One of the most effective methods to help businesses easily set goals is to apply the SMART model. So What is the SMART model? Benefits for businesses and how to determine goals accordingly What is the SMART model? Let's learn more about the SMART goal setting method through this article!
What is the SMART model?
SMART is a system of pre-established principles that allows users to use smart applications to shape, build, modify, and perfect work goals and specific future implementation processes.
SMART model is a model that marketing experts or businesses apply this system of pre-set principles to evaluate specificity, feasibility, reasonableness, ... as well as collect data about the market and customers. customers, competitors,... from which to build marketing goals and strategies appropriate to each stage and time of the enterprise's business activities.
And the criteria are pre-set when building goals What is the SMART model? includes the following 5 criteria:
- S – Sspecific (Specific)
- M – Measurable (accurate, measurable)
- A – Actionable (Feasibility)
- R – Relevant (Relevance, unity)
- T – Time-Bound (Time limit for achieving the set goal)
" See more: Compare OKRs and KPIs – Measuring and evaluating labor performance, which index should businesses choose?
Why should we apply the SMART model in business?
Benefits to businesses from What is the SMART model?Below are the 5 most obvious benefits that businesses receive when setting goals corresponding to the 5 criteria of the SMART model, specifically as follows:
Specify goals
Before certain times and periods, every business needs to have a meeting with the board of directors and all employees to prepare to develop the next goals to implement the plan and create motivation for development. .
But instead of thinking of "unrealistic" goals, when applied SMART model, businesses can set more specific, more realistic goals, based on previously collected indicators and measured parameters, to evaluate the process of implementing goals and together find a suitable solution together.
Increase the relevance and accuracy of the target
When the set goal can meet all 5 criteria of SMART model, then it is certainly a highly realistic goal, from which businesses can easily cross out set goals that are not suitable for the current development stage and development trend of the business. Karma.
In addition, a goal set when all 5 criteria are met is also a highly accurate directional goal, and includes a clear time limit when implementing that goal, so that businesses can Professionals proactively plan and organize work, prioritizing work with shorter deadlines, to ensure the process of achieving goals is possible.
" Explore more: Competency framework What is it, how to build a capacity framework and assess capacity
Improve the measurability of goals
No matter how realistic and good the goals are, sometimes it is difficult for management to evaluate whether their employees have achieved the set goals.
But if the goal is built based on the criteria of SMART model will help business leaders improve the ability to measure goals, thereby determining and evaluating in advance the results and level of work completion when assigned to lower-level staff to perform.
Align with company goals
Every business has many departments with different functions and tasks with their own goals but all aim at the common goal of the business. But sometimes, due to the incorrect way of determining goals in advance, the individual goals of each department are not unified to reach the common goal.
But when building business goals according to SMART model, because of the criteria "Relevance and uniformity", it helps businesses more effectively link the individual goals of each department, to all aim and be consistent with the common goals of the business.
And when a business has high uniformity and connection, there will be solidarity and more motivation to face difficulties together and make tireless efforts to realize the common great goals of the business. .
Helps increase employee performance
When setting business goals according to SMART model, all employees in the company will also clearly see the goals they need to aim for, have clear direction at work, can self-evaluate their own work progress, recognize and evaluate results. ,…
From there, employees can see whether they have worked effectively or not, whether they have met work deadlines, to proactively change, and find improvement plans to increase work performance, towards the common goal of the company. more business.
Reduce Stress for employees
Sometimes when employees see that their work performance does not meet the department's target deadline, the business will feel extremely pressured, stressed and worried.
When applying goal building according to SMART model, each employee will also need to build their own personal goals, according to their ability and work performance to both meet the common goals and be suitable for themselves, so that the implementation process is not too difficult. pressure, less stress, much more tension.
The difference between OKRs and SMART goals
Glance, OKRs and SMART goals seem similar, because they both guide and set goals that are measurable, time-bound, and achievable. However, a closer look reveals some significant differences between the two.
| OKRs | SMART | |
| Nature | Include goals and outcomes associated with each goal | Is a list of principles and guidelines for setting and building goals |
| Limit | Achieve the best results at the scale of teams, organizations, and companies | Suitable for individuals or a small group |
| Relationship | Transparency between goals within the organization and company | Focus on creating goals independently |
| Develop long-term goals | Create structure for short-term goals | |
| Flexibility | OKRs are flexible and evolve depending on their relationship to the organization's hierarchy | Be specific and precise for small goals in a small group or individually |
| Evolution | Can be set monthly/quarterly/yearly and grow over time | SMART goals focus on fixed, achievable goals |
| Concentrate | Depends on request
to narrow or expand |
Just focus on one point and ignore the whole picture |
| Time | Takes little time to build | Demand more by precision and specificity |
Advantages and disadvantages of Smart
SMART models are one of the most popular goal setting tools, and because they have specific characteristics, they have different advantages and disadvantages:
How to apply the SMART model to identify effective goals
How to determine your goals What is the SMART model? Below is a guide to determining long-term business goals using the SMART method to ensure high efficiency:
Specific
When determining goals, businesses need to pay attention to specificity. The more detailed and specific the goals are, the more applicable they are, assessing implementation ability, evaluating results, and planning activities. the easier it gets.
On the contrary, goals that only have general categories, leaders and employees themselves find very vague, difficult to measure, evaluate the level of feasibility and do not know if they are doing it according to the plan. direction no.
Measurable
In addition to being specific when setting development goals, the goals also need to contain specific numbers and parameters that clearly and in detail express the "ambition" of the individual employee and the business. need to be achieved when building and implementing goals according to SMART's Measurable criteria.
Of course, these numbers also need to correspond to the ability of the employees themselves and the entire department and business to complete or not, and after finishing the plan, it can be summarized based on the numbers. in the goal to evaluate and measure the level of effective goal completion based on actual numbers.
Achievable
If you build goals according to SMART principles, then you must strictly comply with this feasibility criterion, because this is an extremely important criterion.
So when setting a goal, you need to think first about the possibility of completing the goal, whether it is feasible or not, and you can use that as motivation to try and constantly challenge your limits. This determines the quality and progress of your work.
Relevant
This criterion needs to be understood as whether your personal goals are consistent, related and consistent with the development goals of the business or company? Because only when personal goals are related to business goals will your work be favorable, have a clear development orientation, and meet the company's requirements or not.
Time-bound
Besides the measurement numbers, setting a deadline to complete the goal will put a lot of pressure on each employee, forcing themselves to complete the work on time, demonstrating the high discipline of the business. demonstrating the professionalism and constantly improving capacity of each individual.
Example of the SMART model for the most detailed goals
Businesses can refer to the specific example below on determining goals SMART model to know how to better apply it to your business.
Example of the SMART model in sales
- S: Want to increase sales next quarter.
- M: Next quarter's sales increase by 500 million VND/month.
- A: Plan to increase sales by 500 million VND/month with the current market situation and business resources.
- R: Balance revenue and expenditure to have a plan to mobilize capital and optimize costs to achieve the goal of increasing sales by 500 million VND/month.
- T: With resources and current market situation, plan to increase sales to 500 million VND/month. At the same time, balance the budget and time until November 2022.
Example of SMART model in business
- S: I want to open my own business.
- M: I want to open a restaurant that can accommodate 20 customers for my own business.
- A: With available capital, location and business manpower, I want to open a restaurant with a capacity of 20 guests for my own business.
- R: With available capital, location and business human resources, I want to open a restaurant at home with a capacity of 20 guests for my own business, to develop my own business experience.
- T: With available capital, location and business human resources, I want to open a restaurant with a capacity of 20 guests for my own business, to develop my own business experience. The restaurant will open from November 11, 2022.
Example of SMART model in Marketing
- S: I want to increase customer traffic to the product website
- M: With an increase of at least 15% per month
- A: With the ability to post at least 10 SEO standard articles, solving problems that customers are interested in for the website, I want to increase the number of customers visiting the product website to at least 15%/month.
- R: To help promote business
- T: The goal needs to start implementation from January 2023
Example of a SMART model for yourself
- S: You need to ask yourself what is the ultimate goal of learning English well. Can communicate with colleagues and partners when working, going to school, living and working in English-speaking countries,...
- M: “I will learn 15 new words every week” or “I will spend 45 minutes every day learning English.”
- A: The tasks can be completed like the first day of reviewing Unit 1 - morning grammar exercises, vocabulary review, afternoon and evening reading exercises
- R: If you have just started learning English for 1 month, spend 1 hour a day studying, the goal in the next month is to communicate fluently with native speakers in simple situations.
- T: You can set a goal like "Within 1 week I must remember and speak fluently the communication sentences used in the environmental topic"
The difference between OKRs and SMART goals
Glance, OKRs and SMART goals seem similar, because they both guide and set goals that are measurable, time-bound, and achievable. However, a closer look reveals some significant differences between the two.
| OKRs | SMART | |
| Nature | Include goals and outcomes associated with each goal | Is a list of principles and guidelines for setting and building goals |
| Limit | Achieve the best results at the scale of teams, organizations, and companies | Suitable for individuals or a small group |
| Relationship | Transparency between goals within the organization and company | Focus on creating goals independently |
| Develop long-term goals | Create structure for short-term goals | |
| Flexibility | OKRs are flexible and evolve depending on their relationship to the organization's hierarchy | Be specific and precise for small goals in a small group or individually |
| Evolution | Can be set monthly/quarterly/yearly and grow over time | SMART goals focus on fixed, achievable goals |
| Concentrate | Depends on request
to narrow or expand |
Just focus on one point and ignore the whole picture |
| Time | Takes little time to build | Demand more by precision and specificity |
Advantages and disadvantages of Smart
SMART models are one of the most popular goal setting tools, and because they have specific characteristics, they have different advantages and disadvantages:
| Advantage | Defect |
|
|
So after reading the information above, you will understand What is the SMART model? Same way to determine goals using this method!
