Have you ever heard about SMART goals? If you have no idea or don’t know how to use them, you came to the right place.
In this post you will learn how to plan your goals and objectives with the SMART methodology, which is a professional way to set and achieve goals. Also, you will learn how to use it correctly.
Goals that really make a company progress and succeed need to be embedded in your reality. Also, they must be thought through intelligently to achieve excellent results.
What are SMART goals?
The word SMART comes from an acronym, standing for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound goals. They are concrete goals that allow us to analyze the performance of our efforts.
The SMART criteria refer to the 5 basic characteristics that each target must have in order to be considered as intelligent:
- Specific: The wording of your goals should be as concrete as possible. It should explain exactly what you intend to do. What do you want to do?
- Measurable: You must make your goal quantifiable, because then you will be able to analyze if the implemented strategies reached the goals. How are you going to check if you reached it?
- Achievable: All objectives must involve a challenge, but they cannot be impossible to achieve. To establish the goals correctly, you must know the environment and the variables that can have a direct impact on you. Otherwise, you may end up with unrealistic goals that cannot be achieved, negatively affecting the performance of the team involved. How are you going to know when you achieved it?
- Relevant: Your goal must be in accordance with your brand or company strategy. Is it relevant for your company or your brand?
- Timely: You must set a deadline to achieve your goal. By when do you need it ready?
Why should you define SMART Goals?
If you know exactly the goal to be achieved, it will be easier to apply all your efforts to achieve it once and for all. It’s the same with your company’s goals. People, groups and systems need clear, structured and well-defined goals in order to be successful.
In other words, if you don’t define SMART objectives, you will stay in the dark, you won’t know exactly what to do, let alone what resources you can count on.
How do you define SMART goals?
- Set the goal: What you want to achieve with your brand.
- Customize your goal: Categorize it and adapt it to your company, make a SWOT analysis to be more precise in the changes you want to make.
- Choose the KPI’s needed to measure your actions: Set yourself ambitious and, above all, achievable figures.
- Commit to both your goals and your dates: Work with your team in a coordinated way and you will see your goals fulfilled.
- Schedule your goals: Create scheduled goals, it will be easier for you to work towards them, as you will be motivated to meet deadlines.
What is the importance of SMART goals?
- It reminds you of the priorities: They help you to be constantly aware of the work to be done for the next milestone. They also help you to be aware of the final goal to be achieved.
- Clarifies the final objective: They orient you towards a final goal. Establishing goals gives all stakeholders an idea of the amount of work to be done and the result of this effort.
- Obliges action: Due to the nature of the periodic verification model, it forces the person performing the tasks to work and meet the milestones.
- Effective time management: When the final goal or objective is known well in advance, it reduces the waste of resources and helps manage work more intelligently.
Conclusion
SMART goals help you to be more organized, focused and goal-oriented.
Set you up for success by making goals specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely.
You can always take some action and create the smart goals and objectives for your company. These will help you to have more focus, better distribute resources and align your team to achieve the same goals.
If you need help defining your SMART objectives contact us, we will be happy to help.