OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) Basics

Objectives

Objectives allow you to capture and track progress toward high-level goals your organization wants to achieve. When creating objectives, you can specify the following information:

• The description of the tasks, goals, or other details about what you want to achieve.
• The owner of the objective.
• The OKR level, which is the organization level at which to create the new objective.
• The parent objective, which can be an objective from the same product or from another product if you are using connected OKRs.
• The values for any custom attributes that a Planview Admin administrator added for OKRs.

You can create the key results for the objective at the same time or later. 

Objectives are displayed under their respective OKR levels on the Objectives and Key Results screen. Each objective on the screen includes the following information:

• The percentage of the objective that has been completed, based on the average progress of connected key results. The percentage bar is color-coded as follows:
  • Light green: 70% or higher.
  • Light yellow: Between 40% and 69%.
  • Light red: 39% or lower.

             

  NOTE

  Objectives show progress based only on the progress of their child key results. The progress of items at lower levels is not included.

             

• The number of key results () connected to the objective.
• The number of child objectives () connected to the objective.
• The target end date for the objective.

You can hover over an objective for additional details or click an objective to open it. An Objective screen includes the following tabs:

• Details: Shows the objective name, owner, dates, objective level, and parent objective (if any). You can modify these details.
• Key Results: Shows all key results connected to the objective. You can click a key result to open or delete it. You can also create new key results on this tab.
• Child Objectives: Shows all objectives that are children of the objective. You can click a child objective to open it or remove the parent-child connection. You can also connect more objectives as children.
• History: View the activity stream for the objective, which contains the history of modifications made to the objective or its key results.

For more information about working with objectives:

• In Planview Portfolios, see Working with Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and Managing Relationships for Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).
• In AgilePlace, see Objectives.

Key Results

You use key results to capture and track progress toward different elements of an objective​. When creating a key result, you can specify the following information:

• The metric to be measured as part of the progress of the objective, such as Reduce the acquisition cost for customers.
• The owner of the key result – available owners are users who have at least view access to the strategic entity. The owner of a key result can be different from the owner of the parent objective.
• The start value and target value:
  • For a new project where you want to measure by percent, you could enter 0 as the Start Value and 100 as the Target Value.
  • For an existing metric where you want to move acceptance from 10% to 15%, you could enter 10 as the Start Value and 15 as the Target Value. 

               

    TIP

    The Start Value and Target Values can also go in a negative direction. For example, if you want to reduce customer acquisition cost from $80 to $50 in the next year, you could enter 80 as the Start Value and 50 as the Target Value.

               

• The source of the metric data.
• The values for any custom attributes that a Planview Admin administrator added for OKRs.

You can also change the target dates and parent objective to be different from the parent objective.

Within each OKR level section on the Objectives and Key Results screen, key results can appear in a Key Results row. Each key result on the screen shows the following information:

• The percentage of the key result that has been completed, based on the progress updates.
• The number of work items () connected to the key result.
• The target end date for the key result.

You can hover over a key result for additional details or click a key result to open it. A Key Result screen includes the following tabs:

• Details: Shows information that you can modify, such as the key result name, owner, and current progress; a link to update progress; and the following subtabs:
  • Target(s): Shows the start and end dates for the key result as well as the target value.
  • Progress Entries: Lists the entered progress values for the key result. Also allows you to edit or delete progress values.
  • Time Chart: Shows the key result's trajectory from the progress updates relative to the specified dates and target value.
• Activities: Shows all work items connected to the key result. You can click a work item to open it or remove the connection. You can also connect more work items.
• History: View the activity stream for the key result, which contains the history of modifications made to the key result.

For more information about working with key results:

• In Planview Portfolios, see Working with Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and Managing Relationships for Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).
• In AgilePlace, see Key Results.

OKR Levels

OKR levels allow you to track connected OKRs across organizational structures. Typically, OKRs have an enterprise or corporate level at the top and team-level OKRs at the bottom with various levels in between. Having multi-leveled OKRs allows for bidirectional goal alignment.

For example, Planview Portfolios has the following default OKR levels: Enterprise, Portfolio, Program, and Team.

Planview Admin administrators can manage OKR levels, including changing the names and adding or deleting levels, in Planview Admin. For more information, see Managing OKR Settings for Connected Products.

OKR Custom Attributes

Planview OKRs can include custom attributes, which are options with customized values that can help you capture and track more specific data that matches your organization's needs. For example, if you want to track how critical the need for an OKR is, you can use a custom attribute called OKR Priority with values of Must Have, Nice to Have, and Time Permitting, which can help you prioritize OKR work.

Each environment can have 10 custom attributes in addition to the two default attributes that are already included. Each custom attribute can be a text field, a numeric field, a date, or a list of options (single-select or multi-select).

Planview Admin administrators can create and configure custom attributes and their values and make them required or optional. Users can then set the values for the attributes when working with OKRs in in Planview AgilePlace and/or Planview Portfolios.