The SMART acronym is a great tool for making sure our goals and instructions are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timed. It helps us clarify what we want to accomplish and set deadlines to make sure it produces the results we want in the timeframe we need. The six steps below will help you formulate your goals in the most effective way possible.
Step 1: Consider Your Intentions. What is the end result I want to achieve? Why is this important to me and/or the organization?
Step 2: Make it Specific. If someone else read this goal, would they be able to execute it without me having to explain it? Does it provide answers to: Who? What? When? and Where? Is it short and concise?
Step 3: Make it Measurable. "What gets measured gets done." How will I know that this goal or milestone has been accomplished and to what standard? How will I measure it and how frequently will I do so?
Step 4: Make it Attainable. Can this goal (with some stretching) be accomplished in the timeframe I have indicated? If not, break down the goal into smaller pieces and write a goal statement for the first step.
Step 5: Make it Relevant. If goals aren't or don't feel relevant we tend to put them on the backburner. How does this goal align with the bigger picture (personally and professionally)? What "pains" would I experience if I didn't get this goal accomplished?
Step 6: Make it Timed. Most goals fail because we haven't indicated the timeframe in which we want to have them accomplished. Have I established an overall deadline for when this goal must be accomplished? Have I indicated milestones or smaller deadlines for contributing activities? By when do I want this to be accomplished?
This looks like one of those Power Point slides that always make me hate meetings.
ReplyDeleteI never heard this before. I am a "goal" person so I'm liking this. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAh, ha! Now I remember! It is nice to now know that my goals are very simple, 'Keep my name off the List of Obits my wife reads evey morning.'
ReplyDeleteBUT I can remember listening to my most favorite motivator 'EArl Nightengale'. Many tips of staying focussed, to be honest it worked. We made it better than I ever expected, especially from a HS dropout.
Straight management was never for me. Even as a Gen. Contractor I had to get in there and raise walls and drive nails.
But in a young world, where competition is real, one must set and then attain some goals.
Take care, keep on, don't stop (yet) and soon you will be looking at Obits.
From over in the Detroit area.
hmmm... wonder if I ever wandered past Jack69...
ReplyDeleteI like this a lot... reminds me of a lot of supplier meetings when I worked and it sounds like how objectives were set in military exercises...
Hi Ken thanks for the visit :) I did this at a business course last year helps make things much clearer I should try it again now it would probably help :) thanks Mrs T x
ReplyDelete