Creating SMART Objectives

Introduction

In the “Building Blocks” articles (Part 1, Part 2), I said that clearly defining your objectives was a fundamental skill for all managers.  Developing a set of clearly defined objectives for yourself, your team and each individual team member is one way to ensure that you are all working on the most important tasks that produce the results expected by your organization.  The SMART method for defining objectives is a simple way to write objectives that are consistent, clear and actionable. SMART objectives also provide information you need to address several other Building Block areas.

Background – What are Objectives?

Objectives are statements that define the results expected by the organization.  They are the starting point for action by managers.  In the Building Block article I noted that as a manager you will likely work with objectives on three levels:

• High-level company objectives, often referred to as “strategic objectives”.  These are the overall objectives of your company and will usually reflect goals to be achieved over several years.  You may not have input into the creation of these objectives.
• Unit or department objectives.  These are the objectives for the organization that you manage.  They should be aligned with the company objectives and should define the results your organization will deliver in support of them.
• Team or individual objectives.  These are the objectives for the people in your organization.  Again, they should align with your department objectives.

The SMART method works well for objectives at any level. 

Overview of the SMART method

The SMART method was first defined by George T. Doran in 1981. Doran proposed that objective statements should have the following attributes:

• Specific – It should state the result that is expected.
• Measurable – It should define how progress and success will be measured.
• Assignable – It should say who will perform the work. 
• Realistic – It should answer the question “Can this objective realistically be achieved, given available resources?” 
• Time-Related – States when the results should be achieved.

Over time, Doran’s original definition has been modified, with different attributes assigned to the mnemonic.  For example, Assignable is often replaced with Achievable – is the objective feasible?  Realistic is sometimes replaced with Relevant – does the objective conform with the overall strategic direction?  Time-Related is sometimes replaced with Time-Bound, which is what I originally learned. 

For the purposes of this article, I will use Doran’s original definitions..

Examples of SMART Objectives

Let’s look at an example to see how SMART objectives are constructed.  

Consider this scenario:  You are the newly appointed manager of Customer Support for a manufacturing company.  The CEO has recently established a goal of improving customer satisfaction by the end of the year.  Multiple groups have been given assignments. Manufacturing teams are addressing product quality issues.  The Service department is reviewing tactics for interactions with customers who need repairs.

You have been asked to improve the efficiency of the Customer Support team, the group that answers customer questions.  Numerous customers have complained about the speed with which the team provides answers to questions about the products they have purchased. The direction you were given was “figure out how to speed things up”. (Not a SMART objective statement, but a typical directive.)  You want to provide an overarching direction that gives your team the direction they need and the parameters they must work within.  

You could approach your team and tell them they need to work faster, but you know that’s not sufficient to get the desired results.  A major part of their work is providing accurate and detailed answers to customer questions. These take an average of 72 hours to prepare. You don’t want the quality of the answers to suffer in order to achieve speed. 

During a brainstorming session with your team leaders, the group identifies several possible actions that they believe can reduce delivery time by 50% with no impact to quality. They recommend stopping several low-priority projects to allow more time for the new initiative.

Here’s how a SMART objective could be constructed to create a departmental objective.

Attribute	Input
Measurable: What will change and what will stay the same?	You believe that response time can be cut in half, from 72 hours to 36 hours.  You want to maintain the current high level of quality.
Assignable:  Who will do the work?	The Customer Support Team.
Achievable:  Is the objective feasible?	Yes. The team leaders have agreed that it is.
Realistic: Can the results be achieved with the available resources?	Yes. The team leaders identified several changes, like stopping lower priority work, that will enable them to make the necessary changes.
Time-Related: When can the results be achieved?	The company goal is to improve by the end of the year.  You determine that your improvements need to be in place by the end of Q3 so that results can be measured in Q4.

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With those answers to the questions, you create a department level objective as follows:

The Customer Support Team will reduce response time to customer questions from 72 hours to 36 hours by the end of Q3-2020, while maintaining current levels of accuracy.

Note that the SMART objective statement doesn’t say how the results will be achieved.  Answering the question “How will we get it done?” is part of your planning process, which we will cover in a future article about Building Block #4 – Developing a plan to achieve the objectives. 

Other details of “how” will be included in the team or individual objectives that your organization creates.  In our example scenario, we could imagine that you have a small team devoted to creating technical documentation and user manuals for the company’s products.  If a part of the plan is to provide customers with self-service access to documents, that team might develop an objective like this:

The Technical Documentation Team will collaborate with the IT Department to launch a customer-facing web site that will provide self-service access to product manuals and other technical documents by the end of June, 2020.

Individuals in that team might develop objectives like this:

I will identify frequently asked customer questions and revise past answers into FAQ documents for publication on the new web site.  I will complete 3 FAQ documents per week beginning April 15, 2020 and continuing through the end of June, 2020.

Now you have a departmental objective that addresses the overall corporate goal. You also have team and individual objectives that are linked together and aligned with the departmental objective.

Your organization is set up for success!

The Benefits of SMART Objectives

The SMART method provides a consistent, simple way to define clear objectives.  It also can deliver other benefits to you and your organization. These include:

• Providing clarity for aspirational visions.  In the example above, the company CEO had stated a high-level goal for the company – to improve customer satisfaction by the end of the year.  Aspirational statements are useful for defining the strategic direction, but more specific details are always needed to translate the vision into action.  By re-framing the vision as a SMART objective, the CEO could clarify the intent and focus the activities of the company.
• Aligning efforts across the company, divisions and departments.  By defining SMART objectives that link to the next level in the organization and to peer organizations, you can create a strong alignment of effort – getting everyone to pull together towards a common objective.
• Identifying interdependencies.  Defining who will do the work – the Assignable parameter – will aid you in identifying dependencies with other organizations or departments.  In the example above, the Technical Documentation team has an objective that requires collaboration with the IT Department. A later step in the planning process would be to validate that the IT Department has the capacity to deliver what is required of them to help you meet your objective.

SMART objectives also provide information you need to address other Building Block areas:

• Organizing and allocating available resources.  A SMART objective provides information you need to make decisions about how to allocate your three most common resources – people, money and time.  The Assignable attribute identifies which of your people will need to be involved.  The Realistic attribute asks “can this objective realistically be achieved, given available resources?”, which should prompt you to consider if staffing levels and budgets are adequate to ensure successful completion of the work required.  The Time-Related attribute will prompt you to review, and possibly adjust, your schedule to hit the targets.
• Developing a plan to achieve the objectives.  The Specific attributes for your organization or department objectives can be the starting point for your planning process.  Then the Assignable and Time-Related attributes give you additional details to help flesh out project plans.
• Monitoring progress toward the objectives.  The Measurable and Time-Related attributes provide the basis for a tracking and reporting progress.   

Finally, SMART objectives provide a useful framework for evaluating your own performance and that of your employees. The detail captured in each SMART objective gives you and your employees an objective way to determine how well they met their performance goals for a particular period.

Download the SMART Objectives Template

 Conclusion

Creating clearly defined objectives is a fundamental skill that will contribute to your success as a manager.  The SMART method is a simple way to write consistent, clear and actionable objectives at any level of a company.  SMART objectives provide benefits well beyond simply clarifying direction and goals. They also give you the information you need to address other Building Block areas.  It takes very little time to learn the SMART method, and the payoff is significant. I highly recommend you add SMART objectives to your management toolbox.

Stay safe. Stay well. Wash your hands!

To your success,

Mike

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