Setting SMART Objectives

As part of Barren River Area Development Districts 5-year update to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) and Multi-Hazard Multi-Jurisdiction Mitigation Plan (HMP), county-level Steering Committees met for an hour each month from January 2021 to April 2022 to create county-level strategic plans. This is a summary of the agenda for Meetings #8-9.

During their eighth and ninth months together in the planning process, Steering Committees began creating SMART Objectives for each goal. These objectives are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound; and act as both a guide to action and measurement of success for the committee once plan implementation begins.

Since each committee had goal/vision statements in 11 different categories (Affordable, Quality Housing; Civic & Leadership Development; Downtown Development; Economic Development; Infrastructure; Public Facilities and Services; Public Health and Safety; Sense of Place; Transportation; Tourism and Cultural Development and Workforce Development) and each goal statement had multiple objectives, this was one of the more lengthy processes the steering committees undertook. As they created their objectives, committee members were also asked to incorporate any previous objectives that were carried over from meeting #6 and review their County Profile Sheets to create new SMART objectives.

BRADD staff worked with committee members to get each objectives as specific as possible. For example, instead of stating, “Support economic development efforts in the county” BRADD staff asked committee members to give specific examples of what “support” meant to them and what kind of timeframe would that support have. This resulted in much more detailed objectives such as, “By June of 2022, work with the IDA to share County Promotional material at tourist attractions and on committee members’ social media accounts.”

As always, Each Steering Committee also made use of a custom Google Classroom set up for committee members to share information and review any meeting materials for meetings they could not attend.

BRADD staff then compiled the information gathered during this meeting and used it (paired with previous meeting information) to build the foundation for each County Strategic Plan in each of the succeeding monthly meetings. To read more about information covered in other monthly meetings, click here.