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Written by Debbie Herridge - Apprentice for Professional Academy
Extending from my previous SMART blog, I have decided to take it further and take a look at SMARTER. During my research into SMARTER I came across several versions of the definition for ‘ER’, so what is the difference and what does SMARTER actually stand for?
Apologies in advance as I don’t actually have a direct answer for you. The original part of the acronym still remains as Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound but the everyone seems to have their own opinion on what the ‘ER’ stand for, some different variations of ‘ER’ I came across were:
The most common, and the most reasonable perception of ‘E’ would be Evaluate. Before even researching I perceived it to stand for evaluation as it’s widely used and makes the most sense. After most arduous tasks it makes sense to take some time to step back and review what you have completed.
Is the R really necessary? Personally I don’t think it is, it was just added because SMARTE makes people think of the round assorted color sweets instead of setting objectives…which unless your goal is to eat as many smarties as you can, then there is no relevance to setting your target.
I came across reevaluate, review, rewarding, recorded, reachable and reasonable. Which just all seem so extended; reevaluate? Do it right the first time and then it’s unnecessary. Review? Isn’t that just like evaluating? Rewarding, now here’s one that I can actually roll with, if you’ve reached a target you should definitely reward yourself. But make sure your rewards in line with the task, so don’t go and treat yourself to a brand new car just because you finished one assignment. Then we have recorded, which I guess could be helpful just to keep track of all the jobs you’ve done and keep you more organized. And then finally we have Reachable and Reasonable, which to me sound like the ‘A’ and ‘R’ bit in SMART, achievable and realistic, because that’s essentially the same right?
So all in all, I have come to the conclusion that maybe setting a SMARTER objective is more difficult than the actual task you’re trying to set yourself! But if you were looking to set yourself a SMARTER target, I would use Evaluate and Reward, because in my view this is the only solution to make the most sense.
SMART is used across all courses and all levels in Professional Academy Qualifications so whether you are looking to study a qualification in Management & Leadership, Marketing, Sales or Digital Marketing you will always hear the term referred to. If you would like to find out more about Professional Qualifications why not download a prospectus or get in touch with an adviser today?
