What is work without goals? One of my favorite features in Asana is the ability to connect the work that myself and my team are doing with my company and team goals. Firstly, let us look at the structure.
We have the company mission statement at the top, which the company goals are aligned to. These company goals can be fed by subgoals (owned by the teams or company) which can be fed by other subgoals.
To create a goal, navigate to under the ‘Insights’ section of the navigation bar in Asana on the left, this is where you can find the goals tab.
When you click on goals you are taken to the company goals homepage. At the top of the Goals Homepage you see three tabs. Company Goals, Team Goals and My Goals (Essentially the My Tasks of Goals).
Company goals are the high level goals usually set by leadership around the organisations needs and mission. The mission can be outlined on the company goals homepage.
To create a company goal you need to click the add goal icon at the top of the page on the left.
This will open a goal creation ‘pop up window’ like the below.
Firstly, you need to title your company goal - this should reflect the outcome of the goal for example “Increase Employee Happiness’. We then have to set the owner of the goal. This is who is responsible for updating the goals progress and monitoring the outcome.
You then set the time period (FY, H or Q) and the privacy. Public means that when any employee goes into the company goal homepage they will see this goal. Private means that it would only be yourself and whomever you enter in the ‘Members’ section below.
Then we come to the measurement options. Goals can have two types of update method; automatic or manual. Automatic means that the work or subgoals that you connect will automatically feed the goal completion, Manual means that you have to go in to update the goal yourself.
If you choose Automatic you can choose from 3 separate types of feed. Subgoals, Projects or Tasks.
You then have to choose your measurement type from %, Numeric Total or Currency Total.
Then when you click ‘Save Goal’ this will now appear as a company goal.
Creating a Team Goal is a similar process when you click on the ‘Team Goal’ Tab. Except in the creation window you have the option for ‘Company or Accountable Team’. If you click on there and choose your company then it will set it as a company goal, if you set it as a team it will be considered a ‘Team Goal’ under the teams tab (teams are reflective of the teams you set up in Asana on the Navigation Bar).
You additionally have the option at a team goal to ‘Connect a Parent Goal’ this is where you can connect your Team Goal to a Company Goal.
When you save a goal you will be taken to the page of that goal.
This is where you can set the status of that goal as it progresses as off track, at risk or on track or even complete the goal with Achieved, Partial, Missed or Dropped updates.
For example if you chose the progress source to be subtasks like above, you will then have the option to connect your subgoals. This is the same as if you chose projects or tasks, and their completion will feed the completion of that goal. If you click you can choose from existing sub-goals or create a new goal, which will again trigger the Goal Creation ‘pop-up window’.
You have a description of that goal below to give more context and below that the option to connect related work.
Connected related work is especially good for Manual Progress. For example if you chose a Manual Progress for a goal such as “Increase Revenue by $140000 this month”, the completion of projects or work doesn’t necessarily mean you have hit that monetary goal so would have to update it manually from financial reports. However, a sales or marketing project might be related to that goal or be helping facilitate those results so you can connect it as related work supporting it. These projects will show as connected in the ‘Overview’ Tab of the project.
At the bottom of the goal you have a comments box, this is where you can have company/team discussions around that goal and keep everyone up to date.
To find goals that you are the owner of you would use the ‘My Goals’ tab at the top of the goals page. It is essentially the ‘My Tasks’ of goals where you can see and manage the goals you are the owner of. In all tabs you can filter by team, owner and status to give a clearer view on progress.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments to add, HAPPY GOAL SETTING!