SMART Goals: How to Turn Vague Plans Into Visible Progress
A practical guide to making SMART goals actually work
In this issue:
Part 1: Understanding SMART Goals
What Are SMART Goals?
Why SMART Goals Often Don’t Work
Part 2: Applying SMART Goals
The 5 Filters for Real SMART Goals
How to Turn “Fluffy” to SMART
The SMART Goals Builder Worksheet
Part 3: Going From Here
Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
Recommended Resources
Final Thoughts
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You’ve been here before.
The quarter starts with a bang. The strategy deck looks sharp, the team is excited, and everyone is eager to get started. You host the kickoff meeting, and by the end of it, you have a tidy list of goals - prioritized and aligned. What’s more, they’re all ‘SMART’ goals, as you know them.
Then, as the weeks pass, reality hits. Priorities shift, fires erupt, and balls start dropping. Three weeks later, you ask your team member about one of those goals and get a blank stare or a “Yeah, I think that’s still in progress.”
The reality with goal setting is this: most leaders don’t fail because they didn’t set goals. They fail because they never shipped them.
Over the last 20 years in the software and tech world, I’ve seen how often well-intended plans crumble under real-world pressure, even with experienced teams, smart people, and SMART goals.
This post is for you if you’re tired of that cycle. If you want a system that goes beyond buzzwords and helps you and your team turn vague plans into actual, visible progress, this post is for you.
Let’s fix this.
Part 1: Understanding SMART Goals
In this section, we’ll revisit the original SMART goals framework, how it works when used well, and why most teams still struggle to apply it in practice.
What Are SMART Goals?
SMART goals date back to a 1981 paper by George Doran called “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. Way to Write Management’s Goals and Objectives.”
The acronym stands for:
Specific – Is the goal clear and unambiguous?
Measurable – Can you track progress or results?
Achievable – Is the goal realistic given your resources?
Relevant – Does it matter to your business or team right now?
Time-bound – Is there a real deadline?
Let’s now look at each of these attributes in a bit more detail.
S – Specific
Vague goals don’t get done.
When a goal is too broad or generic, it leads to confusion, scattered effort, and very little progress. “Improve customer experience” is not a goal, it’s a fuzzy intention.
Specificity brings focus. A specific goal answers the “what,” “why,” and sometimes even the “how.” For example: “Redesign the onboarding flow to reduce drop-off rates in the first 7 days.” Now everyone knows exactly what’s being done, and why it matters.
A good test: If you explained the goal to someone new on the team, would they understand what needs to happen? If not, you’re not specific enough.
M – Measurable
If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
A measurable goal includes clear criteria for success. It removes the subjectivity. “Launch faster” might sound ambitious, but what does that even mean? Is 5% faster enough? 50%? When you define a goal like, “Reduce average support response time from 12 hours to under 4 hours,” there’s no debate about whether or not you hit the mark.
Measurable doesn’t always mean numerical, but it should always be trackable. Progress should be visible to you, your team, and your stakeholders.
A – Achievable
A goal should stretch the team, not snap them.
“Achievable” doesn’t mean easy. It means realistic, given the time, tools, and team you have. Setting wildly ambitious goals may feel exciting in the moment, but it often leads to burnout, missed deadlines, and frustration. On the other hand, goals that are too safe kill momentum, and take away the challenge and the learning.
You want that sweet spot: challenging enough to push boundaries, but grounded enough to be finished. Ask: Do we believe this can actually happen, with the resources we have today?
R – Relevant
Every goal should tie back to a bigger priority.
“Relevant” means it matters: to your mission, your team, or your current business focus. You could spend a month improving a dashboard that no one uses, or writing documentation no one reads. Is that the best use of your team’s time?
A relevant goal answers the “so what?” It connects effort → impact. It reminds the team that they’re not just checking boxes, they’re moving closer to the ultimate purpose.
T – Time-bound
A goal without a deadline is just a wish.
Time-bound goals force clarity and create urgency. They help with planning, prioritization, and trade-offs. When you say, “Ship the new pricing page by October 10,” the team can break that into milestones and know what needs to happen this week.
Without time constraints, even the best goals drift into “someday.” And in leadership, “someday” is the beginning of never.
The SMART goals framework sounds simple, right? But don’t mistake simple for easy.
SMART goals are designed to bring clarity, accountability, and alignment, the very three things every leader needs more of. When done right, they can make your team into a value delivery machine.
So why do they fail so often? Let’s find out.
Why SMART Goals Often Don’t Work
Here’s what I’ve observed across engineering, product, design, and even leadership teams:
The goals are too vague. (“Improve load times.” Okay… by how much, and how?)
The metrics are impossible to measure. (“Increase innovation.” Cool, but how do you quantify that?)
They’re not achievable in the real timeline. (“Deliver the new feature in 3 weeks.” Okay… so are we doubling the team size?)
Or they’re irrelevant, tied to a priority that’s not even related to the vision.
Worst of all, they’re filed away in a document no one reads again. Remember all those rotting wiki pages with < 5 views?
In other words, the SMART goal becomes a one-time event, not a living tool.
And that’s what we’re here to fix.
Part 2: Applying SMART Goals
In this section, you will learn how to apply SMART goals effectively in your leadership role.
First, you will learn how to apply the 5 Filters for Real SMART Goals, a simple framework to pressure-test any goal
Then, we will review how you can turn “fluffy” goals into SMART goals with the help of several examples
Finally, we will make it real with the SMART Goals Builder Worksheet, which you can use to craft effective SMART goals for your teams.