You may have only recently heard of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely) goals, but the concept has been around for decades. It started out as a management-focused framework before gradually expanding over the years to different parts of organizations everywhere, including technology teams.
If you’re curious about SMART, let’s break down its components and what they mean for you. This framework can only help you advance your skills and ultimately your tech career.
Specific
Your goals have to be well-defined, not vague. For instance, if one of your goals is to learn a new programming language such as Python, then you might specify to what level such as intermediate or expert. What steps are needed to achieve this?
Measurable
This is how you define success or failure. If the goal is to reduce technical debt by addressing 20 percent of current back issues, then that's easy to verify. Conversely, measuring something more nebulous, such as learning a programming language to a certain level, can prove more difficult (you might do it by listing certain language features that have to be mastered, but this kind of measurement is also subjective).
Achievable
Your goals must be both doable and realistic. For example, it’s virtually impossible for most people to master the programming languages and tools necessary to build a AAA game all by themselves; you need a team and lots of resources to pull off something like that. If a goal isn’t achievable via your current means, you need to reset your thinking.
Relevant
Is your goal relevant to either your personal development or a company objective? If all developers on your team must know Git so the company can switch to using it, then learning Git is a relevant goal for you and your colleagues.
Timely
Setting a deadline on a goal adds motivation to get it done. Without a deadline, it will likely be forgotten about or left until the appraisal looms.
Whenever you're thinking about a goal, it might be worth finding out what other team members are doing. Goals aren't something secret that only you and your manager can know; integrating your colleagues into the discussion can help you achieve your aims. However, you'll likely need to work with your manager on any kind of broader team alignment.
Appraisals and Evaluations
Previously, appraisals and evaluations were usually done annually, and relied on looking back at what you'd achieved during the year. Some organizations have shifted to quarterly evaluations, with SMART goals adjusting three or four times a year.
Not all goals have the same importance, and some goal systems allow you to set appropriate weightings (i.e., a percentage score for each goal). It's important that all the percentages add up to 100 percent. As work is done on each goal, you can track progress by setting a %done for that goal.
With a SMART system in place, the appraisals can still happen once a year, but checking in regularly, perhaps quarterly, can be used to measure progress on goals and possibly revise them. Sometimes things don't quite work out as planned, or maybe the weightings need adjusting.
Here is an Example SMART Goal for a New Developer
Specific: Fully working knowledge of the version control system, overnight build system and bug reporting system within two weeks’ time.
Measurable: Be able to check in code, start the build running, and enter or process bugs in the bug reporting system.
Achievable: Work with a more senior developer to help you get set up with all the above.
Relevant: The company requires all developers to have a minimum set of knowledge of how the team’s development process works.
Timely: Two weeks should be sufficient to learn all this.
Conclusion
Update your goals progress and schedule regular check-ins with your manager. You want to stay on track, and that sort of monitoring is the best way to do it. If a task appears too big, split it into smaller tasks; the same is true for goals.
