AI-SMART Objectives

I loved reading about Kapta’s insightful software service that helps organizations align day-to-day actions with strategic objectives and wanted to revisit the topic of SMART objectives that I wrote about back in 2007.

Kapta’s CEO, Alex Raymond, has some great insights about what makes for a good organizational objective.  Specifically, I like his notions of:

• Ambitious — “The goal should be bold and exciting, something for people to rally around. Not impossible to reach, but still aggressive.”
• Inclusive — “Everyone in the company needs to understand how they contribute to each goal. Otherwise, employees can lose motivation and clarity.”

Adding those notions to the SMART framework, one would obtain “AI SMART” objectives:

• Ambitious — aim high
• Inclusive — everyone can contribute
• Specific — concrete, actionable
• Measurable — we’ll know if we hit the mark
• Attainable — realistic to achieve
• Results-oriented — produces a meaningful impact
• Time-bound — by a certain due date

I’m going to start using this framework for assessing goals.  It’s the start of a quarter…   I hope this is helpful for all of you out there setting quarterly objectives and OKR’s!