SMART Goals

What SMART goals are

SMART goals (الأهداف الذكية), also called SMART objectives, are a framework for wording a goal. The framework requires a goal to have five qualities, and the five letters of the name abbreviate them: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound. Each letter is the initial of one of the five qualities in English.

The framework is concerned with how a goal is worded. Each letter names one condition that the goal must meet as it is written down, and the five are required together. A goal that lacks any one of them does not meet the framework, even if it meets the other four.

The five qualities of a SMART goal

• Specific. It describes what will change, not a general intention. “Improving the service” is not a goal. The wording expresses a wish that the service should become better, but it does not say what about the service is to change, so it names no change that anyone could later point to. The condition asks for the change itself to be named.
• Measurable. It has a starting figure and a target figure. Without the starting figure, the size of the change cannot be known. The target figure says where the goal is meant to end and the starting figure says where it begins, and the change is the distance between them. A goal that states only the target leaves that distance open. The measure behind the two figures can be one of the key performance indicators an organisation tracks.
• Achievable. It lies within what the available resources and time allow. The condition ties the goal to two limits as they stand when the goal is set: the resources at hand and the time at hand. A goal that requires more than either does not meet it.
• Relevant. It serves an existing priority of the organisation, not an isolated personal priority. Two words carry the condition, “existing” and “isolated”. The priority is an existing one, held by the organisation already rather than created for the goal, and what the condition sets aside is a personal priority that stands in isolation from the organisation’s priorities.
• Time bound. It has a deadline. Otherwise it is an intention that has been put off. Without a date there is no point at which the goal falls due, and what was written as a goal stays an intention whose time keeps moving later.

Where the SMART goals framework fails

The flaw that the measurability condition opens is that it pushes towards what is easy to count rather than what actually matters. The goal can then become “complete ten training courses” instead of “close the gap in a particular skill”, because the first is easily counted and the second needs judgement. The pull comes from the condition itself: a goal has to be measurable, and what can be counted is the easiest thing to measure.

The two wordings differ in what they ask of whoever checks them. Whether ten courses were completed is settled by counting them. Whether the gap in a particular skill has closed is not settled by counting; someone has to judge it, setting what the person can do now against the gap that was there before. The skill in question is one of the elements that competencies combine with knowledge and behaviour.

The result is a goal that is SMART in form and empty in effect. Its wording satisfies the five conditions, but the goal has no effect on the matter it was written for.

A second problem lies in the achievable condition. When reaching the goal carries a reward, the person who sets the goal has an interest in choosing a target they are sure of reaching, and the ceiling of ambition can come down quietly.

The word “quietly” describes how the lowering happens. No goal is written that breaks a condition, and each target can still be described as achievable, so the lowering does not show in the wording of any single goal.

What addresses the weaknesses of SMART goals

The practices below respond to the two problems set out above, the pull towards what is easy to count and the quiet lowering of ambition.

• Link every quantitative goal to a qualitative constraint. It applies to a goal stated as a figure, and it sets beside that figure a condition stated in terms of the quality of the work rather than in numbers. The purpose of the condition is to prevent the figure from being improved at the expense of the work.
• Separate development goals from performance goals. It keeps apart two kinds of goal that are held to different expectations, because not all development goals are expected to be reached.
• Review the goal in the middle of the period, not at its end. It is at the midpoint that correction is still possible. By the end of the period, the time in which the goal could have been corrected has already passed.

How SMART goals differ from objectives and key results

Objectives and key results (الأهداف والنتائج الرئيسة), known as OKRs, are a framework that links a qualitative objective to a limited number of numerical results. The framework is built on ambition that is not expected to be achieved in full: the results are set at a level that the organisation does not expect to reach completely.

SMART goals are a framework for wording, and they suit any single goal, including a key result itself. The two frameworks work at different levels. OKRs set out how goals are arranged: one qualitative objective, with a limited number of numerical results attached to it. SMART goals set out how one goal is phrased, and they say nothing about how goals are grouped.

So the two are not alternatives to each other. A key result can be worded as a SMART goal: specific about what will change, with a starting figure and a target figure, within the resources and time available, serving an existing priority of the organisation, and with a deadline. The same applies to any other single goal, such as the objectives set for each stage of a 30 60 90 Day Plan.

This is an explanation of the concept, not legal advice.

Related terms

• Performance Standards
• Performance Calibration
• Peer Appraisal
• Subordinate Appraisal
• Competencies