SMART is an acronym outlining the key characteristics of a useful target:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Resourced
- Time-related
Compare and contrast-
"I'm going to contribute more writeups"
"By christmas I will have reached level 4 by setting aside two hours to produce a writeup every day"
Why use a SMART target? By considering the points above, you can identify potential barriers in advance and try to ensure they don't prevent achievement of the target. Even if those barriers can't be overcome, failure to meet a SMART target helps you see why. Consider our hypothetical target above- if by christmas you haven't hit level 4, you can look at the resource element: did those two hours every day get found? If they did, then you can start looking at other areas (the writeups kept getting nuked or were daylogs that ended up on negative scores, so you fell short). But if they didn't, then failure to meet the target can be attributed to you- although don't stop there, as other areas of the SMART system might be relevant (if there weren't enough days between setting the target and christmas to actually hit level 4, then you messed up the achievable part. Perhaps you can salvage the activity by shifting the time-related requirement to next christmas, if what you're really worried about is being able to ching!)
So are all the pieces needed, or was one just thrown in to get a snappy acronym? If you look at each part in turn you can see the framework fails without it:
- If the target isn't specific, you can't really think about the other areas: how can you accurately budget for a task which you don't know the size of?
- Being able to measure a target isn't exactly the same as being specific, but often having a measurable goal will enable you to specify it. With our example, it's easy: either you're at level 4+, or you aren't. But how would you measure the level of cohesion in a community or the popularity of a project? The measurement should be considered within the resource element too- whilst it's theoretically possible to take a census of all your users, can the logistic and financial costs be justified by the attainment of the target?
- To what extent a target can be achieved is worthy of discussion in its own right. Obviously if the target is too easy, then achieving it becomes pointless: remember it's the activity that matters and not the target. Setting a target exam pass rate of 0% will guarantee you meet your target- but it won't do the students much good. But on the other side of the coin, a 100% target may simply be inappropriate in such an area in which case choosing it would make having a target pointless. Sometimes other factors will make this decision easier: if you only have a certain amount of money to spend or time to operate in, these will have a direct bearing on what you can achieve. If an absolute value isn't appropriate like the exam results, then it may make sense to make relative comparisons such as having more market share than a key competitor or placing in the top quartile of local councils.
- The issue of resources is vital if you want to know how you intend to get to the target, not just what it is. It'll probably influence the time-related and achievable areas too.
- An open ended target is of no value- if you want to achieve something, you want to achieve it by a certain point and "the sooner the better" is usually going to be true, so decide why this is the case and you've got your upper limit.
There are some variations on just what the R stands for, with some versions opting for relevant or realistic (I would consider that redundant if you're keeping achievable) instead and shifting the resource issue to achievable.