The SMART goals format helps you and your teams define specific project objectives and focus on what truly matters. It marks a key junction in the project planning process, and a SMART goals template helps make this process easier and more consistent across multiple projects and stakeholder groups.

You need measurable, meaningful criteria to track project progress and determine success. Examples of measurable criteria include cost reductions, shortened incident resolution times, and improved customer satisfaction survey results. A SMART goals template can provide reminders and examples to help you and your colleagues focus every project on measurable evaluation criteria.

Ambitious project goals can motivate your team, but overly aggressive or unattainable goals can frustrate stakeholders and burn out project participants. Complying with the criteria outlined in your SMART goals template helps ensure the scope of your goals is reasonable.

Every project exists to meet the objectives of select stakeholders and your business as a whole. A SMART goals template can help you and your team keep your goals relevant and aligned with stakeholder and organizational expectations and objectives.

Goals are only effective with deadlines. A SMART goals template must include a clear, comprehensive, detailed project timeline. This can highlight and reinforce the importance of clear, time-bound goals, encourage a sense of urgency, and prompt consistently timely action across your entire project team.

Clear, attainable goals help provide clear paths to progress and success and timely, actionable feedback to your project teams. The structured approach of SMART goals helps accelerate understanding and boost motivation by enabling these and other benefits.