It’s a popular acronym, SMART: Objectives should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This acronym was first thought up by management-types, while thinking about organizational objectives.
We trainers have been using the word “objective” for about as long as managers have, but in a different sense. In the world of training, an objective describes the result achieved by the end of a lesson. For every lesson in the course, there is an objective. This objective should be performance-based. That is, objectives in training should describe the actions employees will take on the job after training. And, as it turns out, training objectives can be just as SMART as business objectives when it comes to their formulation. Let’s see how.
Specific: A training objective should include a task statement, which describes a work activity. This is a specific wording of a work activity using an action verb and a noun – e.g. give feedback, send an e-mail, etc.
Measurable: Performance-based training objectives relate to something the organization cares about, and, therefore, can track. Any objective that describes how someone should do something can be measured using checklists, observation, and other tracking tools.
Achievable: If the training team did a training needs analysis before designing the course, training objectives will describe the skill and knowledge employees must achieve and use on the job. Other factors that may affect employee performance, such as working conditions or management feedback, will have been handled with non-training solutions.
Relevant: Remember “measurable” from two paragraphs ago? If your organization is bothering to measure something, odds are it’s relevant to a grand plan. As a matter of fact, the more tracking that is done on the part of the job to which the objective relates, the more relevant that lesson is to the organization.
Time-bound: Training objectives may or may not describe a timeline in their wording. Not all job tasks have a time standard. Some job tasks have quantity or quality standards. Perhaps some of your lessons teach tasks that have cost or safety standards too. This is the one letter from SMART that doesn’t connect as well to training objectives as for business objectives. Perhaps we could change this “T” and make it “Tied to standards” Since all job tasks have some kind of performance standard associated with them, training objectives can include these as well.
If you’re talking shop and people overhear you mention objectives, they might say, “Ah yes, good old SMART objectives.” You can tell them that acronym applies to business objectives, and that training objectives follow a similar approach. Hopefully, with this article, you’ll be even better prepared to implement that approach in training.
Alan
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