7 Types of Goals That You Should Know About

Goals are a topic that so many people love to talk about and volumes have been written. How many different types of goals are there? I was curious and started making a list…

Types of Goals:

• SMART Goals: Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, Time-Bound. This goal framework was originally coined in 1981 by George Doran. (see the history video here)
• BHAGS: Big Harry Audacious Goals. According to wikipedia, Jim Collins James Collins and Jerry Porras coined the term “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” in their 1994 book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies.[1] A BHAG encourages organizations to define visionary goals that are more strategic and emotionally compelling
• Stretch Goals: A goal that seems out of reach, extreme difficulty or extreme novelty. See the HBR Article the Stretch Goal Paradox.
• WIGs: Wildy Important Goals as trademarked by FranklinCovey and referred to in the 4 Disciplines of Execution.
• Cascading Goals: Goals that are broken down from top to bottom. Another name for this concept is Hoshin Kanri.
• Progressive Goals: Goals that build from bottom to top. This is my favorite type of goal in the whole list, but I am biased. See the full description of Progressive Goals here.
• SACA Goals: Specific, Actionable, Concise, Aspirational. I’m going to give credit for this acronym to John Doerr in his book “Measure What Matters”. This is a book about the O.K.R. goals system which stand for Objectives and Key Results.