Help in SMART goals

Sam Bat

Starting to get Involved
Greetings, gentlemen
I work in aviation. Which of the following points, based on your extensive experience in the field of quality, can be used and applied to SMART goals?

1 - Improve quality of service.
2 - Improve outsourced service.
3 - Improve internal and external interaction.
4 - Reduce organizational risk.
5 - Process standardization.
6 - Enhance contractual agreements.
7 - Enhance manpower optimization.
8 - Competence development.
9 - Infrastructure improvement.
10 - Increase employees engagement.

Can we take one of these and make a SMART goal as an example?
Attached is a SMART template

Thank you
Sam
 

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Mike S.

Happy to be Alive
Trusted Information Resource
#8

We want to improve competence in the Welding Department. Joe Blow and Sally Smith from the Welding Department will both become AWS-12345 Certified Welders by 12/31/22.
 

Sam Bat

Starting to get Involved
Thank you for your prompt response.

Which of the ten, in your opinion, should I choose? I'm supposed to pick six and work on them.

Thanks
Sam
 

Sam Bat

Starting to get Involved
1 - Specific:
The goal should have a very clear, very specific end point. It won't be SMART if your goal isn't clear.

2- Measurable:
Keep track of your progress so you can figure out when a goal will be met.

3 - Attainable:
Setting an overly ambitious objective will lead to failure. This will demotivate you now and in the future.

4- Relevant:
The objective you choose should be relevant to your chosen field or directly benefit you.

5 - Time-Bound:
Finally, defining a deadline for your goal helps to further quantify it and keeps your focus on track.
 

Steve Prevette

Deming Disciple
Leader
Super Moderator
Actually, the primary problem I found in my work SMART goals related to corrective action management was - LACK OF AN EXIT STRATEGY. Plans are set, goals are set, all to write a wonderful sounding plan for the client. BUT months later they are still trying to figure out - did we achieve anything? And "we are tired of this, so how do we declare victory and put this behind us", with a repeat occurrence of the problem a few months later.

And on your list of 10 items, I'd say - all are at least Measurable. There is even a book out there - How to Measure Anything Book | Douglas Hubbard (hubbardresearch.com) . It's really a pretty good book, if a bit cliched. Now I would say it is hard to measure things like love, dedication, loyalty, but there are ways to observe those items and draw relative conclusions.
 

Ed Panek

QA RA Small Med Dev Company
Leader
Super Moderator
Its also possible that goals and objectives that are set no longer are logical. Some constraints that could impact completion include

Cost
Time
Performance
Business needs
Individual ability
Physical constraints
External forces (Covid, weather)
Change in management
Sales opportunity change
Customer demand change
Technology limitations
Someone else already completed the task

Etc.

For our Management Review, I would then gather the information we learned setting those goals and use that to improve goal objective set in the future. For example, implement a new production line. This objective was placed on hold due to the outbreak of the Novel Coronavirus. Reasons include lack of personnel, customer demand, and physical constraints that prevented us from implementing social distancing in production.

Lessons learned - Production could be simplified by doing x y z and this will be our new objective for 2022.
 

Sam Bat

Starting to get Involved
Thank you, Steve and Ed,
I appreciate your participation in this discussion and the opportunity to learn from your experiences. Is there, in your opinion, a more successful alternative to SMART goals?
 

Steve Prevette

Deming Disciple
Leader
Super Moderator
The biggest thing to look at is the "Attainable" piece. Dr. Deming would tell us - if it was so attainable, why weren't we doing it all along? And choosing a "time bound" that is unrealistic just demoralizes folks.

The better alternative is from Dr. Deming's work - understand the variation to say - is this "special cause" - from a changing condition which we must find and un-do - or was the system always incapable and having "Common Cause" which would imply we need to change the process. Rarely should we blame the person closest to the problem - the worker. But SMART tends to go for the 'instant pudding' that feels good, but is ineffective. If all it took was setting a goal - why didn't you do that a long time ago. Things to look at include:

- Plan Do Study Act
- System of Profound Knowledge (Variation - Systems - Knowledge - Psychology)
- 14 Points, especially those related to respect and the workforce. With the "great resignation" respecting the workforce and not knee jerk asking - who's going to get fired - is even more important these days.
 
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