Establish SMART Goals for 2017
- Monday, 02 January 2017
Your company needs solid goals and objectives to look forward to. It's not about wishful thinking, but about specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely objectives. Learn more about SMART goals here.
It was George T. Doran who first talked about SMART goals in his paper There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives. In 1981, Doran created this acronym to describe goals in a way managers could easily build a plan for. Over the years, different authors, academics, and business gurus have modified this acronym to better fit their specific industries or areas of interest.
The big question is, how does this adapt to the construction industry? More specifically, how does this adapt to your construction firm? Here are a few pointers:
Specific
Identify specific issues to be solved or objectives to be reached in your construction company. For example, maybe you would like to grow your customer base by 10%. Or perhaps you would like to cut procurement costs by 15%.
Measurable
Your goals should be measurable. Of course, everyone wants to increase sales or cut costs, but by how much? How do you know you have improved upon sales or best practices? You need to measure everything and keep historical data in order to analyze and compare. For example, if your goal is to cut waste by 15%, how much waste do you have right now in the first place? How will you know when you have cut 15% of waste? You can easily keep track of data by using construction information software.
Attainable
Rome was not built in one day. We all want to hit the jackpot with as little effort as possible, but we need to be realistic. Set attainable goals based on available resources, capital and time.
Realistic
Realistic goals are similar to attainable goals. There is a slight difference, for example:
- Realistic goals: Win a new client every month.
- Unrealistic goals: Keep costs at $0
- Attainable goals: win a new client every month through existing sales executives
- Unattainable goals: win a new client every month by overspending in marketing and sales strategies
Timely
Every project must have a deadline. Establish a deadline for the big picture and then break it down into tasks with specific dates.
As a bonus: make sure everyone knows about these goals. Different teams even go as far as designing t-shirts and mugs with their goals printed on them. Everyone in the team must be in on the idea for it to succeed.