Goal
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In short: Goals work at both the Workplace (organizational) and Team levels, ensuring alignment across all parts of your business. This article explains how to create, manage, and assign Goals, with details on how you can link them to other Timebook objects. You'll also learn how to use Key Results to track progress toward your Goals by breaking down objectives into actionable steps.
What are Goals?
In Timebook, Goals are essential for guiding your efforts and helping you move from planning to delivery. Whether you’re focusing on team milestones or company-wide targets, Goals provide the structure needed to stay on track and measure success.
Goals in Timebook are managed through dedicated modules at both the Team and Workplace levels. The Team-level module helps you organize and track objectives specific to a particular team, while the Workplace module provides a central view of all Goals—including targets for both individual teams and your entire organization. This dual structure ensures that every Goal remains visible, easily manageable, and linked to the work that drives your outcomes.
To manage Goals for your team as an Admin or Owner, you must first enable the [Goals] module and its features in your team’s settings. You can also customize the module’s behavior by creating custom statuses or increasing automatization by integrating with Git.
For more information, see Goal settings
Managing Goals in dedicated modules
Timebook has a dedicated module for managing Goals, offering multiple perspectives through different data layouts. The [Goals] module is designed to help you manage everything from team milestones to organization-wide objectives.
Workplace level
This module helps you focus on the big picture by managing high-level strategy for your entire Timebook Workplace. You can open the module directly from the Navigator on the left.
It shows all Goals in your Workplace, regardless of whether they are assigned to specific Teams or the Workplace as a whole. Use this module to manage and track both team-specific and company-wide objectives.
Team level
Each Timebook Team has a dedicated module for managing Goals. This allows teams to plan, track, and coordinate their objectives independently.
By default, any Goal created in this module is assigned to the respective Team. This setup ensures that teams can focus on their own priorities while still being able to link their objectives to broader organizational outcomes.
As a CEO, you can use the [Goals] module at the Workplace level to drive the organization’s strategic vision by setting high-level objectives that align teams across the company.
As a Team Leader, the [Goals] module at the Team level helps you guide others towards shared objectives, ensuring that everyone is working in sync. You can align Team Goals with broader company objectives and connect them with the actual work.
All [Goals] modules hold all the objective-related data, which you can customize using various layouts, filters, and grouping options. Additionally, you can save these customized views as public for all members to access or keep them private for your personal use.
Creating a Goal
You can create Goals in several ways:
At the Team level: Use the [Goals] module within a specific Team.
From the Strategy section: Access the dedicated entry point in the [Strategy] section of the Navigator.
Contextually within Timebook: Create Goals directly from other areas, such as within an Opportunity.
No matter where you begin, the creation process remains nearly identical to the steps outlined below:
To create a Goal:
Click the [+] button at the top of the list of Goals. The button placement may vary depending on your chosen data layout.
Give your new Goal a meaningful name. At this stage, you can also:
Change the scope by making it a Workplace or Team Goal.
Add a short description or define basic properties.
Add a Key Result to your Goal. See here for more information on Key Results.
Click [Create...] to save your changes.
Your new Goal is ready. Open its card to edit the details and explore all available options and properties.
Goal cards
In Timebook, each Goal has its own card that displays all the options and properties you can use to manage it. In different layouts, you can also use cards to move your Goals around. For instance, you can drag and drop a Goal card to:
Drag the Goal to another Team in the Board layout to reassign it.
Change the Goal’s position in the List layout.
After you open a Goal card, you can manage and navigate using the options in the top bar.
What are Key Results?
Key Results are the specific, measurable outcomes that help you track progress toward achieving your Goals. They break down broad objectives into tangible, actionable benchmarks, ensuring you can evaluate performance along the way.
In Timebook, Key Results go beyond providing metrics—they also serve as a bridge between Goals and other elements within the platform. This means a single Goal can have multiple Key Results, each associated with various Timebook objects. Using Key Results strategically, you can align high-level objectives with day-to-day work.
In the [Key Results] section of the Goal card, you can create Key Results and link them to related objects. There is also an overview of these linked objects so you can easily interact with them.
You can connect a Goal to other Timebook objects through a Key Result:
Link an existing Initiative to your Goal to show a key area of focus or a theme that aligns with your organization’s objectives.
Create an Opportunity Solution Tree and automatically link it to your Goal through a Key Result.
Link an existing Project to your Goal through a Key Result to directly connect an objective to project work.
Each Key Result includes a progress tracker to help you monitor achievements toward your target. The tracker is updated based on the [Current value] you enter, providing a clear visual representation of progress against the set target. To update, simply click on the tracker, input the latest value, and select [Update]. This ensures everyone stays aligned on progress and can quickly identify whether they’re on track to meet the related Goal.
Goal cards: Sections
When you look at the left side of a Goal card, you’ll notice several sections. Each section has a specific purpose: to help you describe your objectives, add metrics, or add supporting resources.
Here’s an overview of the sections of a Goal card and their purpose:
Links & attachments
This section is where you can support a Goal with links to external resources or attachments, such as files or Timebook Documents. Click the [+] button and choose the type of resource you want to add. Next, provide the link and a brief description.
Each linked resource type is marked with a dedicated icon, so you can quickly distinguish Figma links from Loom links, for example.
Sub-Goals
In Timebook, you can create a hierarchy of Goals by adding sub-Goals. They represent smaller milestones that break down Goals into manageable pieces. Click the [+] button in this section to create sub-Goals, or use the [Link] button to browse and select existing Goals to turn them into sub-Goals.
All sub-Goals are displayed here with indicators that show whether they are assigned to a specific Team or the entire Workplace. You can unlink these sub-Goals from the main Goal by clicking the [...] icon and selecting [Unlink].
Related
While [Sub-Goals] show the parent-child relationship, the [Related] section focuses on dependencies between the Goal and other Timebook objects. Click the [+] button in this section and use the dropdown menu to select the type of dependency, such as “Is blocked by,” “Supports,” or “Generated from.” Next, use the search bar to find and link an existing Timebook object.
Here, you can link your Goal to other object types; for example, you can create a link between a Work Item and a Goal.
Goal cards: Tabs
When you look at the right side of a Goal card, you’ll notice several tabs. They allow you to further define your Goal, provide an update, and track changes over time.
Here’s an overview of the Goal card tabs and their purpose:
Properties
You can use multiple fields in this tab to fine-tune, categorize, or time-box your Goal. You can start by changing the due date or Team assignment, but there are more properties to handle more complex cases.
For more information, see our separate article dedicated to Properties
Comments
This tab allows Workplace members to communicate, share updates, and collaborate directly within the Goal. They can ask questions, provide updates, or offer feedback, making it a central hub for goal-related communication. You can mention others using the @ symbol and notify specific people directly.
For more information, see Comments
Activity
This tab tracks all actions and changes made to a Goal, providing a detailed history of events. It displays them in chronological order, showing when changes were made and by whom. The information in this tab is generated automatically, usually including name changes, reassignments, and comments.
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