SMART goals: examples and anti-examples, checklist for setting

SMART criteria

A SMART goal should be:

• S - Specific - specific;
• M - Measurable - measurable;
• A - Achievable - achievable;
• R - Relevant - significant;
• T—Time bound—limited in time.

Let's look at each SMART criterion in more detail.

Specific: Specific goal

Specific : A SMART goal is specific and unambiguous and cannot be interpreted in different ways. The goal should focus and set the direction of the work. If the goal is not formulated specifically, the likelihood that when completing tasks everyone will run in different directions increases significantly. A SMART goal is equally understood and interpreted by company employees.

Things to remember:

• A SMART goal answers the question: “What to do?”: increase the average number of views for videos on the Youtube channel, increase traffic to the website, open 3 new offices.
• One SMART goal - one result. A company may have several priority areas of development, in which case there is one goal for each priority.

The company's priorities for the coming year are to enter the foreign market and increase brand awareness. The SMART goal for the first direction is to open 30 new points of sale in Turkey, for the second - to increase coverage on social networks to 100 per month through advertising integrations with bloggers.

Questions for setting a specific SMART goal:

• What result do you want to achieve with your chosen goal?
• Why will this particular goal help achieve the desired result?
• Does the chosen goal correspond to the company's strategy?

Download a universal template for tracking goals and objectives from the Carrot quest team
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Measurable: Measurable goal

Measurable : A SMART goal is measured in quantitative indicators, by which we determine how close the company is to the result. If the goal is not expressed in quantitative terms, it will be impossible to determine at what stage the entire process to achieve the result is. SMART goals have specific evaluation criteria.

The company's goal is to increase sales. If sales grow by 1%, will top management be happy with the result?

Things to remember:

A SMART goal is measured in quantitative terms - increase website traffic by 10%, open 2 new points of sale, increase the number of new users to 100,000 per day.

Questions to ask for setting a measurable SMART goal:

• How to understand that the goal has been achieved?
• What indicator do you need to work on to achieve your goal?

Achievable or Attainable: An achievable goal

Achievable or Attainable means that a SMART goal is realistic and achievable. Goals should open up new opportunities, and not become sky-high standards. When setting a goal, it is necessary to rely on the company’s past experience and resources: data on growth over the past months, the level of skills in the team, and the volume of future investments. If a goal is too ambitious and there are no resources to achieve it, it can demotivate the team and harm the business.

What to remember:

• A SMART goal is formulated based on the company’s capabilities: the experience and knowledge of employees, the volume of investments, and the market situation.
• Unattainable goals demotivate the team. Feeling that a goal is impossible dissuades employees from achieving it and makes them disengaged.
• The goal must be ambitious. Underestimated performance does not motivate the team to achieve results and will not take the company to a new level of development.
• It is better to achieve 80% of an ambitious goal than to exceed a mediocre one.

Questions for setting an achievable SMART goal:

• Is it possible to achieve this goal within the established time frame?
• What can prevent you from achieving results?
• Is the team's experience and knowledge sufficient to achieve the goal?

When formulating a SMART goal, it is necessary to maintain a balance between unrealistic expectations and not underestimate the result. The goal must be both ambitious and achievable.

Relevant: Meaningful goal

The goal according to the SMART framework must correspond to current trends in the market and the needs of the company. A meaningful goal brings us closer to achieving global strategic goals.

One of the directions of the company's strategy is to enter the foreign market. The goal of “opening 30 new sales points in Russia” does not fit into the company’s strategy.

What to remember:

• A meaningful SMART goal is consistent with the company's strategic goals and does not conflict with other goals.
• Achieving a significant goal should take the company to a new level of development.

Questions for setting a meaningful SMART goal:

• What benefits will the company receive after achieving the goal?
• Does the chosen goal correspond to the company's strategy?
• What happens if the goal is not achieved?

When you set meaningful goals, achieving them results in real benefits for the company.

Time bound: Time bound target

A SMART goal is time-limited. The optimal time to achieve the goal is three months, six months or a year. Longer deadlines can unfocus the team. If a goal is chosen for three years, there is a high probability that some employees will forget about it, another part will already leave the company, and the goal itself will lose relevance.

What to remember:

• Decompose long-term goals - if the deadline for achieving the goal is more than three months, determine intermediate stages. They help control progress towards results.
• Goals with deadlines of more than a year may be forgotten. The maximum acceptable period is one year.

Questions for setting a time-bound SMART goal:

• How long will it take to achieve the goal?
• What intermediate stages will the goal be divided into?

A goal with a specific end date helps determine the progress of teams and plan tasks for a set period.

M – Measurable. Scales for measuring targets

Second important point.

SMART goals must be measurable. They must contain quantitative or understandable qualitative indicators, characteristics that will ultimately indicate that the goal has been achieved.

What can be used to measure:

• money - rubles, euros, dollars, tugriks;
• shares, percentages, ratios;
• reviews or other external evaluation criteria;
• likes, number of subscribers, “viewed” for articles;
• frequency of actions – every second user clicks “order”;
• time – limited periods;
• fines – motivation “from the opposite” ;
• approval, agreement, approval - obtaining a positive opinion from a specialist or manager.

You can also find very strange options for measuring goals:

• “crosses” for embroiderers;
• schoolchildren's grades;
• competitions for teachers;
• number of dishes every day from the hostess;
• “Tomatoes” for a busy person.

Everything that can be measured and assessed must be measured and assessed.

SMART goals – examples:

• lose 10 kg
• publish 5 articles per day
• meet 1 person per day
• get a contract approved by a lawyer

All examples are “chopped off”, as they are intended to demonstrate only the “measurability” criterion. More precise guidelines for SMART goals are at the end of the article.

How SMART goals will help your business

In theory, any goals help you develop and reach a new level, but in practice this does not always happen. If the goal is abstract, unrealistic and open-ended, then it is unclear how to proceed and track progress. The SMART approach helps you focus on specific goals that bring you closer to achieving your strategic plans.

SMART Method:

• Focuses teams on specific tasks. A specific and realistic goal is easier to break down into tasks to achieve it.
• Allows us to evaluate how close we are to the goal. It is convenient for teams to track results when the goal is measurable.
• Simplifies team communication. All team members know what results the company is striving for, and no time is wasted on explanations.
• Increases chances of success. The SMART method simplifies the goal-setting process and the likelihood of setting the right goal increases significantly.

Recommendations

For the process to go smoothly, I recommend not limiting yourself and looking at the task more broadly. There is no need to try to look too far and set too long-term goals - remember that over time the company’s guidelines and circumstances change, this must be taken into account.

As I mentioned above, it is important not to forget about priorities . It is not for nothing that the relevance criterion (R) is mentioned in technology. The goals set must necessarily help the company achieve something significant, develop, advance in the market, and overtake competitors.

Once you've formulated a goal, write it down and keep it handy as a constant reminder. This will help you remember what is important, what you are focused on and what you want to achieve. If necessary, correct the course of development.

Examples and anti-examples of SMART goals

Using specific examples, we will analyze how to and how not to set SMART goals.

Additions to equipment

In some cases, several other letters may be added to the original abbreviation. Thus, the technology expands and becomes more universal. The most common options are:

1. SMARTER. Here, additional characteristics mean Evaluated, as well as Rewiewed or Readjust. The approach is more flexible and involves regular assessment, changing some parameters as necessary.
2. SMARTTA. And here features such as Trackable and Agreed are added. Almost the same thing is implied as in the previous version, namely, the need to constantly analyze the development of events and adjust the action plan.

What to look for when setting SMART goals

The future development of the company depends on the correct setting of goals - how quickly we will grow, enter new markets and beat our competitors. It is impossible to formulate ideal goals the first time; it is important to work on mistakes and set new goals taking into account the company’s previous experience.

The most common mistakes when setting SMART goals:

High expectations

The goal must correspond to the company's capabilities. Striving to improve performance is good, but this does not mean that you need to set impossible goals for your team. The problem of inflated expectations lies not in the formulation of the goal, but in how correctly the company evaluates its resources. If a brand has only three seamstresses, the goal of “increasing the company’s profit to 100 million rubles per year” is greatly overestimated.

Irrelevant goals

The goal must drive the company forward and be consistent with the company's strategy. If the company's main income comes from the release of monthly collections, it is in this direction that the main efforts should be invested.

Lack of flexibility

In the process of achieving a goal, a lot can change: unforeseen circumstances, competitors launched a new product, or a crisis occurred. It is important to analyze the situation in time and adapt to changing circumstances. A SMART goal is not a commandment; you can refuse it if necessary.

Lack of motivation

Specific people work to achieve goals, so it is important to take into account the human factor. For employees to achieve results, they need specific and achievable goals, as well as a favorable atmosphere within the company.

Read also: Top 5 mistakes that companies make when implementing OKRs

Download a template for tracking SMART goals from the Carrot quest team

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R - Relevant. Let's align the goal with reality!

An interesting point is goal agreement. With what or who does it need to be “coordinated”?

At all!

With reality...

With existing plans...

With wishes...

What could happen if you exclude this item from SMART planning? The absurdity and complete impracticability of the formulated tasks.

The goals do not fit together well: “get enough sleep,” “run at 5 am,” “spend time with my husband after he returns from work at 12 p.m.” Or: “reduction of 80% of staff” and “200% profitability compared to last year.”

If there are contradictions, then plans need to be reviewed and adjusted.

Checklist for setting SMART goals

We made a plan for setting SMART goals so that the goal-setting process does not turn into chaos:

• Do your research and find problem areas in the product . Analyze the market, study customer needs, evaluate the company's capabilities. Findings from research will help formulate relevant and relevant goals.

You have studied customer reviews on different sites and found that many are not happy with the services. It turned out that support staff take a long time to process requests, and some requests remain unresolved. Your competitors solved this problem by implementing a chatbot on their website.

• Determine what you will work on and what indicators to improve as part of your current strategy.

The company's goal is to increase customer satisfaction to 70% this year. You break the goal into several tasks: launch a chatbot, launch an operator assessment form, relieve the support team and hire new employees.

• Determine the resources needed to achieve the goal.

To launch a chatbot and assessment form, you need to assign responsible employees for these tasks and determine deadlines for completion. To hire new specialists, allocate additional funds.

• Calculate how long it will take to achieve your goal.

Determine how much time it will take to launch the chatbot, evaluation form, hire and train new employees.

• Track the results of completing assigned tasks.

Have task tracking meetings with your team once every one or two weeks. Track and analyze the results in a special table for tracking goal achievement. In the Carrot quest library you can download a universal template for tracking goals and objectives and other practical materials.

SMART technology allows you to formulate specific and achievable goals that are consistent with the company's mission and strategy. It helps improve business performance, simplifies communication within the team, and eliminates the possibility that the performer misunderstood the task. Use the SMART method to be more likely to achieve the desired results and develop your own projects.

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Story

The SMART technique began to be used in time management around the late 80s of the last century.
Like many other techniques, it was borrowed from business and enterprise management (that is, conventional management). SMART technology itself has a long history: its idea “matured” virtually throughout the 20th century.

The fact that the formulation of goals affects their achievement has been discussed for a long time. The research of the famous American psychologist Edwin Locke played a particularly important role in this issue. For example, in 1968, he published an article “Toward a Theory of Task Motivation and Incentives,” where he convincingly showed that work effectiveness largely depends on the correct setting of goals.

However, back in the first half of the 20th century, the concept of “management by objectives” began to gain popularity in business. Its development, for example, was carried out by such a prominent management theorist as Peter Drucker (sometimes he is mistakenly credited with being the author of the SMART system itself). At the same time, the importance of certain SMART criteria: specificity, measurability, and setting deadlines was increasingly mentioned in business literature.

All these ideas were summarized by the American business consultant George T. Doran. In 1981, in Management Review magazine, he published an article “There's a SMART way to write management's goals and objectives,” where he first proposed the use of the SMART acronym and described the main criteria for SMART goals. It is he who is officially considered the author of this method.

Note that, unlike the popular version today, Doran's letter A did not mean Attainable (attainable), but Assignable (assigned). That is, when setting a goal, one should immediately appoint someone who will be responsible for its implementation. This requirement remains relevant for enterprises and public administration.

In 1985, American management expert Kenneth Blanchard, along with two co-authors, published the book “Leadership and the One Minute Manager”. It mentioned the SMART methodology proposed by Doran, but in a slightly different interpretation.

Blanchard's book became a bestseller, which contributed to the widespread use of this technique.

FAQ

What is the SMART method? SMART is a method that allows you to formulate a specific and measurable goal at the goal-setting stage, determine the necessary resources and the time frame for its achievement.

What is a SMART goal? A SMART goal is a realistic, specific and measurable goal with a deadline that is consistent with the company's strategy.

What criteria should a SMART goal have? A SMART goal must meet 5 criteria:

S - Specific - specificity; M - Measurable - measurability; A - Achievable - achievability; R - Relevant - significance; T —Time bound—limited time.

A – Achievable. Is the dream achievable?

Suppose you, being an ordinary office worker or a housewife, set a goal: in six months, get approval from the commission for a flight to the Moon. Specifically? Measurable? That's right!

Achievable? Hardly…

SMART is not a magic pill that will transport you to a magic castle just for the correct formulation.

This is a system that focuses on the reality of existence. This means that when thinking about any plans, it is important to correlate the available resources and capabilities with the desired result.

There are as many options for assessing achievability as there are goals themselves and methods for measuring them. This:

• material and moral resources;
• time;
• skills;
• knowledge;
• financial opportunities;
• health…

Reachability

Specific numbers are good, but they must also be achievable. Let's imagine you have a small company producing handmade wooden tables. There are 10 good professionals on staff who produce 5 tables per week. And you want to sell 100 tables in a month. Is the goal specific? Yes. Measurable? Yes. But is it real? The sales department may be able to attract 100 customers, but the production department will never produce that many tables.

Of course, it is better to set an ambitious goal. She will motivate you to work. But if there are objectively insufficient resources, the goal needs to be adjusted. Unattainable goals do not motivate, but, on the contrary, discourage the desire to act. It is better to break an unattainable goal into several small ones.

examples

Now that you already know what SMART is by letter, let’s take a closer look at correctly structured goals according to the SMART principle and create an analysis for each letter.

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Example 1.

SMART formulation for a business coach: “Record two webinars on the topic “Setting goals using the SMART system” before March 31, 2022 to attract new clients.”

We check:

1. S (specificity) – an adequate goal for a business coach;
2. M (measurability) – two webinars every two weeks;
3. A (attainability) – the goal is achievable, there are achievements and an audience;
4. R (importance) – to attract new customers;
5. T (deadline) – this will be until the end of March.

Example 2.

SMART setting technique for department management: “Implement the Megaplan CRM system in the sales department by April 20, 2022 to automate processes and control.”

We check:

1. S (specific) – the CRM system is defined;
2. M (measurable) – employees enter clients and plans into CRM;
3. A (achievable) – training in February, data transfer in March, personnel certification in April;
4. R (relevant) – for automation, analytics and control;
5. T (time bound) – the deadline has been set.

Example 3.

SMART technology for the sales department: “In 6 months, increase the number of contracts concluded with new clients by 20% through the implementation of sales scripts.”

We check:

1. S (specificity) – work is carried out with the sales department;
2. M (measurability) – 20% of the total number of new clients;
3. A (attainability) – the scripts are ready, all that remains is to train the employees;
4. R (importance) – increasing the company’s profit;
5. T (term) – precisely established.

So interesting!

Example 4.

The global goal of an enterprise selling tea in the SMART format: “After 5 years, occupy 40% of the market share in Novosibirsk for the sale of tea.”

We check:

1. S (specific) – increase in market share to a specific figure;
2. M (measurable) – the current market share is known, the goal is known;
3. A (achievable) – there are resources, the company is developing, new branches are opening;
4. R (relevant) – implementation of the enterprise mission;
5. T (time bound) – period of five years.

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Example 5.

For a student, the format of the statement is as follows: “Buy an apartment no more than 3 million rubles. in the area of ​​their university by the end of the 4th year in order to move away from their parents.”

We check:

1. S (specificity) – buying an apartment for a young man;
2. M (measurability) – the purchase and sale agreement will confirm the achievement of the goal;
3. A (attainability) – in the 3rd year you can find a job to pay the mortgage;
4. R (importance) – for building a personal life;
5. T (term) – there is a specific deadline.