SMART criteria

George T. Doran · 1981

Five tests a written objective has to pass before it counts as one.

Its place in the frameworkGoal Core›Short term goals

What it does

Specific, measurable, assignable, realistic, time-related. The letters have been rewritten many times since, but the original point survives all the versions: an objective nobody could prove was met is not an objective, it is a sentiment with a deadline attached to it later.

Reach for it when: As a last check before a goal is written down and agreed. It takes a minute and it catches most of what goes wrong.
Where it stops: It tests the wording, not the ambition. A goal can pass all five and still be the wrong goal, and the criteria quietly favour what is easy to measure.

George T. Doran, “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives”, Management Review, 1981.

Why it sits at Short term goals

The near horizon: what has to be true within weeks or a quarter. Short term goals exist to produce movement and evidence early, while there is still time to act on what they reveal.

A model is only useful when you reach for it at the right moment. This one answers a question that arises here — so it is filed here, and nowhere else. These are the working areas it serves:

Quarterly objectivesLocke & Latham’s goal-setting theory on specificity and difficulty; the quarterly cadence formalised in OKR practice by Grove and later Doerr.
MilestonesProject management practice, and the stage-gate model’s insistence that each gate is a real decision point rather than a formality.
Quick winsKotter’s change model, in which generating short-term wins is a distinct step rather than a by-product.
Leading indicatorsKaplan & Norton’s leading and lagging distinction, developed for the Balanced Scorecard.

All of Short term goals

What it touches elsewhere

Nothing in a business is decided on its own. A conclusion reached with this model at Short term goals lands in these other cores, whether or not anyone follows it there.

Data CoreLeading indicators are defined here and collected there.
Time CoreQuarters, milestones and the year wheel are where these goals are sequenced.
Business CoreMost short term goals land on an operational object, and that is who has to deliver them.

Filed at the same place

These answer questions that arise at Short term goals too. Where they disagree with this one, the disagreement is the useful part.

Objectives and key resultsA qualitative objective paired with a few numbers that would have to move for it to be true.

Elsewhere in Goal Core

These are other people’s models, named here so you can go to the source and use them properly. The Omnigoal is not affiliated with their authors and is not endorsed by them; nothing of theirs is reproduced here — no canvas, no diagram, no wording. Each is described in our own words, with the originator credited, because the framework is a place to put thinking, not a replacement for the people who did it. Model names and trademarks belong to their respective owners and are used here only to refer to the work itself.

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