Most of your internships will focus on one or more projects. You need to be clear about the goal for your project. It’s your responsibility to write the goal statement. Then you need to review it with your boss to make sure you are on track.

The project goal should address the desired outcomes. It should also address the practical aspects of implementation of the project. For example, a project dealing with delays in getting work done can often be resolved by adding additional staff. But how cost effective is this?

Typically the goal should describe the desired outcome and implementation concerns such as:

Time – How long will the recommendation take to implement?

Cost – How much will it cost to implement the recommendations? Can the cost be recaptured with savings?

Acceptability to Stakeholders – Will the recommendation be accepted by others who have a stake in the situation you are looking at?

Below you will see a goal statement for the User Fee project for the City of Morgantown, West Virginia.

Goal Statement Example

The goal of this project is to develop a user fee system to support additional services needed in downtown Morgantown. The user fee system should meet the following criteria:

1. Fees should be easy to collect and represent the level of service being provided.
2. The system should be one that will stand up to a legal challenge.
3. The user fee system should be one that is generally accepted as fair by the businesses affected.
4. The system should be one that can be implemented by Fall 2015.