Executive Management
Improve revenue per employee to $380,000 by automating order fulfillment steps to reduce our hiring by Q4.Marketing
Launch a new canned coffee product in Q2 that achieves 2% market penetration by Q4.Sales
Lead sales teams to close sales. Measurement: two year recurring revenue of closed deals. Target date: ongoing, evaluated quarterly.Customer Relationships
Develop and sustain relationships with my accounts to identify opportunities for upselling. Measurement: number of interactions with customers, number of upselling opportunities identified, revenue from upselling. Target date: end of Q4.Customer Service
Improve customer service skills with practice and training. Measurement: customer satisfaction rate for customers served. Target date: ongoing, measure quarterly.Sales Operations
Develop and qualify leads. Measurements: number of leads, quality of leads, feedback from sales team. Target date: end of Q4.Operations
Reduce bottlenecks to improve the throughput of production lines by Q2. Target: increase production by 15%.Human Resources
Improve onboarding process to support new hires. Measurement: first year performance reviews of new employees, two year retention rate of new employees, feedback from new employees. Target date: improvement by end of Q2, measure results in Q4.Team Management
Increase productivity of database administration team. Measurement: tickets handled, ticket rating, mean time to resolve. Target date: end of Q4.Leadership
Lead software development team by representing team with stakeholders, organizing efforts and coaching developers. Measurement: schedule variance, feedback from stakeholders and developers.Training & Development
Complete personal development plans with all employees and provide support to achieve goals in plan. Measurement: personal development plan completion rate, average goal completion rate of personal development plans. Target date: completion of plans in Q1, measure goal completion rate at end of year.Personal Development
Improve public speaking skills by taking training and practicing by giving regular presentations. Measurement: completion of training and at least 4 presentations by Q4.Information Technology Management
Retire the legacy billing system by moving remaining functionality to the new system to reduce annual license and maintenance costs by $233,000. Target date: full retirement of system before November 23rd to avoid further license payments.Information Technology Operations
Improve the uptime of the customer portal to 99.99% by reducing incident response and resolution times. Measurements: mean time to repair, SLA violations, uptime. Target date: Q4.Integration
Develop a service to provide customer service rankings to subscribing systems. Measurements: schedule variance, budget variance, transaction volume for the new service (indication it is useful). Target date: developed by Q2 and launched by Q3.Reporting
Integrate customer satisfaction rankings into our operations analytics platform so that customer satisfaction can be viewed by product, customer type and other factors. Measurements: schedule variance, budget variance, use of customer satisfaction parameters in reports (counted by view). Target date: launched by Q3.Data
Cleanse product description data to improve entries that are out-of-date, inaccurate or that are generally low quality. Measurement: reduce customer complaints of inaccurate and misleading product descriptions from current rate of more than 20,000 a month to less than 1,000 a month. Target date: end of Q2.Internal Controls
Prevent sales associates from exporting customer and contacts lists from the sales force automation platform without the approval of their manager by January 15th. Measurement: control successfully implemented in less than 3 business days of effort.Information
Provide front desk agents with a customer profile that indicates their preferences on the check in screen. Target: improve room assignment and accommodation of customer needs. Measurement: customer satisfaction with the check in process of 70% or more. Target date: end of Q4, pending budget approval.Information Security
Reduce average time to implement high priority patches to 3 business days by Q4.Software Development
Deliver the _________ project. Measurement: schedule variance, successful launch, feedback from stakeholders. Target: Q2Testing
Compete testing for the ________ project according to plan by end of Q3. Measurement: no severity one or two defects found in production, completion of test plan to schedule, feedback from stakeholders.Quality Assurance
Determine and address the root cause of the user interface errors on the customer portal that prevent customers from viewing multiple pages of search results. Measurement: fix problem by end of January with zero further incidents.Project Management
Manage the _________ project to budget and schedule. Measurements: successful delivery, stakeholder feedback, schedule variance and budget variance. Target date: currently end of Q2, scope changes likely to push this out to at least Q4.Risk Management
Evaluate the risks for each project proposal in the next budget cycle to improve the planning process. Target: risk analysis completed for all project proposals with a budget of more than $1 million by the end of the next planning cycle in January.Financial Management
Create a report that shows the original budget requested for projects and operations and the actual spend by manager to help create accountability for cost overruns. Target: coverage of all project budgets for fiscal 2025 and all operational budgets for fiscal 2026.Cost Reduction
Reduce travel costs by 20% by conducting more meetings by video conference in fiscal 2026.Productivity
Improve my output to 14 designs a month with new software that reduces toil such as cropping images by hand. Measurement: designs per month. Target: end of year.Efficiency
Reduce the energy consumption of schools by installing windows that are energy efficient that can be controlled by teachers to block intense light on hot days and let in more light on cool days. It will also be possible to open windows as an alternative to air conditioning according to teacher preference. Target: reduce heating and cooling costs by 14%. Target date: installation of windows by Q2, measure energy costs on a monthly ongoing basis.Time Management
Follow a strict information diet with total time spent on social media, news and other non-work related content at zero during core working hours beginning immediately on an ongoing basis.Communication
Manage stakeholder expectations of my work to avoid misunderstandings or unreasonable expectations for my work products to improve stakeholder satisfaction. Measurement: stakeholder feedback. Target date: start immediately, evaluate at end of Q4.Quality
Improve the durability of our line of ceramic Christmas tree decorations with new materials to reduce the number of shipments that result in a broken product to zero from 7%. The more durable product version must be in stock by September 1st.Research & Development
Develop an inexpensive, lightweight foam for our line of bodyboards that is unbreakable under standard real world conditions. Measurements: density, cost, compressive strength, tensile strength, flexural strength. Target date: end of Q3.Software Design
Architect and design the _________ project to achieve functional and non-functional requirements. Measurement: feedback from stakeholders and successful launch of project, mean time between failures of product in production. Target date: end of Q1.User Interface Design
Increase user engagement with the __________ app by improving usability by the end of March. Measurement: user engagement rate.Visual Design
Develop new package for the __________ coffee product to improve perceptions of quality. Measurement: market research that asks target market to select the highest quality product from three competing products and the new design, compare results to existing package. Target: three package designs by Q2, final design by end of Q3.Architecture
Develop a green building concept proposal for the _______ project. Measurement: client feedback, winning bid, energy profile of building, cost of proposal, return on investment estimate for bid. Target date: September 4th.Branding
Improve the top of mind brand recognition for the ________ coffee brand to 30% by end of year with a promotional campaign.Public Relations
Work to publicize our program of sustainability that will reduce our waste and use more sustainable materials in our products. Target: increase positive perceptions of our brand to 65% for the general public, 77% for investors and 80% for employees. Target date: end of 2025.Pricing
Increase market penetration of _______ coffee to 20% of its target market by end of year with promotional pricing campaigns.Small Business
Improve customer loyalty and revenue with a low-tech loyalty card that gives customers a free drink with every three purchases over $10. Target: revenue increase of 10%, give away at least 300 free drinks a month.Compliance
File an exemption request for collecting VAT taxes based on the very small business exemption rule that went into effect this year. Target: achieve exemption. Target date: file form by end of January.Sustainability
Introduce paper straws at all restaurant locations to reduce our contribution to ocean plastic, microplastics and other environmental issues related to plastic consumption. Target: zero use of plastic straws after current inventory is depleted in Q2.Investing
Conservatively invest retirement savings to keep up with average market returns without major losses. Measurement: annualized rate of return versus the S&P 500 index. Target date: ongoing, measured quarterly.Innovation
Develop a new product that sells at least 1 million units in its first six months on the market. Measurement: time to volume. Target date: Q2 launch, Q4 measure results.Work-Life Balance
Reduce my overtime to 5 hours a week to spend more time with family. Measurement: average weekly overtime, performance feedback, life satisfaction. Target date: start in January and evaluate on monthly basis.Quality of Life
Test trucks within the city limits to ensure that they comply to emissions standards with full fines for violators as permitted under the law. Target: improve air quality by an average of 10 ppm across the city by 2025.Summary
SMART are a set of criteria for crafting well-defined goals. These are commonly used by organizations to set goals for performance management.
| Overview: Smart Goals | ||
Type | ||
Definition | Targets that are designed to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. | |
Related Concepts | ||
