搭配 “to set expectations” 的意思是 “选择或决定将会发生的事情或行事方法，并与此事所涉及的人进行交流沟通”。上级或管理人士通常会为下属 “set expectations (制定目标)”。

例句
When I started my new course, the trainer set very clear expectations about the workload we would be facing.
在我开始上这门新课程的时候，培训老师对我们要完成的作业量给出了非常明确的预期。

Lilly doesn’t think her boss sets very clear expectations - she sometimes doesn’t know if she spends enough time on a task and then feels frustrated by his feedback.
莉莉觉得上司为她设定的预期值不太明确。有时她不清楚自己在一项任务上所花的时间够不够，之后，也会因为上司的反馈感到灰心丧气。

It would be good to have a meeting about the new project before we launch. That way we can set clear expectations for the whole team about how much time they can expect to spend on this.
在新项目开始前，最好能开个会。这样，关于这个项目该花多少时间，我们就能给整个团队设定明确的目标。