Defining SMART objectives

I am somehow obsessed by objectives.

Maybe that’s because I study Strategic Problem Solving, and objectives and problems definition is the first step in solving an apparently impossible problem. But it’s also important in my line of work. I found more than once in my experience that there is an extremely thin line between a happy client and an angry one, that usually is exactly how good we were on the same page when talking objectives.

Strange thing is that the definition of the problem to solve or objective to reach is usually not that precise. Service providers may be able to define objectives very well, but it may happen that their clients (which usually are also my potential clients) may not understand fully those objectives, or their consequences on their business.

This is because the objective was not SMART enough, and both parties were not able to completely define it.

For this reason I would like to provide a quick guide to defining SMART objectives, to be used by both service providers and business owners (who in this area are those who usually decide to trust a consultant for their services), to improve the rate of healthy business relationships.

What is a SMART objective?

If you didn’t know before, a quick google search will land you on a Wikipedia page which explains in very simple terms what a SMART objective is. This obviously doesn’t mean that the objective is clever, or something like that, but it’s an acronym for:

• Specific
• Measurable:
• Agreed Upon
• Realistic
• Time related

The wikipedia page also gives a very short description on what that single point means. Easy enough right? Now, it would probably be, but seeing as how many are not happy about how the objective was not what they intended, there may be something more than just this. For this reason I will talk specifically about each point, and provide some strategies to improve the objectives definition that I actually use during my consulting.

The Specific Objective

This first point may be the most difficult of all, because defining specific objectives is actually not that simple as it may appear.

Part of the problem is that Specific means, well, specific. The problem is specificity is an extremely personal perspective. I will talk more about this in the Agreed Upon chapter, which is strictly related to this, but let’s start with a simple example.

Let’s say a freelance web designer and a client agree that the objective is to produce a website.

Now, that’s easy enough. Let’s say the web designer is not that skilled in defining SMART objectives, so they agree that the final output must be an Internet site with a lot of details about how it should be done, like the number of pages, the presence of a blog, and many other.

Specific enough, right? Wrong! Because as soon as the first iterations begin, the web designer find this to be a difficult client, one that frequently changes idea, that goes over and over every small details, and generally is difficult to satisfy. The poor web designer starts to become more and more frustrated, because what appeared to be a simple enough project is starting to eat away his life. The client, on the other hand is more and more discontent at the web designer work, who is not able to deliver a finished project.

What’s the problem here? The objective itself was easy enough to understand for both parties, but the process to get there was not. The objective was subject to the client’s lining, so it was not actually specific (nor measurable, and not even agreed upon, but let’s just stick to the specificity for now).

This is actually an extremely common problem, especially for those who use a pricing policy based on objectives, and not time. Usually in this case not only the objective, but also the process must be agreed upon (and becomes part of the objective).

How to solve it? At the cost of being redundant with what means to be SMART in general, a Specific objective answer to five questions (and here you understand why it’s so difficult to talk about specificity, and why I’m taking more than an hour to write just this chapter).

• What is the objective?
• How do you want to reach it?
• When is it relevant?
• Where is it relevant?
• Who is involved?

It would seem that making an objective specific was actually the same of making it SMART, because answering these questions you make it also measurable, agreed upon, reachable and time related, but this is actually the stepping stone to make it like that.

The Measurable Objective

You would be easy to assume that to be measurable an objective should involve numbers. Well, when numbers are involved everything becomes more simple, because numbers are easy to measure, but a qualitative measurement is often enough to consider an objective measurable.

In the previous example, the web designer failed to make his objectives measurable. Yes, one website seems a measure all right, but one website to the client’s liking is not.

In my experience this problem comes out more often than not. When I do Brand Consulting, for example, people are usually not able to autonomously give a measure to their brand. They say “I want my business to be known”, but that’s usually it, and it’s up to me to set a measuring scale.

How to solve it? You must be able to define valid KPI. If possible use quantitative KPI, if not use qualitative ones. Make it concrete. If you can explain in actions to do, that means you are going in a good direction. Ask a lot of What Ifs. Reason in term of desired scenarios. If you are not concrete, then you are not measurable enough.

The Agreed-Upon Objective

In a list of the first ten reason clients are not satisfied, this point would probably be the first one. If an objective is agreed upon doesn’t just means that everyone knows what their tasks are. It means that every actor involved has agreed on exactly the same objective and how to reach it.

Think about the web designer. If he had been able to understand that the objective he set was not specific enough, he would have soon discovered that he and his client were on different pages. It was as they were working toward two different objectives altogether.

How to solve it? Personally i find it useful to ask a simple question to understand if I am the same page with my client about objectives, which is the following:

How would you know if my service was successful? What would be different from now?

Some find this strange, but it helps a lot. It allows me to take a peek into the real problem of my client, and understand if I am actually able to solve it or not. It also allow me to understand their real expectations. If I was the web designer of my example, and the answer was “having a website that i like”, I would have understood two things. The first one is that my client values his liking more than it’s effective utility (and i would have probably asked more questions to dig further in this direction); the second one is that i have to understand what his liking means, if I want to deliver on this object (and as a consequence I would also be able to make it more measurable).

The Realistic Objective

This point in my opinion is the most interesting. I have known consulting firms who will accept every gig, be paid for the time spent working on projects, and never be able to actually deliver many of the projects (or delivering incredibly late) because they are much more difficult than expected, or in some cases even impossible.

This problem that appears to be time-related, actually depends on how the objectives are realistic or not. If one of my clients asked me to double his sales, i would ask him how many resources he plan to allocate for that goal. It they answered “zero”, or a not reasonable number, I should question it. Of course, i alway try to underpromise and overdeliver, but sometime it may be trickier than that. For example, an objective may seem to be completely reasonable, but the person responsible for it may not be involved in the discussion (and he may add more other elements). For this reason I find this point to be, again, strictly connected with the Agreed-Upon one.

How to solve it? I usually set up a simple rule: every person directly involved in the deliverability of an objective should be their professional and honest opinion about it. This for me is a green light/red light opinion. If i receive just one red light, i stop everything, and try to understand if the objective is really realistic in its specificity or not.

The Time-Related objective

This point in my opinion is the most simple to manage, but can create some problems if not understood correctly. If timing is an issue (and it always is) the problem is to put everyone on the same timetable. Again, the problem is not time by itself, but how time is agreed upon the several actors that work toward an objective.

Coming back to the web designer example, timing is not only an issue because of the final delivery of the website is shifting more and more, but also for the excess of time that the web designer is allocating to this one project, and its cost.

How to solve it? The best way to put everyone on the same timetable is to use some project management tool, like a Gantt diagram, combined with a scenario analysis and a set of What Ifs to evaluate the impact of late deliveries. I say the best way because everyone usually knows, or at least understands it. I personally don’t like it very much, and use another one, but that may be for another post.

Last check: the miracle question

If you understand every one of the five points that make a SMART objective, and how they interact one another, then you are ok, at least for the objective definition (which, usually, if done well enough is a really good way to start). As a last check, to see if everyone is really the same page, you could ask a question, which is sometimes called the miracle question (and i thank again my Problem Solving studies for it), for its special value in defining the desired future.

If, as for a miracle, the objective was already reached, how would I know?
What would be different from now in myself, in other, in the world?
How would I think, talk and act differently?
And how would other think, talk and act differently?

If you feel the need to add elements to whatever came from the SMART objective analysis, then come back to it, add those elements and search further in that direction. Remember, it’s like starting later to arrive sooner!

Conclusion

I know many of my readers will find these tips too simple, and that’s ok! These are the basics, I know. Personally, I like to come back to the basics, because I usually find room for improvements, so I hope this will help you to in defining SMARTer objectives, and improve the satisfaction of your clients or service providers!

And as usual, if you would like to share with me some of your stories, regarding problems you experienced, or you were able to solve, i will gladly read them!