SMART Objectives

I cut down this iconic 30+ minute speech to under 3 because I want to highlight one aspect of the speech. Kennedy did an amazing job establishing his vision of what he wanted to be accomplished, but he did it in a way that exemplifies the idea of SMART Objectives. SMART Objectives is not a concept I created or came up with, but it is a tremendously good idea and I use the concept all the time.

There are two key occasions when we work to identify the objectives. The first opportunity is when we are working with the sponsor. The sponsor is spending money to make a vision come true. What is he or she wanting to achieve for this investment. The problem with this is that right at the beginning of the project, when we are working on the Charter, we don't know very much about the details of what it is going to take to achieve that vision. So we will likely walk away from that process with a couple objectives, but there is a more important time to clarify them; the Kickoff Meeting. The kickoff meeting represents the first time that the stakeholders, all of the disciplines that are necessary for achieving the vision are all assembled in one place. It would truly be a missed opportunity to not look at and consider the objectives that have already been collected, revise them and identify the other objectives that are critical for achieving the vision.

When you go through the process of identifying objectives, be SMART; Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound.

When laying out the vision of what we want to do, be Specific and detailed. Paint a picture and work hard to make sure that everyone is seeing both the problem and the solution the same way.

Be Measurable, take subjectivity out of the scenario to the greatest extent possible. If you can, make the conclusions concerning attainment of the objective binary; you either got it, or you didn't.

The objective should be Achievable or attainable. If it is 10 objectives that need to be met to reach the vision, then you share the responsibility to ensure that those 10 things may be difficult, but aren't impossible.

There is no omnibus legislation in our SMART Objectives. Each objective must be Relevant to the project or outcome we are trying to achieve. We have no room for laundry lists or gold plating. Be careful about this one. If you are not on your game, someone may try to sneak irrelevant objectives into your project and you will be stuck doing work that doesn't help you and may be a distraction.

Time-bound means that we are intending to meet the objective in a specific schedule; that it is not an open-ended situation. For example, if we say that we want to end homelessness, well, we can be working to end it for a long time, and never actually achieve the objective. But if we say that we want to end it by 2015, then that puts a box around the schedule and we know that we will be required to deploy resources to meet the objective, but we will not be deploying those resources forever.

Anyway, when you deal with a sponsor and your stakeholders, think about the concepts of SMART objectives.