust them if necessary. Market conditions, customer feedback, or new company priorities can all impact the relevance of a goal. Schedule periodic check-ins with your team and stakeholders to:

• Assess whether goals are still realistic given current circumstances.

• Reprioritize work based on new developments.

• Celebrate progress and course-correct when needed.

Thank you for reading till the end. I’m Oluwatobi, a Product Manager and Designer. I’m dedicating myself to sharing what I’ve learned so far on this product management journey, hoping to help future and fellow product managers along the way. If you also have any PM tips for me, feel free to leave a comment below!

In the meantime, follow me on LinkedIn and Medium to stay tuned for upcoming articles. Chat with you soon!

Image credit: Freepik