SMART goals vs OKRs
One is a checklist for writing a goal, the other a system for running goals across a company. What each does, when to use it, and what both of them miss
"Should we use SMART goals or OKRs?" is one of the questions I hear most from founders and COOs who've just decided their company needs proper goals. It's a reasonable question, because both are everywhere, both have books and courses behind them, and both promise to make goals clearer and more likely to happen.
The honest answer is that they aren't really alternatives. They solve different problems, at different sizes of company, and there's a third problem that neither of them solves, which in my experience is the one that actually decides whether a growing company hits its goals. So this article covers what each one is, how they differ, where each one works, and what I'd do instead in a company of under a couple of hundred people.
What are SMART goals?
SMART goals come from a short article by George T. Doran in Management Review in 1981, called "There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives". Doran's letters stood for specific, measurable, assignable, realistic and time-related. Over the years they've drifted, and today they're most often taught as specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
The idea is that a goal written to those five tests is much more likely to happen than a vague one, and there's real sense in that. "Grow the business" isn't a goal anyone can act on. "Increase monthly recurring revenue from £40k to £70k by 30 June" is. SMART is, at heart, a checklist for the wording of a single goal.
What SMART doesn't do is say anything about how goals fit together. It doesn't tell you how many goals a company should have, who owns them, how often to look at them or how one team's goal relates to another's. It's a writing tool, not a system.
What are OKRs?
OKRs, or objectives and key results, were developed by Andy Grove at Intel in the 1970s and brought to Google by John Doerr in 1999, when the company was still tiny. Doerr's book Measure What Matters made them famous, and they're now used by companies of every size.
An OKR has two parts. The objective is a short, qualitative statement of what you want to achieve, ideally one that people find motivating. The key results are three to five measurable outcomes that show whether you've achieved it. OKRs are usually set every quarter, often with yearly ones above them, and they're typically scored at the end of the quarter, commonly from 0 to 1, with around 0.7 treated as a good result for an ambitious OKR.
Unlike SMART, OKRs are a system. They're designed to connect goals across a company, so that teams can see how their objectives support the company's, and to be visible to everyone, so that nobody has to guess what matters this quarter.
| SMART goals | OKRs | A goal and its constraints | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A checklist for writing a single goal well | A system for setting and scoring goals across a company | One memorable goal, the constraints holding it back and the moves that clear them |
| Where it came from | George T. Doran, Management Review, 1981 | Andy Grove at Intel in the 1970s, brought to Google by John Doerr in 1999 | Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints, applied to company goals |
| How it’s written | One sentence that is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound | An objective in words, with three to five measurable key results under it | One line with a rough when, what’s true when it’s done and how you’ll know |
| How often | Whenever a goal is set, often yearly | Usually every quarter, sometimes yearly as well | Until it’s done or the world changes; constraints change as they clear |
| What it measures | Whether one target was hit | Progress on each key result, often scored 0 to 1 | Progress on the goal, and whether each constraint is clearing |
| What it misses | How the goal connects to anything else | Why a key result is behind, and what to do about it | Detailed scoring, if your board or investors expect it |
| Best for | Individual and team targets | Larger companies with many teams to coordinate | Growing companies whose goals are clear but keep slipping |
The real difference between SMART goals and OKRs
The simplest way I've found to put it is this: SMART is about how you write a goal, and OKRs are about how you organise goals. You can write a single goal to SMART standards without ever thinking about OKRs, and you can run OKRs across a company without any individual key result being perfectly SMART.
That's why the two are often used together. A common pattern is to keep the objective short and inspiring and make each key result SMART: specific, measurable and dated. That's actually a sensible split, because it keeps the part people need to remember in plain words and puts the precision in the measures underneath, which is the same principle I set out in How to write good company goals.
Here's the same intent written three ways, so you can see the difference in practice.
Increase monthly recurring revenue from £40k to £70k by 30 June by improving trial conversion from 12% to 18%.
Objective: Become the obvious choice for small accountancy firms. Key results: MRR from £40k to £70k. Trial conversion from 12% to 18%. 15 new firms from referrals.
Goal: Get to £70k a month by the summer. Holding it back: trials stall before a second person joins; we can’t explain the product in the first call.
When SMART goals work well
SMART is at its best for targets that belong to one person or one team, where the path is reasonably well understood and the main risk is vagueness. A sales rep's quarterly number, a support team's response time, a hiring target for a recruiter: these are exactly the kind of goals where a precise, dated, measurable sentence helps.
Where SMART struggles is at the level of the whole company. I've written before about the three problems I see: SMART goals take a long time to agree, they're hard to change when conditions move because changing a precise public commitment feels like failure, and they're hard to remember. A company goal that needs a number, a baseline, a date and a method to be accurate is a goal most people in the company can't repeat, and a goal people can't repeat is one they can't act on.
When OKRs work well
OKRs earn their keep when there are many teams to coordinate. Once a company has several departments, each with its own leadership, it genuinely helps to have a shared format, a shared cadence and a shared place where everyone can see what everyone else is aiming for. That's the problem Grove was solving at Intel and Doerr was solving at a fast-growing Google.
In smaller companies OKRs often become heavier than they need to be. A team of fifteen people doesn't usually need three levels of objectives, five key results under each and a scoring ritual every quarter. I've seen plenty of startups spend more time maintaining their OKRs than working on the things the OKRs were about. If that sounds familiar, I've compared the alternatives to OKRs.
What both of them miss
Here's the part that I think matters most. SMART goals and OKRs are both about describing and measuring the goal. Neither of them tells you what's holding the goal back.
When a key result is behind, an OKR turns red. When a SMART target is missed, you find out at the end of the year. In both cases the natural response is to add more effort: another initiative, another campaign, another hire. But growing companies are rarely held back by a lack of effort. They're held back by a few specific constraints, such as trials that stall before a second person joins, or a product nobody can explain in the first call, and until those are cleared, extra effort elsewhere is largely wasted. That's the idea behind Goldratt's Theory of Constraints, and I went into it in Remove constraints, don't add initiatives.
So whichever format you choose for the goal, the step that changes the outcome comes after it: ask what's in the way, put the answers in order, and give the top one moves with a single owner each.
Which should your company use?
- A team or individual target with a known path: write it as a SMART goal.
- A large company with many teams to coordinate: OKRs, with SMART key results under plain-English objectives.
- A growing company of under a couple of hundred people: one or two company goals everyone can remember, each with an ordered list of what's holding it back and a short weekly rhythm to clear it. Keep the measures as evidence under the goal rather than in its wording.
If your investors or board expect OKRs, there's nothing wrong with keeping your objective as the goal and the key results as the evidence of how it's going. What matters is that the conversation each week is about what's in the way, not just about the score.
Where Clearahead fits
Clearahead is built around the third column in the table above. Each goal gets its own workspace, with what you're aiming for, why it matters, how you'll know and where it stands today. Under it sit the constraints holding it back, in the order your team chooses, and the moves that clear each one, every move with one owner. AJ helps you shape the goal, asks what's in the way, keeps every item current from a sentence and sends the whole team a short brief every Monday.
If you already use OKRs, you don't have to throw them away: keep the objective as your goal and the key results in how you'll know. There's a fuller comparison in OKRs and Clearahead, and the whole approach is set out in The operating model for the AI era.
Questions people ask
What is the difference between SMART goals and OKRs?
SMART is a checklist for writing one goal well: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. OKRs are a system for setting and scoring goals across a company: an objective in words with three to five measurable key results under it, usually set every quarter. SMART is about the wording of a goal; OKRs are about how goals are organised and tracked.
Are OKRs better than SMART goals?
For coordinating a whole company, usually yes, because OKRs separate a memorable objective from the measures and connect goals across teams. For a single team or person’s target, SMART is simpler. Neither tells you what’s holding a goal back, which is why many growing companies add a regular look at their constraints.
Can you use SMART goals and OKRs together?
Yes. A common pattern is to write the objective as a short, inspiring statement and make each key result SMART: specific, measurable and with a date. That keeps the objective memorable and the measures precise.
What does SMART stand for?
In George T. Doran’s 1981 article it stood for specific, measurable, assignable, realistic and time-related. Today it’s most often taught as specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
What is an OKR?
An OKR is an objective and key results. The objective says what you want to achieve in words; the key results are three to five measurable outcomes that show whether you got there. The method came from Andy Grove at Intel and was popularised by John Doerr, who introduced it to Google in 1999.
What should a small company use instead of OKRs?
Most small and growing companies do well with one or two company goals everyone can remember, an ordered list of what’s holding each goal back, and a short weekly rhythm to clear it. That keeps the focus OKRs give without the quarterly scoring and cascading that larger companies need.