Talk:SMART criteria/Archive 1

Coinage
I believe this theory was founded by Peter Drucker in his "management by objectives" theory (1954) and the R stood for "Realistic." Is anybody could shed some light on this? 194.109.248.110 14:40, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Example?
It would be nice to have an example showing a non-SMART formulated objective, and the same objective formulated in the SMART way. As it is now I still fail to understand what do to with this. --Bjørn 15:56, 2 February 2007 (UTC) --

Bjorn

Although the heading suggests this subject relates to Project Mnagement it is just as valuable, probably even more so, in all types of Management Roles.

The area that causes the most problems, and where people get it wrong, is in the SPECIFIC section of the SMART objective. Imagine you run a call centre and you want someone to be able to answer a new type of call, lets call it the XYZ type of call. There is a 1 day course, lets call it the ABC course, to be held on 28.6.07, that will teach people how to deal with this type of call. Typically the objective that is set for these attendees would be: "ATTEND THE ABC COURSE BY THE END OF JUNE"

At first glance this looks to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely. However, the problem is that attending the course is just a task. SMART Objectives should be set to get people to achieve something, not do something. Just going on the course will not necessarily get the calls answered to the standard required. The objective should specify what you want to be achieved. This can be really difficult to do (I make a lot of money doing this for large organisations who aren't getting the results they expect). The S (Specific) should very clearly state the performance standard required.

If this was our business let's consider what we want to achieve by sending someone on the course. Surely the aim is to have the calls answered without complaint from the caller, and without having to constantly supervise the operator.

Once you have the answer to "what do I want them to achieve?" you can then phrase it. I suggest that the objective should be: "TO BE ABLE TO ANSWER THE XYZ TYPE OF CALLS BY THE END OF JULY(they would need time to practice and have some on-the-job tuition after they have attended the course), UNSUPERVISED AND WITHOUT CUSTOMER COMPLAINT"

This meets all the criteria and is more likely to get better results than just sending someone on a course. The measure of success is "UNSUPERVISED AND WITHOUT CUSTOMER COMPLAINT". It will beveryu obvious, when you are assessing how well they have done, whether they have achieved this or not.

Sounds simple doesn't it? but in practice, really good managers find it is really quite difficult to do. That is why large companies ask me to do it for them. Research shows that if you get this right a companies performance improves by approx 34%

Ron Locke. 11.3.07 Email: ronlocke@hotmail.com

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.195.206 (talk • contribs) Mar 11, 2007

Merging
Should this page be merged with Objective (goal) and Goal (management)?

LookingGlass 08:08, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Meaning of T in S.M.A.R.T.
T as time-bound is preferable to timely, time framed and timebound, says googling and Wiktionary. --Dan Polansky 16:15, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Meaning of R in S.M.A.R.T.E.R.
Seen from a project quality managempent perspective, the last R should mean also registrated, reported and the M should mean Monitored. Goals, objectives, KPI's should be measured, registrated, reported and monitored --193.109.72.103 (talk) 07:56, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

E and R are both verbs, while the first five words are adjectives. Thus, the E and R words don't flow at all with the first five. IMO the seven letter mnemonic should be just a link at the bottom, with the five-letter one being the one shown on this page.

Ambitious
Just for the cultural history of the vacuous waffle getting worse: "Ambitious" sneaked into this article in November 6th, 2008. --84.150.30.82 (talk) 21:57, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The Wiktionary "Source" mentioned in the 2008 edit said "Ambitious (yet Achievable)" instead of just "Achievable". --91.17.238.55 (talk) 06:29, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Can anyone explain why vacuous waffle like this belongs in an encyclopaedia?
This is nothing more than an overblown dictionary definition of the sort of useless management-speak that people use when they have nothing relevant to say. AfD time, I think... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:57, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, a quick PROD didn't work (though no explanation was given for why the article should be kept). Expect an AfD shortly. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:04, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Goal Setting has been widely validated and accepted tool in aiding behavior change and human performance. However I do agree that this article fails to reflect that research. I would like to suggest a movement towards some of Locke and Lathams research and reviews concerning SMART goals reflected in this article on SIOP - Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology - the leading org in the I/O psyc field. http://www.siop.org/tip/backissues/tipapr02/03rubin.aspx. Andrew C. W. Dodson (talk) 13:29, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
 * While I agree that most people are terrible at defining good goals, the article as it is now is completely unencyclopedic. Moreover, a bunch of keywords (like SMART) doesn't really help people, especially not if there are so many partially meaningless and redundant major and minor keywords that it can in no concrete way guide people to better behaviour. Andy was right, this article as it stands is vacuous waffle and needs to be either purged or fixed. I don't have the time or background to do the latter, and I lack the capability to do the former, but someone should take action. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.81.0 (talk) 19:34, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

A possible source
I've just come across this.

It discusses the original source (Doran, 1981) and gives selected quotes. I think this helps us to stay away from being dependent on primary sources.

Yaris678 (talk) 09:50, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Meaning of R in S.M.A.R.T.
That R should mean realistic instead of relevant is strange, for there would be a redundancy to achievable. --Dan Polansky 17:48, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
 * That is not necesarily so. "Realistic" refers to honesty in assessing the existing facts in the present, "achievable" refers to what you reasonably can expect in the future. That said, "reasonable" would be a good choice too. --84.150.30.82 (talk) 22:03, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I've just stumbled across this article and was immediately struck by the fact that the article is inconsistent viz a viz what the "R" in SMART means. I'm sure everyone would agree with me in saying that inconsistency is bad but can we agree on what the R should mean? (In order that we can put it right.) It appears to me that R should stand for Relevant because, as Dan points out, there is overlap with Achievable. Would anyone object to this? If not, please let's edit the article because right now it looks a bit flaky.

ProductBox (talk) 09:07, 29 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I am inclined to agree with Dan and ProductBox. Of course, we should shouldn't just go with what makes sense to use, we should be guided by the sources.  This looks relevant.  It seems that SMART originally meant
 * Specific
 * Measurable
 * Assignable
 * Realistic
 * Time related
 * And now it most-commonly means:
 * Specific
 * Measurable
 * Attainable
 * Relevant
 * Time-bound
 * The overlap between the meanings of A and R don't exist in either version. It is only in versions that combine a bit of both that the overlap exists.
 * In a vague sort of way, the meanings of A and R have been swapped over time. We now often think of objectives for specific people, so the idea that is should be assignable seems like a no brainer - the important thing is that it is relevant to that person (as well as the relevant to the wider objectives of the organisation).
 * Yaris678 (talk) 22:54, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus for move.  Mini  apolis  14:02, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

SMART criteria → SMART objectives – "SMART objectives" describes the subject better than "SMART criteria". Presumably the current title sees SMART as criteria for judging objectives... but I think just saying "SMART objectives" gets to the point quicker. N.B. This page was moved from "SMART (project management)" to "SMART criteria" on 18 February 2009. I can't find any record of a discussion about that move. (For what it's worth, I agree that "SMART criteria" is a better name than "SMART (project management)" Yaris678 (talk) 12:22, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose for now. These do seem to be criteria rather than objectives in and of themselves. What do sources say? --BDD (talk) 22:54, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Good luck in finding sources - the 'criteria' change regularly, based on whatever the latest contributor thinks is appropriate. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:23, 5 June 2013 (UTC)
 * BDD, the first use of this term is in Doran, G. T. (1981) “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management’s goals and objectives”, Management Review, Vol. 70, Issue 11
 * SMART can be applied to both goals and objectives, but that's cos, to most people, they are the same thing. SMART gives you criteria for judging objectives but I don't know of any sources that phase this as "SMART criteria".  Rather you have "SMART objectives" and "non-SMART objectives."  A Google search found me a mention of "SMART goal criteria" though.
 * These certainly are criteria. But they are criteria for judging objectives.
 * I don't feel strongly about this. I just thought the term "SMART objectives" would be easier to recognise.
 * Yaris678 (talk) 18:08, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.


 * I support moving the article to "SMART goals", as the most frequent term. Here is Google Ngram Viewer: SMART objectives,SMART criteria,SMART goals. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:05, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Another discussion about the article title
The first thing I'd like to say is that it looks like "Requested move" was the wrong way to go before. I apologise for starting off the wrong process. "Requested move" is more suited to moving a page over an existing page. It looks like I should have just started a conversation here. (See also: User talk:Yaris678).

So. Let's have a conversation about the best article title. My take on it was that SMART gives criteria for judging goals or objectives. The names SMART criteria, SMART goals, SMART objectives or even SMART targets are all acceptable. It is more a question of thinking which is best.

I would prefer "goals", "objectives" or "targets" because the criteria are specifically criteria for for judging these things, and because it is more common to talk about "SMART goals" and "SMART objectives". Specifically, it is more common to say "these objectives need to be SMART", rather than "these objectives need to meet the SMART criteria."

I preferred "SMART objectives" because that was the term used in the original paper by Doran. It is also consistent with the related concept of management by objectives.

Now Dan Polansky has provided a link to Google books search, which suggests that SMART goals is the most common term. I have expanded the search to include "SMART targets" and we can see that this is roughly as common as "SMART criteria" but less common than both "SMART goals" and "SMART objectives."

I'm not an expert on interpreting Google search results, but this "ngram" approach, looking specifically at Google Books, looks like it will give fewer spurious results than just seeing how many Google hits you get. Interestingly, if I search for the different terms in Google Books, I get slightly different types of books:
 * "SMART objectives" gives relatively formal business-related books. This is consistent with the association with management by objectives.
 * "SMART goals" gives books about personal development in a wide range of fields.
 * "SMART targets" gives a higher proportion of books related to education.
 * "SMART criteria" gives results that seem to be somewhere between those for "SMART objectives" and "SMART goals".

Obviously, there is a big overlap between the results but the focus seems to shift.

So what does this all mean? I guess the fact that the focus of "SMART criteria" is between that of "SMART objectives" and "SMART goals" is a point in favour of sticking with that title. But generally in Wikipedia we try to stick with common names. Arguably the formal business books that talk about "SMART objectives" are more reliable sources than the self-help books that talk about "SMART goals" but I wouldn't want to claim to be an expert on that.

I would be interested to know other people's thoughts on this.

Yaris678 (talk) 13:17, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I support renaming "SMART criteria" to "SMART objectives". I support renaming "SMART criteria" to "SMART goals". I am undecided about whether we should go with formality ("objectives") or frequency ("goals"). --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:29, 24 June 2013 (UTC)


 * While collecting sources for the table, I have just come across Strategic Security Management, which talks about SMART metrics. This is interesting because the definition is very similar but subtly different.  A metric obviously can't be a achievable, but it can be actionable.  i.e. it might give you info that you can do something about.  Similarly The Basics of Performance Measurement talks about SMART performance measures, which are action-oriented.  This being the case, maybe it makes sense to have a section on SMART metrics.  If we do that then "SMART criteria" is probably the best name for the article.  Yaris678 (talk) 15:59, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

New Sections to build out
It would be great to update the "History" section with some more background of the goal development! Also, perhaps it would be useful to add an "Opposing Views" or "Alternative Views" section, given there are papers advocating against the SMART criteria. I will try to add these at some point, but I'm not sure when I'll have time. I just thought I would add here so I don't forget :) Jwild (talk) 21:40, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Are any of these papers viewable online? (Ideally without a fee.) If you post some links on here others might be able to add stuff to the article.... or if not then at least you have a handy list of papers ready for when you have time to edit the article.
 * Yaris678 (talk) 12:51, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Yaris678 (talk) 12:51, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Doran quote
I'd like to discuss this edit. Changing the title of the section may be a good idea but there are some issues with cutting down the quote from Doran.

The pedantic points are:
 * The quote now doesn't have a closing quotation mark
 * You left in the footnote referring to "the last sentence of the quote" even though this sentence isn't in the article any more.

More broadly there is obviously the issue of whether or not to include the bit you removed. I can definitely see that it is not as important as the bit you kept, but it is a note, by the original author, on how the criteria should be interpreted. This seems quite important to me. Jwild, I'm not sure what you meant by "I think this isn't encyclopedic content".

Yaris678 (talk) 13:18, 25 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi! sorry for my delay. So, I see now why it felt like it wasn't "encyclopedic" to me - I didn't realize that whole block was a quote! Maybe if we formatted it a bit differently, using one of the more easily recognizable quote templates it will be more obvious? Of course, it could be that it was just me who overlooked the quotes. I definitely see what you mean now and agree that it is important to include it as a thought of the original author. It could be, too, that we summarize the other pieces (the bullet points with the definitions of the criteria) and only quote the last part which I originally removed. Thanks for your help with this and assisting me in understanding. Jwild (talk) 19:26, 6 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Hi Jwild! Thank you for explaining where your thinking was going on that.  I think the quote template is a good idea and have implemented it.  I have kept the bullet points in the quote.  I think it works well that way. Yaris678 (talk) 15:45, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Source of the quote
Umweltingenieur (talk) 17:21, 6 July 2015 (UTC) Has anyone ever checked the Doran quote? I cannot find the mentioned original article from 1981 in Managemen Review in any library or online resource. Searching the web I found in many cases people just copy&paste the quote from others, due to the typo you often see in the reference: "Management Review, Volume 70, Issue 11(AMA FORUM)" →-> missing space between the issue number and the bracket. I even wasn't able to find any kind of "Journal of Management Review" which published a volume 70 in 1981. Can anyone provide a more exact reference or even a link pointing to the source?
 * I had the same problem in 2013 and managed to get a copy from resource exchange. That's how I knew he said "twins" and not "wins", which is what one source had the quote saying.  The file uploaded at the time is now a deadlink.  I may be able to find the copy if you are interested.  Yaris678 (talk) 08:16, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Excellent!
That table is amazing... Many thanks to those involved in compiling it! Vesal (talk) 14:07, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Achievable, relevant and time-bound
I note that E to the Pi times i has tagged "Possibly the most common version has the remaining letters referring to achievable, relevant and time-bound." in the lead with citation needed. I would like to discuss that.

I added the sentence in June 2017, with the edit summary "Maybe if we give possibly the most common version in the lead, people will be less likely to modify Doran's original version". What I had observed was many years of inexperienced editors changing the quote from Doran in the History section, to reflect what ever they thought the "real" SMART was. This was obviously wrong because the original quote was correct.

Having the text there seems to have worked. It does occasionally get changed itself, but not nearly as often.

The text is effectively a summary of the table in the "Other definitions" section, which is what we would expect of the lead section. It could be argued that this summary strays into WP:SYNTH, but I think it is very mild and we should apply WP:IAR, given the problems we previously had.

I was wondering if we should change the text to something like " An example of a version of the remaining letters is achievable, relevant and time-bound." However, the term "most common" is actually in the table in the current definitions section... so if we are concerned that this is SYNTH we need to change the table. I would be happy to tweak some of the wording around the table, but I really wouldn't want to remove it or change the whole concept of it. The table has been there for years and it gets across the different meanings very effectively and it has received positive feedback, see above. Keeping the table in roughly its current form, rather than zealously applying SYNTH would be a good example of "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it."

Yaris678 (talk) 10:07, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Suggest removal of "Developing SMART goals" section
I don't think the section at the end of the article is appropriate when it's based on a single citation. It simply paraphrases one interpretation. It could probably be removed. Scumble (talk) 15:49, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Just seen the above. For the record, I agree and so removed it in September 2016.  Yaris678 (talk) 10:10, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Sourcing the table
I've just added some sources to the table. I think we should add some more sources and then reassess the table. We may find that some terms aren't verified in the sources we find. We may find we want to re-order some terms.

Does this make sense?

Yaris678 (talk) 20:15, 5 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I've found a paper that talks about how many different interpretations there are of SMART. Yaris678 (talk) 17:07, 14 July 2013 (UTC)


 * This confirms what I've noted earlier - that the 'criteria' seem to change regularly, based on the whim of whoever edited the article last. Only it isn't just our article, but elsewhere too. Basically, we now have a source that tells us that there are no established criteria any more. On this basis, it is no longer supportable for our article to list a single set of 'criteria' - and I can't see how we could go any further in establishing the history of the 'criteria', or the relative popularity of different 'criteria', without engaging in original research. Which we can't do. This is a mess... AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:19, 14 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I mostly agree. I think ultimately the article will change so that the lead doesn't give a definitive list of what the words mean... although it may allude to specific and measurable since these are pretty consistently present.  In the body of the article we need to give a good overview of what the different sources say.  We should try to find the most reliable and relevant sources and summarise those.  Ultimately, I think the table will go or change significantly in form.  I don't want to make a "big bang" change though.  Collecting sources that look reliable and relevant and sticking them in the table looked like a good first step.  Yaris678 (talk) 18:39, 16 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I have just modified the lead in-line with what I said on 16 July 2013. Hopefully that will reduce the number of IPs changing it to reflect the version they know.  Fingers crossed.  Yaris678 (talk) 12:46, 17 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The change which was previously made (to allow for alternative definitions in a table form) seems to be holding up well; if the research suggests that no established (really, canonical) criteria exist then it might be worth considering removal of the citations annotating the table & prefacing the table with a qualification of the same... idfubar (talk) 23:16, 15 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi Idfubar. Can you explain?  I'm not sure why removing the citations from the table would help.  Also, I don't know why you have [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=SMART_criteria&type=revision&diff=671625471&oldid=670334844 added] some meanings without citations.
 * Yaris678 (talk) 16:46, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
 * With respect, is it too much to accept that the letters in SMART mean what the person using the tool wants/needs them to mean? If the originator of the idea that linking five planning criteria to the five letters in an apposite word was promoting the idea of objective-setting WITHIN an organisation, then the letters needed to stand for planning criteria that relate to that context (hence Assignable). When a tutor is promoting to students the idea that their career development will benefit from SMART personal objectives, then 'Achievable' is more appropriate. 'SMART' lives on, because it is a flexible tool that above all else, sells the benefit of a structured approach to planning/target setting.  Why worry it to bits, when the core message is clear? 82.32.112.174 (talk) 18:52, 17 January 2018 (UTC)
 * OK. So do you want to change the article?  Yaris678 (talk) 20:31, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

Image from commons
Hi Biogeographist,

I'm really not keen on the image from commons that you added. I have just removed it. A few years ago, there was quite a lot of these, where people would make up a set of logos to represent the topic of the article... and most of them were dubious quality.

The most obvious issue with this on is that it seems to imply that there is only one thing that SMART stands for, when the whole of the rest of the article is carefully written to make clear that is not the case!

But then we also have issues like "why does bar chart mean measurable, whereas line graph means attainable?"

I removed the image when it was added by its creator.

Am I missing something?

21:55, 29 April 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yaris678 (talk • contribs) 21:55, 29 April 2018 (UTC)


 * That sounds fine; I had not considered those issues. I have not been following this article, so I wasn't aware of the article history. What happened is that someone added that image to Goal setting, which I considered to be undue weight on SMART criteria in that article, so I removed the image from that article and pasted it into this one. It's not something I thought much about, and your rationale for excluding the image sounds good to me. Thanks, Biogeographist (talk) 22:18, 29 April 2018 (UTC)


 * OK. Thanks for the explanation.  Yaris678 (talk) 09:23, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Definitions column
Hi Dshea4,

I have removed the definitions column again, which you had re-added. As I said the first time, the "definitions" column relates to one term, not always the most common, and is based on a low-ish quality and confused source.

To expand on what I mean by confused. That source has both "achievable" and "realistic". Two words that mean very similar things.

I think it would be hard to add a definitions column. If one were to try, I would probably base it on the "most common" column and I would certainly base it on the highest quality source I could find. Maybe Graham 2013 and/or Fry & Osterloh 2002.

Yaris678 (talk) 11:44, 1 November 2018 (UTC)