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Objectives Overview

Overview

Create goals, align Teams, and connect individual projects to company objectives. Now, not only can you roll-up work across multiple Teams in a tactical way using Objectives, you can also begin to track outcomes and impact using key results.

Manage end-to-end planning cycles with new capabilities to track company Objectives directly in Shortcut and align the work teams are doing to directly impact those goals.

Key Features

  • Two objective types: Tactical and Strategic
    • Strategic Objectives introduces a new Key Result functionality that allows you to track outcomes and targets, aligning Epics either directly to the Objective or to a Key Result

Tactical Objectives are available to all Organizations. However, Strategic Objectives are available on our Business and Enterprise Plans only.

What Objectives are in Shortcut

An Objective is Shortcut’s top-level planning object and helps an Organization set goals, align Teams, and connect work to company outcomes. Use an Objective page to manage end-to-end planning cycles in Shortcut. Link Epics to goals. Track progress and impact over time.

Objectives come in two types:

  • Tactical Objectives, which are Epic-driven -> Use them to roll up delivery work.
  • Strategic Objectives, which are outcome-driven -> Use Key Results to track targets.

Tactical Objectives are available to all Organizations, however, Strategic Objectives are available on our Business and Enterprise Plans only.

Create an Objective

When you create an Objective, choose Tactical (Epic-driven) or Strategic (outcome-driven). Shortcut will guide you through aligning Epics, creating Key Results, and assigning ownership.

  • Choose Tactical to align Epics directly to the Objective.
  • Choose Strategic to create Key Results to monitor targets and outcomes. Set the Starting and Target values to begin tracking post-creation.
    • Three options exist for tracking Booleans (Incomplete/Complete), Numbers, or Percentages.
    • Epics can be aligned to KRs during creation, or directly to the Objective on the detail page after creation

You can also create an Objective from anywhere using the keyboard command n then o.

Objectives page UI and views

The Objectives page has two main views:

  • Column view for scanning and quick review
  • Table view for filtering, grouping, and bulk monitoring

Both views share the same filters. Use filters to narrow by things like Type, State, Category, Health, Owners, and Teams.

Column view

Column view gives you a high-level snapshot of Tactical and Strategic Objectives. Expand Key Results to review progress. Spot blockers quickly.

Column view uses the same filters as Table view. Use the top-right toggle to switch views.

Table view

Table view is best for grouping and filtering Objectives at scale. Use it to monitor progress and keep plans on-track.

Track progress toward Objectives

  • Epic Progress (Tactical + Strategic) rolls up progress across all unique Epics on the Objective.
  • Key Result progress (Strategic only) tracks each KR’s Current value against its Target.
  • Target dates show time remaining. Use them to keep planning honest.

In Table view, keep Epic and KR progress columns enabled. Hover to see deeper context. This includes KR update recency and Epic-level progress and Health.

Hover details

Keep the Epic and KR progress columns toggled on to quickly hover over to see:

  • Specific KR progress and when they were last updated
  • More about the Epics’ progress and Health for Epics associated with the Objective.

The Objective Detail Page

The refreshed detail page is your go-to for all Objective details. Similar to formats you’re familiar with in Shortcut, on the right sidebar you’ll see details such as state, start/target dates, assigned teams and owners, and categories.

Progress summary includes:

  • Key result progress (for Strategic Objectives only)
  • Epic Progress (total of all progress across all unique Epics assigned to the Objective)
  • Target date with time remaining.

Tactical Objectives are best for capturing themes of work delivery and will show Epics only. Objectives will remain tactical as long as they do not have a Key Result created on them.

Objectives that have Key Result targets are referenced as Strategic Objectives.

Strategic Objectives can be set up a few ways:

  • With Key Results only to track outcomes and targets -> Best for tracking core KPIs or team targets
  • With Key Results that have Epics aligned to them -> Best for tracking outcomes related to work happening in Shortcut
  • Epics can be associated to the Objective, not under a Key Result -> Best for aligning key strategic projects that are more completion-based.

Updating Strategic Objectives

Key Results can be updated in-line directly on the page by clicking into the Current or Target fields. A variety of quick actions are also available through the ... next to the progress in the row directly.

The Key Result modal is also where you can:

  • Edit the Key Result title
  • Align Epics to a Key Result at any time via the “Add Epics” option
  • Update the Current and Target fields. Starting once created, is un-editable.* Delete a no longer needed Key Result
  • Pin a Key Result to the sidebar.

Manage an Objective (after creation)

On the Objective detail page you can:

  • Update core fields in the right sidebar (Owners, Teams, dates, State, Category).
  • Add or remove Epics from the Objective.
  • Add Key Results to a Tactical Objective to make it Strategic.
  • Update, re-align, or delete Key Results.
  • The ellipsis symbol for each Epic has a variety of quick actions such as Pin, Duplicate, or Archive Epic to name a few.

Objective Categories

Objective Categories let you group Objectives by another dimension (like labels). Filter by Category on the Objectives page.