Understanding the S.M.A.R.T. approach to metrics goals
While every company, small and large, everywhere in the world, operates and supports its business on a set of processes, the processes themselves are the product of something else. What do I mean by this? The processes are the product of projects, which are – essentially – timelines of the required human effort and of the specific milestones that are expected to be achieved. The concept of a project is the best representation within the world of business of what it means for an individual to carry out work and contribute to the advancement of a company’s strategy. A project is different than a process, which is simply a mechanical repetition of something to produce the same result each time. Projects, on the other hand, are reliant on humans and are therefore more variable in terms of execution. Because of their vulnerability to ever-changing conditions and expectations, they occasionally need to be modified. Therefore, we can look at projects almost like containers. They offer humans structure, direction, and purpose for their effort and a means for channeling their energy in productive ways that, ideally, coherently align with the larger strategy of the company.
Processes, and projects at the earliest stages, can have built-in flaws when their purpose (strategy) isn’t realized due to a misaligned, or absent, mechanism for measuring their progress toward successful completion. It would be like baking a cake and foregoing the use of a measuring cup or a temperature display in the oven. How would you know you’re using the right amount of ingredients and how would you know how much heat to subject it to?
Whether a company declares that it has a goal to increase its profit by 100% in 5 years, or that it plans to improve its margin by 10% in 2 years, or it says that its goal is to increase its market share by 10% in 1 year, every company includes specific goals as key components of its strategy. A strategy without goals is illogical. Goals provide the specific outcomes that are expected from the successful execution of the strategy. A strategy without goals would be like opening Google Maps (the strategy) with no destination (goal) in mind. Maybe it’s nice to look at but it doesn’t help the user in any specific way. Or think of a strategy without goals as being similar to a person saying they will improve their physical health but without specifying how they plan to achieve it, be it through diet, lifestyle change, and/or exercise.
For CS professionals, because of their proximity to customers and the market, they must be aware of how their actions can have a wide range of effects on customer and market perception. In other words, much as I feel they might recoil from being thought of this way, the Customer Success Manager (CSM) can be a brand influencer, and being such means that they need to know how a corporate strategy informs the organizational strategy, which, in turn, informs how goals are measured. To illustrate this, I’ll refer to an example from my past.
In the early 2000s, I worked for a large enterprise software vendor that, under pressure from declining revenue and shareholder angst, decided to react to a significant shift that was happening in the world of business. The shift and BMC’s reaction to it are nicely summed up by this extract from a research paper at https://www.aabri.com/manuscripts/10620.pdf:
The company called its new strategy for being the preferred solution vendor business service management (BSM), and it served as an exciting catalyst for reviving company fortunes, in part, by ratcheting up the enthusiasm of the employee base. The strategy made logical sense and was easy to conceptualize, even if the mechanics of engineering and manufacturing products and the creation and execution of processes to deliver it behind the scenes remained complex.
I ran the Canada solutions consulting and technical account management teams at the time and, later, was a member of the product team that promoted BSM and assisted the sales organization with its efforts to sell it. As leaders out in the field in front of customers, we had to understand what that new corporate strategy meant for recruiting, hiring, and coaching teams and, through them, make our customers understand how the strategy can boost their fortunes. I often think of that time as a perfect example of a top-to-bottom, seamless knowledge flow, one that excited people through clarity of purpose.
Misalignment in that knowledge flow, though, could have resulted in the CSM (for example) conducting themselves in ways that confused the market because of the potential for dissonance between the experience delivered by the CSM and what customers saw and heard from the company in its branding words. In the worst case, it could have caused customers to doubt the credibility of BMC Software.
Another, more generic, example could be a company in automotive manufacturing. The company has made it clear to the market that it will be shifting a majority of its investments away from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles and intends to capture a significant share – 20% – of the electric vehicle (EV) market in the next 5 years. The strategy will not be supported well if the CSM communicates with dealerships that they should continue with their existing plans to stay with ICE vehicles for the foreseeable future. In that example, if the CSM was aligned with the corporate strategy, they would instead help dealerships plan to transition the fleet of vehicles they sell away from ICE and toward EV.
Therefore, for corporate goals to be realized, they must have corresponding ways to measure two things. First, there needs to be a way to demonstrate that the goal has been achieved. Yes, that seems obvious, but you might be surprised when you learn how often goals are declared with no associated description of how expected conditions will look or behave when the goal is achieved. Second, there needs to be a way to show progress toward the goal’s achievement. If there is no measurement of progress, it won’t be known if the associated activities are appropriate for maintaining the pace and trajectory toward goal achievement.
What we are getting at is that measurement needs to be an instrument of precision if it’s going to produce the information that’s necessary for effective decision-making. In the world of business, S.M.A.R.T. goals are the typical method employed by leaders to infuse them with the necessary clarity and precision. S.M.A.R.T. goals were originally articulated in an article (https://community.mis.temple.edu/mis0855002fall2015/files/2015/10/S.M.A.R.T-Way-Management-Review.pdf) written by George T. Doran in the November 1981 issue of Management Review (AMA Forum).
Let’s look at the attributes of such goals. As per Doran, the point of S.M.A.R.T. goals are as follows:
- Specific: Target a specific area for improvement
- Measurable: Quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress
- Assignable: Specify who will do it
- Realistic: State which results can realistically be achieved, given the available resources
- Time-related: Specify when the result(s) can be achieved
CS leaders utilize S.M.A.R.T. goals because they are simpler to communicate and understand and to encapsulate and include in a performance management system for employees.
Let’s look at a good illustration of how S.M.A.R.T. goals can be applied to a specific program that is very often not completely controlled by CS. Think of when the CS leader determines that the strategy of the organization would benefit by being better connected with customers so that feedback could be collected that might help the development of product and service improvements. They decide that the implementation of a Voice of the Customer (VOC) program is necessary for the organization so that it can programmatically keep its strategy informed by the customer’s point of view, and so that it can quickly address systemic issues that could be revealed by the customers’ feedback regarding the products and services they are working with and experiencing from the vendor.
How would the S.M.A.R.T. attributes apply to this goal? The easiest way to understand this is by considering the following table (Table 1.1), which shows VOC-specific details for how the program could be measured:
|
Goal |
To improve the experience of customers and drive higher levels of loyalty, implement a VOC program that programmatically seeks and collects improvement feedback from the customer community. It will then channel the information to the company’s services, sales, and product organizations through processes managed by the CS organization. |
|
Specific |
The program will include surveys, multimedia sentiment collection, customer interviews, and customer roundtable and focus group discussions. The data will be analyzed, and insights will be conveyed to responsible organizations. |
|
Measurable |
A project plan is drawn up that includes details such as tasks, accountabilities, milestones, and timelines. |
|
Assignable |
A project manager will be given the responsibility to manage the team that conducts the project. For a comprehensive VOC program, it is usually necessary to include members of one or more peer organizations (marketing, sales, support) in the project. The reason for the involvement of other organizations is that CS does not control all aspects of the customer’s experience with the services and products from the vendor. CS will act as the conduit of information, but any subsequent action of improvement or repair will be performed by the responsible and accountable organization. |
|
Realistic |
An appreciation of the time and effort necessary to complete the project. A VOC program implementation is not a simple project with a short timeline. Since a sophisticated VOC program involves the effort of other organizations, resource allocation, and task activity that is outside the control of the CS organization will need to be factored in. |
|
Time-related |
Milestones dates and full project target completion dates. |
Table 1.1: Applying S.M.A.R.T. attributes to our VOC program
As you can see, goals with S.M.A.R.T attributes are more easily understood and consumed, and from a leader’s point of view, it makes their job much easier. They can spend less time educating and more time launching and monitoring progress.
In this section, you learned about S.M.A.R.T. goals, their purpose as a means for clarifying the details of a project, the structure they prescribe for measuring progress, and their important role in maintaining the connection between corporate strategy and a measurable rollout of the organizational strategy. They are also a critical tool for leaders in their effort to ensure their team’s performance stays aligned with the company’s overarching business goals. You will learn about this next.
