How to write SMART goals

At some point, we’ve all set goals for ourselves. Maybe it was writing down a few New Year’s resolutions or setting long-term career goals. Or maybe it was a goal as simple as getting out of the house. We set goals constantly, often without realizing it or writing them down. 

But how often do we achieve our goals? The truth is, only of a handful of peoplw who set goals actually follow through. 

When it comes to business goals, the same is true: They are often left unrealized. But it doesn’t have to be that way! This post breaks down the SMART goals method—a simple tool that will help your team set and achieve your business goals. 

What are SMART goals?

If you work in project management or education, there’s a good chance you’ve heard the phrase “SMART goals”. The SMART method for goal setting has grown increasingly popular since its inception, especially in business settings. 

So, what are SMART goals? SMART goals and objectives are goals that align with the five criteria outlined in the SMART methodology:

• Specific 
• Measurable 
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

Who invented SMART goals?

SMART goals were first introduced in 1981 by George Doran, a consultant for the Washington Water Power Company. He published a paper titled, “There’s a S.M.A.R.T way to write management’s goals and objectives.” In his paper, he explains that there is so much information available to managers that it can be confusing to set goals and objectives. He offers the SMART method as a solution to creating goals that are meant to be achieved.

“Managers are confused by all the verbiage from seminars, books, magazines…let me suggest that when it comes to writing effective objectives, corporate offices, managers, and supervisors just have to think of the acronym SMART.”—George Doran

Why are SMART goals important?

The idea behind the SMART writing method is that if you consider each of these five elements as you write your goals, your goals will be more structured, achievable, and beneficial. 

There’s nothing more frustrating than working toward vague aspirations. If you don’t have a clear sense of where you want to end up, how will you know how to get there? 

The SMART goals method can help your team avoid this pitfall. Instead of teams operating with ambiguity, this method establishes a framework for designing goals that are clear and attainable. And, more importantly, SMART goals provide a system for tracking progress and keeping you accountable to those goals. 

How to write SMART goals

The first step in writing a SMART goal is to identify a goal you have for your team or business. Keep in mind that as you break down this goal using the SMART method, it’ll likely develop and change.

With your goal identified, you’re ready to use the SMART writing method. To do this, consider your goal in light of each element of the SMART acronym. 

Specific

To ensure your goal is specific, you and your team should ask five SMART goals questions:

• What do we want to accomplish? 
• Why do we need to accomplish this?
• Who is involved?
• When do we want to achieve this?
• Where will we do this work?

Take your time to thoughtfully address these questions. There’s a reason this is the first step: Defining the specifics of a goal or objective lays the groundwork for the rest of the process. A vague goal leads to vague plans; a specific goal leads to specific plans. 

That being said, don’t get too hung up on details. As you answer these questions, remember that this isn’t an action plan—that will come later. 

Measurable

The whole point of SMART goals is to set and accomplish achievable goals. To do that, you’ll need a method—and metric—for measuring progress and success. Quantifying progress can be tricky, but if you made your goal as specific as possible, you should be able to identify one or more ways to measure success. 

You may want to include a timeline alongside your metrics for success. When will you check in on your progress? Depending on the goal, this could be weekly, monthly, or quarterly.

Achievable

As you set goals, it’s good to push your team. Stretch goals can motivate you to improve efficiency and productivity and your team will often be better off for it. But even stretch goals should be attainable.

Before settling on a goal, consider your team’s time and resources. It may seem obvious, but it needs to be said: Any goal you and your team set should be something you can actually accomplish. People often set goals that are too ambitious—rather than stretching and pushing us to be better, these goals simply discourage us. 

And remember: Nothing is set in stone. As you begin working towards a goal, don’t be afraid to adjust your target. You may encounter unforeseen difficulties and roadblocks. As you assess these challenges, you may need to adjust your goal to make it more attainable.  

Relevant

At this point your goal should be specific, measurable, and attainable. Now it’s time for some honest assessment: Is it relevant?

A relevant goal should align not just with your team’s goals, but also the goals of your company. To determine if your goal is relevant, ask yourself a few questions:

• Why is this goal important to my team?
• Why is this goal important to the company?
• How will this goal help move the company towards its goals?

If you find yourself struggling to answer these questions, especially those relating to the company as a whole, you may want to sideline that goal for now. Just because it’s not relevant now doesn’t mean it won’t be relevant later. 

Time-bound

When it comes to accomplishing goals, one factor will make or break you is accountability. One of the easiest ways of creating accountability is setting deadlines. 

The question should not be, “When do we want to have this accomplished?” You should be asking, “When will we have this accomplished?” 

The timeline of a SMART goal goes hand-in-hand with the metrics you decided on to measure your success. In order to accomplish your end goal, you’ll need checkpoints along the way. Consider breaking the larger timeline of your goal into sub-goals, each with hard deadlines and specific metrics for success. 

What is an example of a SMART goal?

It can be helpful to see examples of what a good SMART goal looks like to serve as inspiration for your own goals! Let’s take a look at one below.

Say you’re on a marketing team at a small company. One of the best ways to increase brand awareness, generate leads, and drive sales is through social media. So your team comes up with this goal: We will increase social media engagement this quarter.

Pretty broad, right? Let’s use the SMART goals method to transform this goal into one that is more structured.

Specific 

• Who? The goal applies to the marketing team as a whole, but the social media specialist will take ownership.
• What? We increase engagement on our YouTube channel.
• When? By the end of the quarter.
• Where? The work will largely take place on the company's YouTube channel, but we will also use Facebook and the marketing blog to drive viewers to our videos. 
• Why? We create top-quality content for YouTube, but struggle to reach an audience. By putting our videos in front of more viewers, we will generate leads and sales. 

Measurable

Because the goal is to increase engagement with the company's YouTube channel, there’s a metric for measurement built in: views. So our goal is to accumulate 15,000 views on the videos across our channel by the end of the quarter. 

Attainable

Assuming the team is already generating content for YouTube, this goal should be attainable—it’s just a matter of getting the videos in front of an audience. 

Relevant

The company is still relatively small, so it is important to increase brand awareness and reach a larger audience. In this sense, an increasing YouTube viewer base will help contribute directly to our company’s goals. 

Time-bound

We will have this accomplished by the end of the quarter.

Now that we’ve applied the SMART goals method, let’s rewrite our original goal.

Original goal: We will increase social media engagement this quarter.

SMART goal: This quarter, we will accumulate 15,000 views across our company's YouTube channel to increase brand awareness and generate leads. To make this happen, the marketing team will continue to create high-quality videos and promote them via Facebook and the marketing blog.