SMART Goal Setting

[Treehouse presents] 0:00 [Quick tips: Goal setting with Pasan Premaratne] 0:03 Hi! I am Pasan. 0:05 In this treehouse quick tip, we're going to talk about 0:07 goal setting for your business using Smart Framework. 0:09 All businesses strive for success, 0:12 and by setting, aligning, and tracking goals, 0:14 they can set themselves on the right path. 0:17 But how do you pick and set goals? 0:19 It might seem intuitive, but it's really not. 0:21 Set goals with tight deadlines, 0:24 and you will have unnecessary stress. 0:26 Set goals with large deadlines, 0:28 and you'll undermine your employees. 0:30 Using the Smart Framework, you can create specific, 0:31 realistic goals that will increase employee performance 0:35 and closely tie them with your company's overall mission and strategy. 0:38 SMART stands for specific, measureable, attainable, 0:42 realistic, and timely. 0:45 Let's go through each part individually. 0:47 The first requirement of the Smart Framework 0:50 is that we set specific and non-general goals. 0:52 When you set specific goals, 0:55 employees know exactly what is expected of them, 0:57 and managers can track this progress more effectively. 1:00 To set a specific goal, we answer 6 W questions. 1:03 Who is involved? What is the goal to be accomplished? 1:07 When should the task be completed? 1:11 Where is this task's location? 1:13 Which constraints or requirements are we working with? 1:16 And finally, why are we working on this goal, 1:19 and what are the benefits of completing it? 1:22 A general goal can be finish off a website redesign. 1:25 Under the Smart Framework, we would say, 1:29 "The design team (who) should finish the redesign 1:31 "of the client's website (what) 1:34 "within the next 14 days (when), 1:36 "using the brand guidelines provided by the client (which) 1:39 to ensure prompt payment and continued business (why)." 1:43 Now, not every W question can be answered, 1:46 but answering as much as we can gets us a very specific goal. 1:49 The next part is measurable. 1:53 You should come up with concrete ways 1:56 to measure advancement through a goal or the achievement of a milestone. 1:58 Not only does this help you track progress 2:01 but it offers the psychological encouragement 2:04 of completing a task, which spurs you on to keep going. 2:06 After that, goals have to be attainable. 2:09 And not attainable by your best employee, 2:13 but attainable by everyone's standards. 2:15 When you set goals that are attainable, you develop the attitudes, 2:17 abilities, and skills to complete your goals 2:21 and ensure continued success. 2:24 Once you've established a pattern of setting and achieving small goals, 2:26 you can set bigger goals and reach even further. 2:29 The next step is pretty much self-explanatory: 2:33 your goals need to be realistic. 2:35 You need to be able to work on a goal within your constraints 2:37 and, more importantly, be willing to work on the goal. 2:41 If you set a goal just for the sake of setting it 2:44 but you don't want to or can't work on it, 2:46 you're not going to reach the goal, and you've just set yourself up for failure. 2:49 Finally, give yourself appropriate time to finish your goal. 2:52 This is also crucial to avoiding failure. 2:57 As you can get better at achieving goals, 3:00 you can finish off bigger tasks in the same time-frame. 3:02 But you have to build up to it, 3:05 start small, learn to set proper, specific, and measurable tasks, 3:08 And then get in the habit of finishing it off. 3:12 Then you'll be on the right path to success. 3:15

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