SMART goals are commonly attributed to Peter Drucker’s Management by Objectives concept. Professor Robert S. Rubin also wrote about SMART in an article for The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in which he stated that SMART has come to mean different things to different people. The acronym of SMART stands for:
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Specific (simple, sensible, significant).
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Measurable (meaningful, motivating).
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Achievable (agreed, attainable).
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Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based).
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Time bound (time-based, time limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive).
SMART can be an effective tool that provides the clarity, focus and motivation you need to achieve your goals. It can also improve your ability to reach them by encouraging you to define your objectives and set a completion date. SMART goals are simple and are easy to use by anyone, no matter where you are located geographically or career-wise.
“SMART goals are simple and are easy to use…”
Using SMART goals can help make your plans specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. By using SMART, you can make vague or misunderstood plans clear and allow many other benefits to come into your professional life. Some of the other aspects of SMART goals are:
- Application to technical writing of the goal itself rather than a broader framework
- Simple and often applied within other frameworks
- Good way to start if goal setting is brand new and at a more individual level
- Allows allows flexibility within structure if you wish to use it alongside other programs