My goal for this blog in the coming time is to create a system for expectation management that can be used in a real life business. For that, I’ll need your help.
Before we can begin, we need to formalize some of the concepts within expectation management. Let’s start with a good one: Expectation.
What is it?
Let’s start with some different types of expectations that I believe exist – in theory, anyway. Let’s worry about their usefulness at a later time.
1. Specific and aware
Karen expects a bonus of $5,000 at the end of the year. This is a very simple and well de
fined expectation. She expects a certain amount of money and she is consciously aware of what amount she is expecting.
2. Abstract, but aware
Karen expects a ‘large’ bonus at some point during the year. She is consciously aware of this expectation, but she hasn’t set a certain figure in her mind yet. Perhaps because no figure has been mentioned to her. However, that doesn’t mean she will be happy with any figure – she has her very own indefinable definition of what a ‘large’ bonus is, but no one, including herself, knows what it is yet. However, when she receives the bonus, she will immediately evaluate whether it was satisfactory and she will know if her expectation was met.
3. Abstract and unaware
Karen expects a ‘large’ bonus but she is not consciously aware of it. It is possible to expect something without being aware of it – it is of course irrelevant to discuss if Karen never becomes aware of her own expectation, but if she does, it will be relevant to have already addressed that expectation.
4. Specific and unaware
Karen expects $5,000 but she is not aware that she expects that amount. If you ask her what she expects, she will say that she doesn’t expect anything, but in reality, she is expecting exactly $5,000. Although this scenario must logically be much more rare than the other 3, let’s not rule it out just yet.
Your turn
What types of expectations can you think of? Can they be based on other parameters than Specific/Abstract and Aware/Unaware?
We need to keep the result abstract, but feel very free to mention examples, real or made up, that you believe does not fit in the above categorizations.
You can categorize them based on them being internal/external and stated/perceived?
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/rational/library/may05/vaidya/index.html
That’s very good. If not as part of the definition itself, it could certainly be used in terms of describing an expectation.
[...] manage expectations? I have mentioned ‘expectation management’ many times. We have just defined expectation, but we still need to define ‘management’ before we can really get [...]