Several organisations I know use SMART goals for their programmers. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound. They are fairly common in large corporations. 

My own prior experience with SMART goals has not been all that positive. Have other programmers found them an effective way to measure performance? What are some examples of good SMART goals for programmers (if they exist).

In a word

No

First : I've never had my projects remain stable enough that I could establish the SMART goals with any meaning. The time scales between when my roles change on a project and when perf reviews are done are just too far out of sync. 

Second: Measuring individual performance is a great way to create a "not my job" mentality and negative competition between individuals and/or the various sub teams in an organization. It's very easy to game the system and make sure you're looking out for yourself and not really helping out the entire team. We should be encouraging people to be team players, but then our organizations do the exact opposite.

Most of these sorts of systems are antithetical to team building. Mary Poppendieck's done a far better job of articulating this than I can ever do in LeanEssays: Team Compensation.


  Sue got a call from Janice in human resources. “Sue,” she said, “Great job your team did! And thanks for filling out all of those appraisal input forms. But really, you can’t give everyone a top rating. Your average rating should be ‘meets expectations’. You can only have one or two people who ‘far exceeded expectations’...”
  
  ... One of the greatest thought leaders of the 20th century, W Edwards Deming, wrote that un-measurable damage is created by ranking people, merit systems, and incentive pay. Deming believed that every business is a system and the performance of individuals is largely the result of the way the system operates. In his view, the system causes 80% of the problems in a business, and the system is management’s responsibility. He wrote that using exhortations and incentives to get individuals to solve management problems simply doesn’t work. Deming opposed ranking because it destroys pride in workmanship, and merit raises because they address the symptoms, rather than the causes, of problems.
  
  ...let’s take a deeper look into employee evaluation and reward systems, and explore what causes them to become dysfunctional...

