This article will walk you through the Team Objectives feature in OpenBlend, helping you to understand what they are and how you can get started.



What are Team Objectives

In OpenBlend, you have three different types of Objectives to allow for a hierarchical structure to Objectives, helping employees understand how their individual goals contribute to the wider team and company objectives. The three different types are: 


  1. Company Objectives
  2. Team Objectives
  3. Individual Objectives


Team Objectives can be created by any manager and can be aligned into a Company Objective or into another Team Objective. This allows for multiple levels of Team Objectives within a reporting line.


Team Objectives are visible to any employee within the reporting line. 


For example, a typical structure for Team Objectives would be: 


Company Objective

⬇

Department Team Objective

⬇

Local Team Objective

⬇

Individual Objective



In this example, the Department Team Objective will be visible for anybody who directly or indirectly reports into the Department Head. 


When you align an Objective to a Company or Team Objective and set the visibility of your objective to be Public, anybody who can see the Company or Team Objective will be able to see the title and status of your Objective.


At OpenBlend, we recommend that you include your Company Objectives, Senior Leadership Objectives and Head of Department Objectives for each department loaded into OpenBlend, as a minimum. This helps employees keep the overall goals in mind and helps them understand how they contribute to the wider goals of the organisation and team.



Creating Team Objectives


To set-up your Team Objectives, simply click on the "My Team" button, from your OpenBlend welcome screen and click on the "Objectives" tab, within the left-hand navigation. 


From here you will see two dropdown sections, one for your Team Objectives and the other for a list of your direct report's individual Objectives. Simply expand the "Team Objectives" section and click on the "Add New Team Objective" button. 


You will then be presented with the Objective editor window, you can follow the steps below to create your Objective. 


  1. Add a Title for your Objective
     
  2. Add the Objective Description
     
  3. Click the "Next" button
     
  4. Add the Start Date
     
  5. Add the Due Date
     
  6. Choose your measure of success, these include:
    • Milestones (recommended) 
    • As a percentage 
    • As a currency
    • As a number
    • Completed Yes/No
  7. Align your Team Objective to a Parent Objective.
    If you are an SLT member, we recommend that you align into a Company Objective, if you are a manager below the SLT, we recommend that you align into your direct manager's Team Objective. 
     
  8. Add any Tags, if applicable 
     
  9. Once you are happy with the set-up, click the "Create Team Objective" button
     
  10. If you have chosen Milestones as your measure for success, you will be able to set up the Milestones here.
    • To create a Milestone, click the "+ Add New Milestone" button
    • Give your Milestone a Title
    • Set the importance of the Objective
    • Set the Due Date
    • Choose your measure for success
      • Percentage
      • Currency (GBP, USD, EUR)
      • Number
      • Completed Yes/No
    • Set the Start Value
    • Set the Target Value
    • Click the "Create Milestone" button
    • To create a another Milestone, click the "Add Another Milestone" button and repeat the above stages. 



Milestones are great for annual Objectives, to represent the quarters or months of the year and the Objectives you need to reach for each month/quarter. Another great way to use Milestones is to outline the stages within a particular project you may have.