Many organizations spend time setting goals or objectives only to have them go stale. With Goals
in Asana your team has a single source of truth for your shared objectives that's connected to the
work to achieve them. In this video, you'll get a quick overview of the methodology
the Goals feature is built around. Then, see how to add and update your team's goals in Asana
At Asana we use a concept called the Pyramid of Clarity to keep everyone aligned from the high
level goals down to the day-to-day tasks. Most teams start with tasks and projects
to manage their work. When you have enough projects adding them to a portfolio gives you
a real-time view of what's happening across top initiatives. With the addition of Goals,
your team's objectives no longer sit apart from your day-to-day work. Instead of locking them
away in a presentation or document the Pyramid of Clarity continues flowing and organizations now
have a single system to set their objectives and manage all the work needed to hit them.
While the goals feature is flexible enough to support any goal-setting approach, the example in
this video is built around the OKR methodology, which we use here at Asana. OKRs are a two-part
approach to setting and measuring goals composed of objectives and key results or KRs. An objective
answers the question where are we going and KRs make it clear if we got there or not. Together they
form the basis for the Goal's feature in Asana It all boils down to a simple formula. We will
accomplish this objective as measured by these key results. For example Mae the head of Marketing at
Phoenix Corp owns the company-wide objective to win customer loyalty this year. But how will she
know if they've been successful? Her team sets a KR for growing their rewards program from a hundred
to a thousand members Mae's colleague Michelle is responsible for owning and hitting this KR.
Now that the team knows what they're trying to achieve and how they'll know if they got there.
They're ready to add their goals to Asana. Access your organization's goals from the upper left hand
corner of the sidebar below portfolios. View your organization's mission and top-level strategic
goals in the Company Goals tab. The Team Goals tab is where you'll see the goals aligned to specific
teams and goals assigned to you are captured in the My Goals tab. In Asana the word goal is
used interchangeably to refer to objectives and key results. Top level goals usually represent
objectives while sub goals often represent the measurable key results needed to achieve them.
We recommend building your goals from the top down. If your entire company is using the goals feature,
add your company-wide goals first then build out your team goals and sub goals. Let's add
Mae's company-wide goal in Asana. Mae starts by clicking the plus icon to add a new goal.
She sets the time period and can make this goal public to the organization or private to the owner
and members of the goal. Mae wants to measure her goals progress based on the completed milestones
from projects that are focused on increasing customer loyalty at her organization.
By selecting automatic for the update method the goal's progress will automatically update as
linked project milestones are achieved. This helps Mae know her company objective is always
up to date and her stakeholders have the most current information.
From the goals detail page Mae can do a number of things. First, she thinks about the purpose of
this goal and adds a description to give more context and background. She includes details
on its grading criteria to define what success looks like. Next she adds the projects that will
automatically contribute to the goal's progress. In the reference section Mae can add any reference
portfolios or projects that she doesn't want to automatically roll up to her goals progress.
Once the goal is created collaborators will get an inbox notification that links to the goal. Now
Mae is ready to add Michelle's KR that ladders up to this objective. She adds a sub-goal to grow
the rewards program from a hundred to a thousand members. Since this is a sub-goal, the time period,
team, and parent goals are automatically added. Mae assigns this goal to Michelle and updates the team.
For this sub-goal Mae selects manual for the update method
and chooses the numerical option for measuring the goal progress.
Michelle can update the goal's progress periodically as the reward program
membership increases. Mae clicks into the sub-goal details page to add the description,
collaborators, and grading criteria so everyone knows what success looks like.
Michelle receives reminders to update her goals status as work progresses. She selects on track
and can add attachments and context to help stakeholders understand the progress of her goal.
When they get to the end of the year, Michelle and Mae will close out their goals with one
last progress update. They'll use the grading criteria to communicate the final outcome.
Setting and tracking goals with Asana can boost your team's performance
while ensuring your organization is focused on the right priorities
to drive the results you want. To learn more about goals check out the Asana Guide. https://asana.com/guide/get-started/begin/quick-start