Taking aim at NRM performance goals: On being SMART and on target

It seems obvious that any organisation’s performance goals should be based on achievable outcomes. But  planning experts go further and suggest that, to be meaningful, an organisation’s goals should be tangible and doable. To this end they need to be SMART, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. Sounds like common sense but how many organisations operating in the natural resource management (NRM) sector actually use SMART targets in their planning? Geoff Park, an experienced knowledge broker working in the NRM space in
Victoria, together with colleagues (including EDG’s David Pannell) recently did a stocktake of NRM targets to test their SMARTness. What they found was disturbing.