GOALS When are SMART goals not-so-smart?

• SMART describes a set of criteria that are frequently applied to goals, asserting that goals should be:
  • Specific – target a specific area for improvement
  • Measurable – quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress
  • Assignable – specify who will do it
  • Realistic – state what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources
  • Time-related – specify when the result(s) can be achieved
• many people accepting that a good goal must meet the SMART criteria. But is this really always a good approach?
• we have found that good goals are always specific and measurable
  • if they are not, they cannot provide useful targets toward which organizations can work
  • Vague goals whose achievement cannot be measured are merely empty aspirations
• But the other SMART criteria are, in our opinion, outdated and even dangerous because they encourage a simplistic and short-sighted approach to management
• REALISTIC - Complexity Matters
  • In a complex world, organization will rarely know whether achievement of a goal is realistic
  • often not possible to know whether a goal is achievable without learning more about the problem
  • example
    • mitigating the effects of a newly discovered disease: it is not possible to know, exactly, if this is possible, but that does not mean that the goal is a poor one, only that more needs to be learned to know if the problem is solvable
• TIME-RELATED - Time-Scale Matters
  • similarly impossible, with complex problems, to know when a goal can be achieved, since so much is unknown
  • only simple problems can be solved predictably enough to put their solution on a schedule
  • But most ambitious goals worth pursuing are not governed by simple cause-and-effect relationships; they require experimentation and analysis to uncover possible causes and alternative solutions before anyone can determine when the goal might be achieved
  • A solution to this problem
    • is to shorten the time-scale for the goal
    • Strategic goals are hardly ever simple enough to predict when they can be achieved
    • but an Intermediate goal is sometimes narrow enough to be somewhat certain about its achievement
    • and a Tactical goal whose time-scale is measured in a month or less is sufficiently constrained that its achievement, while not assured, should at least be reasonably expected
    • Strategic goals
      • Product Goals can also be Strategic Goals
      • but typically, an organization will have a variety of products and services, each with their own goals that in turn contribute to a broader, more ambitious Strategic Goal
    • Intermediate goal – Product goal
      • which are usually Intermediate Goals, are not time-boxed
    • Tactical goal – Sprint goal
      • Since Sprint Goals are very short-term, tactical goals, it makes sense for them to be time-boxed
• ASSIGNABLE - Empowerment Matters
  • In some interpretations, the “A” assignable, while in others the “A” attainable (attainable as realistic)
  • the foundation of Scrum is the team of people
    • empowered, self-managing, cross-functional
    • free to make own decisions about which work they take, which means, the goals they agree to (IG -TG)
    • free to decide how they do that work
    • Strategic goals
      • typically apply to the whole organization, not just a team or an individual
    • Intermediate goal – Product goal
      • typically taken on by teams or groups of teams, but they are not assigned to those teams so much as they are created by those teams as goals that they believe they need to achieve in order to make progress toward the Strategic Goal
      • They may be influenced by stakeholders, as is the case in forming Product Goals, but Intermediate Goals are best determined collaboratively, guided by
        • top-down strategy
        • bottom-up intelligence
    • Tactical goal – Sprint goal
      • are the domain of the team
      • In the context of Scrum, the Scrum Team together to determine the Sprint Goal
      • The Sprint Goal helps to
        • guide the day-to-day decisions of the team,
        • setting an achievement target toward which the team works
• Conclusion
  • all goals should be specific and measurable
  • But forcing them to be assignable, realistic, and time-related can result in goals that are short-sighted and tactical when they should be ambitious and strategic
  • Making them assignable can disempower teams, removing their autonomy and dampening their commitment and creativity
  • Goal setting
    • is an opportunity for collaboration and alignment around important goals
    • It’s a chance to discuss, refine, and sometimes refocus based on feedback
    • In a complex world, engaging everyone in seeking toward better goals using feedback to inspect and adapt helps organizations to improve the quality and value of the outcomes they provide to customers