Not Every Goal has to be SMART
Clear goals enable individuals, teams, organizations and coalitions to work towards a common set of results, align behaviors and provide a shared grounding for decision-making. Goals describe what we expect to be able to accomplish—but not always. Directional goals can steer towards improvements in relationships, organizational culture and professional development even when we don’t expect to actually achieve them.
The SMART rubric is well tailored to goals (and objectives) that are intended to be accomplished. SMART goals are Specific (or Strategic), Measurable, Achievable (sometimes Ambitious or Assignable), Relevant (Resources), and Time-Bound (Timely). Collectively, these elements support the verifiable achievement of the goal. A more detailed explanations can be found here.
Measurability and Time-Bound are the essential features of SMART goals. Together they specify exactly what achievement of the goal should look like. Because their achievement is relatively easy to determine, SMART goals promote accountability and support a variety of organizational needs, from setting individual performance goals to evaluating the successful implementation of programs and projects.
SMART goals can be particularly helpful when:
The goal follows from an externally defined deliverable, such as a contract requirement.
The elements needed to accomplish the goal are well understood and available, as will be the case with ongoing program implementation.
The goal is an element of a larger goal that depends on the subordinate goal being achieved, as when a communications team must design and distribute invitations by a specific date so that donors can plan to attend an event.
Results are measurable in a relatively short period of time, as when a group is taught a set of new skills and can be tested on it at the conclusion of a series of trainings.
Directional goals resist measurement and rarely fit neatly within designated time periods. But they can still inform decision-making, motivate specific behaviors, facilitate both internal and external alignment, and frame choices about whether to pursue opportunities. Unlike SMART goals, they can accommodate and support greater uncertainty, creativity and ambition. Directional goals are appropriate when:
Progress towards the goal is desirable whether or not the goal is completely achieved, as with behavioral changes or internal process improvements.
Progress towards the goal will require experimentation and creativity, as is usually true with network building or advocacy goals.
Progress towards the goal requires collaboration across the organization or with external stakeholders.
Progress towards the goal may not be apparent—or measurable—during a given time period. The bigger and more important the goal, the more likely this is to be the case.
Resource requirements (time, $s, etc.) are difficult to predict or may not be fully available. This may be the case with an innovate, unproven initiative.
The decision of whether or not to require a goal to be SMART will often hinge on how strongly accountability is prioritized. Accountability may increase the likelihood of a goal being accomplished, but it will also lead staff to play defense, protecting themselves out of a concern for the consequences of failure. This can inhibit ambition and limit impact. When required to develop SMART goals, rational staff and managers will want goals:
They have a high level of confidence of being able to achieve. As a result, the goal is likely to be conservative relative to their abilities.
For which the measures are easily attained, even if they are somewhat removed from accomplishment of the goal. This often means process measures are used to infer results.
Over which they have substantial control. Points of collaboration become risks that the goal will not be achieved because of the choices or failures of others.
SMART goals motivate staff—and so organizations—to operate within their comfort zones or, alternatively, require leaders to impose more ambitious SMART goals. Appreciating these consequences for organizational aspirations and culture can help managers and leaders determine how best to use SMART goals.
Most nonprofits, and most individual staff, will benefit from setting a combination of SMART and other goals. Start with clarifying the desired result and then decide whether it would benefit from the SMART rubric. In particular, treat Measurability as a secondary consideration. Instead of focusing on identifying a metric, ask instead how you might know whether progress is being made or not.
SMART is an extraordinarily useful framework—but not for every goal.