SMART

SMART

SMART is a mnemonic, giving criteria to guide in the setting of objectives, for example in project management, employee performance management and personal development. The letters broadly conform to the words specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound.
The first known use of the term occurs in the November 1981 issue of Management Review by George T. Doran.
SMARTER gives two additional criteria, evaluate and reevaluate, intended to ensure that targets are not forgotten.

There's a SMART way

The November 1981 issue of Management Review contained a paper by George T. Doran called There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives. It discussed the importance of objectives and the difficulty in setting them. The paper said "Ideally speaking, each corporate, department, and section objective should be:

Notice that these criteria don’t say that all objectives must be quantified on all levels of management. In certain situations it is not realistic to attempt quantification, particularly in staff middle-management positions. Practicing managers and corporations can lose the benefit of a more abstract objective in order to gain quantification. It is the combination of the objective and its action plan that is really important. Therefore, serious management should focus on these twins and not just the objective."