SMART goals examples: 40 work goals and a goal builder
Start from an example, or type your own
Grow new mid-market accounts from 8 to 12 a quarter by the end of Q2, booking 10 discovery calls a week from the target list, so the team hits its half-year number.
- Sspecificpassed
- Mmeasurablepassed
- Aachievablepassed
- Rrelevantpassed
- Ttime-boundpassed
All five checks pass.
These SMART goals examples are written for work: 40 goals for eight roles, each rewritten from the vague version people usually start with, plus 10 goals a whole team can share. Every one says what will change, by how much, how, why it matters and by when. Use the builder above to write your own, or run the 30-minute SMART goals exercise below with your team. It works for a new year planning session, a quarterly review or a new hire’s first week.
What SMART stands for
Each letter is a question to ask of a goal. Here is how one support goal answers all five.
- Specific
What exactly will you do?
Example: “Cut first response time on email tickets”
- Measurable
What number tells you it worked?
Example: “from 6 hours to 2”
- Achievable
How will you get there with what you have?
Example: “adding a morning and afternoon triage rota”
- Relevant
Why does this matter to the team or the business?
Example: “so customers hear back the same working day”
- Time-bound
By when?
Example: “by March 31”
Put together, that reads: “Cut first response time on email tickets from 6 hours to 2 by March 31, adding a morning and afternoon triage rota, so customers hear back the same working day.”
The acronym is usually traced to an article by George T. Doran, “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management’s goals and objectives,” in the November 1981 issue of Management Review. In his version the letters stood for specific, measurable, assignable (say who will do it), realistic and time-related. Achievable and relevant came later and are the words most teams use today.
40 SMART goals examples for work, by role
Five SMART goals for employees in each of eight roles. Each starts from the vague goal people tend to write, followed by the SMART version. Tap the same role in the builder to load any of them and edit it.
Sales
- Vague: Sell more.Grow new mid-market accounts from 8 to 12 a quarter by the end of Q2, booking 10 discovery calls a week from the target list, so the team hits its half-year number.
- Vague: Get better at follow-up.Send a follow-up email after every demo within 24 hours for all of Q1, using a two-line template saved in the CRM, so prospects keep their momentum after the call.
- Vague: Build a bigger pipeline.Raise qualified pipeline to 3 times my quota by May 1, adding two outbound sequences for the healthcare segment, so one lost deal can't sink the month.
- Vague: Improve my win rate.Lift my demo-to-close rate from 20% to 25% by September 30, sending a written mutual plan after the second meeting with every prospect, to spend less time on deals that stall.
- Vague: Look after my key accounts.Hold a business review with each of my 15 key accounts every quarter through December, booking the next review at the close of every meeting, so renewals never come as a surprise.
Marketing
- Vague: Get more leads.Increase demo requests from the website from 60 to 90 a month by July 31, testing a shorter form and a new pricing page headline, to give sales a fuller pipeline in the second half.
- Vague: Post more on social media.Publish posts on the company LinkedIn page three times a week from February through April, working from a monthly calendar planned on the first Monday, so buyers keep seeing us between campaigns.
- Vague: Grow the newsletter.Grow newsletter subscribers from 4,000 to 6,000 by December 31, adding a sign-up offer to our three most-read blog posts, to build an audience we don't have to pay for each time.
- Vague: Improve our SEO.Get priority keywords onto page one of search for 8 of the 20 on our list by the end of Q3, refreshing one old article and adding one new guide a week, so search brings steady traffic without ad spend.
- Vague: Do more webinars.Run customer webinars once a month with at least 100 registrants from March through August, inviting a customer to co-present each one, to let happy customers make the case for us.
Engineering
- Vague: Ship faster.Cut the time from merged code to production from 3 days to under 1 by the end of Q2, automating the release checklist in the build pipeline, so fixes reach customers the same day.
- Vague: Fix more bugs.Reduce open priority-one bugs from 18 to 5 by April 30, reserving every Friday afternoon for the bug queue, so on-call nights stay quiet.
- Vague: Write better tests.Raise automated test coverage on the billing service from 45% to 75% by June 30, requiring tests in every pull request that touches billing, to catch payment errors before customers do.
- Vague: Improve reliability.Maintain uptime of the customer API at 99.9% or higher every month through December, adding alerts on the five slowest endpoints, so customers can trust us with their daily work.
- Vague: Learn new technology.Learn infrastructure as code well enough to own 3 of our deployment scripts by the end of Q3, pairing with the platform team for two hours a week, so our squad stops waiting on another team to ship.
HR and people teams
- Vague: Hire faster.Cut time to hire for engineering roles from 52 days to 35 by September 30, scheduling all interviews within a week of the phone screen, so we stop losing strong candidates to quicker offers.
- Vague: Improve onboarding.Raise new-hire satisfaction at day 30 from 3.6 to 4.3 out of 5 by the end of the year, giving every new hire a buddy and a written first-week plan, so people feel settled before their first review.
- Vague: Make hiring more inclusive.Add 3 new sourcing partners for open roles including a community college and a veterans' network by June 30, meeting each partner's career team in person, so our shortlists reflect more of the communities we hire from.
- Vague: Reduce turnover.Lower first-year voluntary turnover from 24% to 15% by the end of next year, running stay interviews at 3, 6 and 9 months, so we stop rehiring for the same seats.
- Vague: Get managers giving feedback.Run two-hour feedback workshops for all 30 people managers by March 15, booking groups of six with role-play practice, so the next review cycle holds fewer surprises.
Customer support
- Vague: Respond faster.Cut first response time on email tickets from 6 hours to 2 by March 31, adding a morning and afternoon triage rota, so customers hear back the same working day.
- Vague: Make customers happier.Raise our post-ticket satisfaction score from 86% to 92% by the end of Q2, reviewing every low score in the Friday team huddle, to find and fix what frustrates customers most.
- Vague: Build out the help center.Publish help center articles for our 25 most common questions by May 31, writing two a week from real ticket replies, so customers can solve simple issues without waiting.
- Vague: Escalate less.Reduce tickets escalated to engineering from 40 a month to 25 by August 31, holding a monthly product deep-dive for the support team, so engineers spend more time building.
- Vague: Know the product better.Resolve billing tickets without handing them off in 8 out of 10 cases within 60 days, shadowing the billing specialist for an hour each week, so customers get one answer from one person.
Managers
- Vague: Be a better manager.Hold 30-minute one-on-ones with each direct report every two weeks for the rest of the year, using a shared running agenda that the report owns, so problems come up while they are still small.
- Vague: Improve team morale.Raise my team's quarterly pulse score from 6.8 to 7.5 out of 10 by the July survey, acting on the top two themes from the last survey and reporting back, so the team sees its feedback change things.
- Vague: Delegate more.Delegate recurring tasks worth 5 hours of my week by April 30, writing a one-page handover for each and checking in after two weeks, to free time for coaching and planning.
- Vague: Develop my people.Agree written development plans with all 6 of my direct reports by February 28, using a one-page template with one stretch project each, so growth happens on purpose, not by accident.
- Vague: Run better meetings.Cut the weekly team meeting from 60 minutes to 30 starting next month, sending the agenda a day ahead and moving updates to a written thread, to give everyone half an hour back each week.
New hires
- Vague: Learn the job.Handle customer calls without help at a pace of 5 a day by the end of my first 60 days, shadowing two senior teammates in my first month, so I can take a full queue in month three.
- Vague: Get to know people.Schedule 20-minute intro chats with 15 people outside my team within my first 45 days, asking my buddy for a list of who to meet, so I know who to ask when I get stuck.
- Vague: Learn our systems.Finish the onboarding training track with a passing score on all 6 modules by Friday of week two, blocking the first hour of each morning for it, so I get access to live work sooner.
- Vague: Contribute quickly.Deliver a first project end to end scoped at about 2 weeks of work by day 60, choosing it with my manager in week one, to build trust with the team early.
- Vague: Understand the business.Present what I've learned about our customers in a 10-minute talk at the team meeting by the end of month two, reading 20 recent account notes and joining 4 customer calls, to show I know who we serve and why.
Operations
- Vague: Cut costs.Reduce monthly software spend by 15% from its January level by the end of Q3, cancelling unused licenses after a usage review, to fund the new scheduling tool without a bigger budget.
- Vague: Improve order accuracy.Lower picking errors from 1 in 200 orders to 1 in 500 by June 30, adding a barcode scan at the packing station, so fewer customers get the wrong item.
- Vague: Speed up invoicing.Send customer invoices within 2 business days of delivery for every order from April through June, pulling delivery data straight into the billing system, so cash comes in sooner.
- Vague: Document our processes.Write step-by-step guides for our 12 most frequent tasks by the end of Q2, recording one walkthrough a week with whoever does the task, so anyone can cover when someone is out.
- Vague: Be safer.Cut open findings from the last safety audit from 14 to zero by May 31, giving each finding an owner and reviewing them weekly, so the next audit starts clean.
Writing goals for a review cycle? Pair them with clear wording for the review itself from our performance review phrases, and turn a growth goal into a plan with the template in our professional development ideas.
10 team SMART goals
Goals the whole team owns together. Give each one a single person who tracks it, even when everyone contributes.
- Any team. Vague: Work better together.Hold a 15-minute team retro every two weeks for the next 3 months, rotating who runs it, so small frictions get fixed before they grow.
- Sales team. Vague: Have a healthier pipeline.Raise team pipeline coverage to 3 times the quarter's target by week 4 of each quarter, running a 30-minute pipeline review every Monday, so the forecast is one we can trust.
- Support team. Vague: Be quicker on chat.Answer chat requests within 2 minutes during business hours by the end of Q2, adding a lunch rota so the queue is always covered, to make chat our fastest channel.
- Engineering team. Vague: Break production less.Cut failed deployments from 1 in 10 to 1 in 20 by September 30, adding a staging check and a named release owner for every deploy, so customers see fewer outages.
- Marketing team. Vague: Make the launch a big one.Launch the spring campaign across 4 channels on the same day by April 6, locking the creative brief 6 weeks ahead, so the message lands everywhere at once.
- People team. Vague: Get reviews done on time.Complete annual performance reviews for all 240 employees by January 31, sending managers a 3-week schedule with reminders, so pay decisions are made on time.
- Operations team. Vague: Ship orders faster.Ship orders the same day for 95% of those placed before noon by the end of Q3, moving the pick list to the start of each shift, so customers get their orders a day sooner.
- Remote team. Vague: Feel more connected.Host a 45-minute team social once a month for the next 6 months, letting a different teammate pick the activity each time, so a remote team knows each other beyond the work.
- Leadership team. Vague: Communicate the strategy better.Share a written update on company goals within 5 working days of each month's close from January through June, using one page: progress, risks and asks, so everyone knows where we stand.
- Customer success team. Vague: Onboard customers better.Contact every new customer within 3 days of signing throughout next quarter, sending a welcome call invite automatically from the CRM, so onboarding starts while excitement is high.
A 30-minute SMART goals exercise for teams
This smart goal activity turns a lecture about acronyms into practice on real goals. It works in a room or on a video call with a shared doc.
For: 5 to 30 people in groups of five. You need: index cards and pens, or one shared doc with a page per person.
- Show one rewrite. (3 min) Put a vague goal on the screen, then the SMART version, and point at each letter in it. Use one from this page or your own.
- Write a vague goal. (4 min) Everyone writes one real goal of their own on a card or in a shared doc, as loosely as they would say it out loud.
- Run the SMART relay. (10 min) In groups of five, each person takes one letter. Cards move around the group every two minutes, and each person adds only their letter to every card they get: the action, the number, the how, the why, the date.
- Hand it back and test it. (7 min) Each card returns to its owner, who reads it aloud. The group asks three questions: could you start tomorrow, will you know if you hit it, and is the date real? The owner edits until the answer is yes three times.
- Commit and debrief. (6 min) Everyone writes their final goal and a check-in date in their calendar, then the group answers the debrief questions below.
8 practice goals to rewrite
For people who freeze at a blank card, or for a warm-up round. These smart goals exercise examples are vague on purpose.
- Be more organized.
- Communicate better with other teams.
- Spend less time in email.
- Be more strategic.
- Get more visibility with leadership.
- Have a better work-life balance.
- Make our reports easier to use.
- Help new people get up to speed.
Debrief questions
- Which letter was hardest to add to someone else's goal, and why?
- Did any goal change its meaning once it had a number?
- Which goals depend on another team, and who will talk to them?
- What will you check at your first check-in?
Facilitator tips: with four people in a group, one person takes both A and R. On a call, use breakout rooms and a shared doc, and have people paste their line instead of passing cards. Put the check-in dates in the next team meeting agenda so the goals come back up.
7 common SMART goal mistakes
A goal can tick all five letters and still not work. Watch for these.
- A task, not a result. "Send the newsletter" is a to-do. "Grow newsletter subscribers from 4,000 to 6,000" is a goal.
- A number with no starting point. "Increase leads by 20%" means little until you know from what, and who counts them.
- An "ongoing" deadline. If there is no date, there is no moment to check, so the goal quietly drops off.
- A goal the person can't move. Tie each goal to work the owner controls. Company revenue is a team result, not one person's goal.
- Too many goals. Three to five goals a quarter is plenty. Ten goals means none of them is the priority.
- Safe or impossible. A goal that is already half done teaches nothing, and one nobody believes in gets ignored. Aim for a stretch that still feels doable.
- Set and forgotten. Put a check-in on the calendar the day you write the goal, and adjust it openly if the situation changes.
SMART goals vs OKRs
OKRs (objectives and key results) pair an ambitious, qualitative objective with three to five measurable key results, usually set every quarter and often designed as a stretch, so hitting most of a key result counts as good progress. A SMART goal is one well-written target that you expect to hit in full. They work well together: OKRs set the direction for a team, and each person writes SMART goals for their share of it.
