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How to set tasks correctly: SMART, CLEAR, FAST, and Kanban

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27 May 2021 • Alina Kryvenets • 5 min read

SMART

How to set tasks correctly: SMART, CLEAR, FAST, and Kanban

We have already published an article on how to set SMART goals. But this is not the only approach to goal setting: an Olympic champion and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offer alternative methods. Therefore, I will discuss alternative CLEAR and FAST goals, and show how to set SMART goals on a Kanban board.

How to set a SMART goal

A SMART goal meets five criteria:

Specific: what and why the task is being done, who is responsible for its execution.

Bad example: shoot a video.

Good example: shoot a promotional stop-motion video up to 30 seconds long for TV and YouTube for AquaLife.

Measurable: what metrics determine the success of the task’s execution?

Bad example: shoot a promotional stop-motion video up to 30 seconds long for TV and YouTube for AquaLife, which will generate more sales of vintage watches for New Year.

Good example: shoot a promotional stop-motion video up to 30 seconds long for TV and YouTube for AquaLife, which will bring at least 100 sales of vintage watches using a New Year promotional code.

Achievable: how much time and money do you need to spend on the task? What skills are required?

Bad example: contract with Cameron for shooting a promotional stop-motion video for AquaLife.

Good example: contract with a partner video production company to shoot a promotional stop-motion video for TV and YouTube.

Relevant: does the task help achieve the goal of the company or department?

Bad example: launch AquaLife’s Instagram account to post Hello World!

Good example: purchase modular stands for New Year markets to stand out among competitors.

Time-bound: when does the project need to be completed? How much time will the task take?

Bad example: develop templates for our company’s social media as quickly as possible

Good example: develop New Year templates for our company’s social media by December 15.

SMART applies only to achievable and measurable goals. Hence, SMART is not suitable for:
cyclical tasks (ensure daily data backup on the server);
tasks that cannot be completed in principle (learn a foreign language).

Alternative to SMART tasks: CLEAR and FAST

CLEAR

Adam Kreek, author of The Responsibility Ethic and gold medalist at the 2008 Olympic Games, believes that SMART does not work in the flexible environment where most companies operate. Therefore, Adam proposes an alternative method — CLEAR goals, which meet five criteria.

Collaborative: does the task inspire employees to work together towards a common result and unite in teams?

Bad example: shoot a five-minute video about the sales department and one-minute videos about other departments. Let them know who is in charge of the company!

Good example: shoot a series of corporate videos so that the company’s departments learn about each other’s important roles.

Limited. A combination of the Achievable and Time-bound criteria in SMART.
Emotional: does the task have the potential to “ignite” employees? How interesting will the task be for employees?

Bad example: increase sales in January by 10%.

Good example: enter the American market by 2020.

Approachable: can a large task be broken down into smaller tasks?

First of all, we divided the tasks into subtasks. For example, a separate task is created for visualizing the client’s object in 3D. In it, we create subtasks for different work on visualization. In the subtask, we created a checklist. It describes the stages of detailing our 3D structure. We cross off the completed stage.
Oleksandr Nikitin, CEO of TEBIN

Refinable: can the task change over time or with new information about the goals?

Bad example: launch a new series of spinners after the New Year.

Good example: reconfigure equipment for producing developmental toys for children. Spinners are no longer in trend!

FAST

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) developed an alternative to SMART goals. Unlike SMART and CLEAR, a FAST goal meets four criteria:

Frequently discussed

The task needs to be discussed constantly to remain in focus. This will help avoid a situation where a long-term task is remembered the night before the deadline.

Ambitious

If the task is too easy — it won’t inspire the performer to achieve more. If the task is unrealistic — this can lead to burnout and constant procrastination in solving it. Game designers constantly face the ambition criterion, needing to maintain player attention and interest in the gameplay.

Bad example: develop the concept of a new virtual reality device in 3 months.

Good example: reduce production costs for a virtual reality device without compromising material quality and assembly.

Specific. An analogy to the Specific criterion in SMART.

SMART goals devalue ambition, focus on personal productivity, and ignore the importance of discussing goals throughout the year.

MIT Sloan Management Review

Transparent

The task and goal should be visible to the entire team, not just the Executor. This will help connect the task and motivation of team members.

If only the content of the task changes, we use templates. For example, the task of developing a functional model of an object is present in every architectural design project of ours. There are many repetitive tasks by stages.
Victoria Oskilko, founder and leader of Mono Architects

How to set a SMART goal in Worksection?

Create a new task in the project.

Each element in the task card corresponds to a specific SMART criterion.

Specific

Write a detailed title for the task. Add the deadline date to the title to simplify navigation between tasks.

Bad example: new text “about us”

Good example: ⁰⁴⁄₂₂. Write new text “about us” for the updated website.

Write in the checklist the subtasks into which you will break the large task. If the subtasks have different deadlines, executors, and budgets, it is better to create a group of separate tasks in one project.

Select responsible persons for task execution.

Measurable

Select the priority level. In our case, the subtask “prepare the test task” is more prioritized than “publish posts on Work.ua and ‘Best job for the best people’ about finding a copywriter.”

Achievable

Determine how much time and money you will spend on the task’s execution.

Relevant

Link the task to the project.

Time-bound

Set deadlines: a specific completion date or a range of working time.

No matter what task-setting system you choose, there are rules that will help ensure its execution. We have gathered them in a separate article and adapted them for working with Worksection.

Materials from Worksection, MIT Sloan Management Review, The Inc. were used in the preparation of the article.

SMART

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