SMART Goals
A framework for writing goals that are clear enough to be planned, tracked, and verified.
Explanation
A SMART goal is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Poorly-written goals (“improve the website”) hide disagreement about what success means; SMART goals surface and resolve it up front.
The five criteria
- Specific — What do you want to accomplish? Why? Who is involved? Where? To what degree, with what constraints?
- Measurable — How much/many? How will you know when it’s accomplished? What are you comparing against?
- Attainable — Can it reasonably be reached given the metrics? Can the goal be broken into smaller parts that make sense?
- Relevant — Does it align with other priorities? Is it worthwhile? Is the timing right given budget, audience, economic context?
- Time-bound — Does it have a deadline or clear time frame?
Application
Use SMART when drafting goals during course-2-project-initiation. Revisit during planning — if a task’s success criteria can’t be phrased SMART-ly, the goal isn’t concrete enough to hand off.
Often paired with okr-framework to turn the goal into a trackable objective with measurable key results.
Evidence & Examples
- Weak: “Improve customer retention.”
- SMART: “Increase repeat-purchase rate from 38% to 45% by end of Q3, measured by cohort analysis of the North American segment.”
Connections
- okr-framework — OKRs build on SMART thinking with explicit key results
- project-charter — SMART goals typically land in the charter’s goals section
- course-2-project-initiation