SMART Objectives: Examples for Every Team

What Are SMART Objectives?

A SMART objective is a goal written clearly enough that you and the person doing it agree, in advance, what success looks like. The five letters are a checklist: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound.

Compare two objectives for the same person:

• “Improve customer service.”
• “Reduce our average reply time to customer emails from two working days to one by 31 March, using the new reply templates.”

The first sounds fine until review time, when you discover you each meant something different. The second can’t be misunderstood. That’s the whole point of SMART: it moves the argument from the end of the year, when it’s too late, to the start, when it’s useful.

Acas guidance on performance reviews recommends that objectives are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound, and that they should be fair and reflect the employee’s usual tasks and workload, while sometimes stretching them to develop. Setting clear objectives is also one of the behaviours in HSE’s Line Manager Competency Indicator Tool: “I clearly communicate job objectives to my team”. It’s a core skill in our management training, because so much else (feedback, appraisals, handling underperformance) depends on it.

What Does SMART Stand For?

The version most UK employers use, and the one Acas uses, is:

• Specific: clear about what the person will actually do. Not “help with stock”, but “carry out the weekly stock count for aisles 1 to 6”.
• Measurable: you’ll both know whether it’s been achieved. A number, a standard, a deadline met or a thing delivered.
• Achievable: realistic for this person, with the time, skills and support they have. A stretch is fine; a fantasy isn’t.
• Relevant: connected to their job and the team’s priorities, so it’s worth the effort.
• Time-bound: with a date, and ideally check-in points along the way.

Where Did SMART Come From?

The acronym is usually credited to George T. Doran, a former corporate planning director, in a two-page article called “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management’s goals and objectives” in the November 1981 issue of Management Review. His letters were slightly different: specific, measurable, assignable (say who will do it), realistic and time-related.

Doran’s article is also more relaxed than most of what’s written about it since. He didn’t expect every objective to tick all five boxes, and he accepted that not everything a manager does can be neatly quantified. It’s a test to improve objectives, not a rule that makes the unmeasurable worthless.

Other Versions of SMART

You’ll see plenty of variations. None is “correct”; pick one and use it consistently across your organisation.

Letter	Common alternatives
S	Specific, simple, significant
M	Measurable, meaningful, motivating
A	Achievable, attainable, agreed, assignable, action-oriented
R	Relevant, realistic, reasonable, results-based
T	Time-bound, time-related, timely, trackable

SMARTER adds two letters, most often Evaluate (or evaluated) and Review (or reviewed). It’s a reminder that an objective set and never looked at again is wasted. “Agreed” is a useful A for teams, because an objective the person had no say in is rarely one they own.

How to Write a SMART Objective

Start with the outcome, then test it against each letter.

1. Write what you want in plain words. “I want Sam to take over the supplier review meeting.”
2. Make it specific. What exactly will Sam do? “Chair the monthly supplier review meeting, prepare the agenda and circulate actions.”
3. Add the measure. How will you both know? “Actions circulated within two working days of each meeting.”
4. Check it’s achievable. Does Sam have the knowledge, time and support? If not, add the support: “after sitting in on the next meeting with me”.
5. Check it’s relevant. Why does it matter? It frees your time and develops Sam’s supplier management, which Sam asked for.
6. Set the time. “From the March meeting, reviewed at our April and June one-to-ones.”

Put together: “From March, chair the monthly supplier review meeting, preparing the agenda and circulating actions within two working days, after sitting in on the February meeting with me. We’ll review how it’s going at our April and June one-to-ones.”

Then do the most important step: agree it with the person. Acas’s own example has the employee and manager agreeing the objective, how it’s achievable, and when to review it.

Our free SMART objectives template below sets this out as a table, with a column for each letter, the linked team goal, support needed and review dates, plus three worked examples and a quick checklist.

SMART Objectives Examples by Team

The examples below are illustrations. Swap in your own numbers, dates and systems; the structure is what matters. Each one names what will be done, how it’s measured and by when.

Sales Team

1. Hold at least eight face-to-face meetings with new prospects each month from April to September, logged in the CRM within 24 hours.
2. Increase the average order value on repeat accounts from £X to £Y by the end of Q3, by introducing the add-on range at every review visit.
3. Complete account plans for your ten largest customers by 30 June, and review each one with your manager by the end of July.
4. Reduce the number of quotes older than 30 days without a follow-up to zero by the end of next month, then keep it there.
5. Shadow two senior colleagues on discovery calls before 31 May, and use the question bank on your own next five first meetings.

Operations and Warehouse

6. Reduce picking errors on your shift from X per week to Y per week by the end of the quarter, using the new scan-to-confirm process.
7. Complete the weekly stock count for aisles 1 to 6 by 10am every Monday from next week, with variances reported to the shift manager the same day.
8. Write a one-page standard operating procedure for the goods-in check by 15 April, test it with two new starters, and update it from their feedback.
9. Cross-train on the despatch process by the end of June, so you can cover a full despatch shift unsupervised.

Care Team

10. Complete your outstanding mandatory training modules by 28 February, and discuss what you’ve learnt at your next supervision.
11. Update the care plans for your three key residents within a week of each monthly review, and sign off any changes with the senior carer.
12. Learn to use the new electronic care recording system to the standard agreed with your team leader by the end of next month, with records checked weekly until then.
13. Lead one activity session a week for residents on your unit from April, and record attendance and feedback.

Health and Safety

14. Carry out a manual handling risk assessment for the goods-in area by 31 March, using the company template, and present the findings at the April team meeting.
15. Run a five-minute safety talk at the start of every Monday shift from next week, using the topic list, and log attendance.
16. Increase near-miss reports from your team from X a month to Y a month by the end of the quarter, by running a short reporting refresher this month and reviewing every report at the weekly meeting.
17. Check that the COSHH assessments for all cleaning products in your area are in date by 30 April, and flag any gaps to the site manager.

Office, Admin and Customer Service

18. Reduce the average reply time to customer emails from two working days to one by 31 March, using the new reply templates.
19. Process supplier invoices within five working days of receipt from next month, with a weekly report of any outside that.
20. Set up and test a shared folder structure for the team’s project files by 15 May, and move all live projects into it by the end of May.
21. Answer the main phone line within five rings during your cover hours from Monday, and log every call that needs a callback.

Managers and Team Leaders

22. Hold a one-to-one with each team member at least every two weeks from now until the end of the year, rescheduling within the same week if one is cancelled.
23. Delegate two tasks you currently do yourself by the end of next quarter, using the delegation planner, and agree the level of authority for each (see our guide to delegation skills).
24. Agree three to five SMART objectives with each team member by 31 January, and review them at every one-to-one.
25. Reduce your team’s overtime hours by X% by the end of Q2, by rebalancing the rota, without increasing missed deadlines.

SMART Objectives for Personal Development

Not every objective is about output. Development objectives are about what the person will learn or get better at, and they’re the ones most often left vague (“improve my confidence”, “develop leadership skills”).

The trick is to make the evidence measurable, even when the skill isn’t directly countable. Ask: what would we see them doing differently?

• Vague: “Get better at presenting.”
• SMART: “Present the monthly figures at two team meetings before the end of June, after a practice run with me, and ask three colleagues for one piece of feedback each.”
• Vague: “Develop leadership skills.”
• SMART: “Lead the induction for the next two new starters by September, using the induction checklist, and review how it went with me afterwards.”
• Vague: “Learn Excel.”
• SMART: “Complete the intermediate spreadsheet e-learning course by 30 April, then build the weekly team report in Excel yourself from May.”

Development objectives work best inside a wider plan. Our personal development plan template shows how to set them out, and if you’re writing objectives for a training session rather than a person, see how to write learning objectives.

Common Mistakes With SMART Objectives

• Too many. Twelve objectives means none of them are priorities. Three to five for a review period is easier to manage and to remember.
• Measuring what’s easy, not what matters. “Attend three training courses” is measurable, but attending isn’t the point. Measure the change you want.
• Set by the manager alone. Acas’s example has the employee and manager agreeing the objective together. People commit to objectives they helped shape.
• No support in the “achievable” bit. If the objective needs time, training or a system the person doesn’t have, the objective has to say how they’ll get it.
• Set and forgotten. An objective nobody mentions for eleven months is a surprise at the appraisal, not an objective.
• Never changed. If the business changes in March, a December objective may stop being relevant. Change it, and note why.
• Treating SMART as the only test. An objective can be perfectly SMART and still be the wrong thing to aim for. Check it serves the team’s real priorities first.

Linking SMART Objectives to One-to-Ones and Appraisals

Objectives are only as useful as the conversations around them. Acas says performance reviews might be based on whether the employee is meeting agreed objectives, and that alongside formal reviews, managers should talk to employees regularly through feedback, coaching and check-ins (one-to-ones).

A simple rhythm that works for most teams:

1. At the start of the period: agree three to five SMART objectives, including at least one development objective. Write them down and share them.
2. At every one-to-one: spend five minutes on progress. What’s on track, what’s at risk, what support is needed? Our one-to-one meeting template has a slot for this.
3. When something changes: update the objective there and then, rather than holding someone to a target that no longer makes sense.
4. At the review or appraisal: look back over the evidence you’ve both been discussing all year. Nothing should come as a surprise.

Clear objectives also matter when performance isn’t where it should be. If you reach the stage of a performance improvement plan, Acas expects it to set out specific objectives and a reasonable timeline to improve. Our guide to managing underperformance covers that process.

And it’s good for wellbeing, not just results. HSE’s Management Standard on role expects that employees understand their role and responsibilities, and that the requirements placed on them are clear. Well-written objectives are one of the simplest ways to deliver that. They’re also one of the habits in our guide on how to be a good manager.

What to Do Next

This week, take one objective you’ve already set for someone and test it against the five letters. If you can’t say how you’ll both know it’s been achieved, or by when, rewrite it with them at your next one-to-one.

Then look at the whole set. If anyone has more than five, agree which ones really matter. If anyone has none about their own development, add one.

If your managers find objective-setting, feedback and appraisals hard to get right, our management training covers them with practice on real scenarios from your workplace. For the bigger picture of what a new manager needs, start with our guide to management vs leadership.