Sometimes goals are created from a “set it and forget it” mentality, but not in 15Five! 15Five makes it easy to track your progress on a regular basis, so you actually reach the finish line. In 15Five, we call shorter term goals "priorities" and longer term goals "objectives". Priorities are set regularly in your check-in. Objectives are usually set quarterly, bi-annually, or yearly and are managed via our Objectives feature. More information on these two options is below.
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Priorities
Depending on your company and group settings, you may have a Priorities section on your 15Five. Priorities in 15Five are short-term goals or tasks that follow the cadence of your 15Five reporting. Writing your priorities directly in your 15Five lets your manager know what you have prioritized for your weekly tasks, and they too can track your progress toward accomplishing your goals.
Research shows, employees should prioritize and select a few activities to focus on to maximize time and performance. The fresh start effect also shows that the best time to prioritize is Monday, so a general rule of thumb is to open your 15Five at the start of every week, review the priorities you set for yourself, and identify anything else you want to focus on over the next five days. You can edit your priorities, carry them over to another check-in, or add priorities that you forgot to add the week before using 'Add a new priority'.
Another useful function of the Priorities feature is the ability to link your priorities to your long-term objectives to ensure that your weekly tasks align week over week. This will help you break down tasks and focus on short term task goals as you work toward completing your longer-term goals.
A look at Priorities from a sample 15Five check-in:
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Objectives
The Objectives feature in 15Five uses the OKR (Objectives and Key Results) Methodology which is a framework for defining and tracking business objectives and their outcomes. Objectives are the long term goals you want to accomplish. In order to set objectives in 15Five, you will also need to create key results to measure your objectives. Objectives are are typically qualitative or subjective, ambitious, and time-bound. While, Key Results are concrete, specific, and measurable. Key results should describe how you'll accomplish the objective and measure whether you are on track, behind, or at risk of accomplishing an objective. For more information on the Objectives and Key Results methodology please see Methodology Explained: OKRs from our Success Center and OKR Methodology from our Science pages.
We suggest that you set your objectives with your managers on a quarterly basis. Align your individual goals to company goals. You'll feel a greater sense of purpose in your work when you see how your contribution drives company goals forward. OKRs are most effective when they are personally meaningful, flexible, and can adjust during the quarter to match business needs. In 15Five, you can easily edit your Objectives and Key Results and provide a comment to your manager to give context behind the change.
Objectives will show on each 15Five check-in so that you may update the progress on your objectives and key results throughout your reporting period. We recommend leaving comments on your OKRs in your 15Five, so you can provide your manager with some more context on successes and challenges.
You can create self-development objectives in 15Five, as well! As you identify your skill gaps, create learning goals to keep your growth and development front and center. Self-development objectives allow you to prioritize these skill gaps that prohibit you from doing your best work. We recommend you set short-term and general “do your best” goals for self-development objectives. Specific and challenging goals have a negative effect on performance. More general learning goals increase the growth mindset, a belief that abilities are not fixed because then you won't worry about failure and instead see goal setting as a chance to learn.
A look at the Objectives feature in 15Five:
