Today we are launching the biggest update in our history — introducing a more flexible structure for your strategic goals and success metrics, advanced progress tracking, and a customizable dashboard that puts unparalleled insights right at your fingertips.
This release marks a substantial leap forward, bringing your strategic OKRs together with operational KPIs, empowering you with greater clarity and control. Let’s delve into what this means for you.
To begin with, check out this 3-minute presentation by the Oboard founder Viktor Grekov:
Key Highlights of This Release
Introducing Strategy Components
Oboard has always been about OKRs, but every company handles OKRs in its own way, sometimes significantly modifying the framework to their needs. This is the correct approach — OKRs are made to be flexible — but our previous solution sometimes felt too rigid.
So, you asked for more adaptability, and we delivered. From now on, OKRs are just one of the many Strategy Components that you can track in Oboard. Instead of just Objectives and Key Results, you can also have KPIs and Initiatives side-by-side with OKRs.
NOTE: Explore Oboard’s KPI Tracking features on a dedicated page.
Here is an example of how you can make your strategy truly actionable up inside the tool:
As you can see, Strategy Components can be either Objectives or Metrics. Here’s the difference:
- Objectives are the same as before — significant goals that act as a parent to all the nested items they contain. The score of an Objective is determined by the average score of its sub-Objectives and Metrics.
- Metrics are new. They extend our previous “Key Results”. Metrics can still serve as Key Results, but they can also be many other things. They can exist without a parent Objective, track the progress with milestones or thresholds, and in general are much more flexible. We will discuss these updates further in the section on Progress Tracking.
These changes allow for a broader and more adaptable approach to structuring your strategic elements, moving beyond the strict OKR hierarchy when needed.
Custom Dashboards
Custom Dashboards have always been a major part of the Oboard flow, and with the KPI update, we are significantly expanding their functionality too. Now you can build more flexible reports, adding not only the raw data of OKRs and KPIs but also all the context your report recipient might need. We also made the dashboard modular, so that you can assemble it the way you want, emphasizing the most important data.
Here’s an example of such a report:
Advanced Progress Tracking
We’ve significantly enhanced how you track progress, providing more granular control and deeper insights into your journey:
- Threshold-type metrics: Thresholds allow you to define success based on a specific value and condition: Above, Above/Equal, Below, Below/Equal. This is ideal for tracking compliance metrics, health indicators (e.g., system uptime), or maintaining performance within a desired range. Furthermore, you can set unique thresholds for different periods, allowing you to adapt to varying targets or compliance requirements over time.
- Milestones: For metrics measured with the ‘Start/Target’ option, you can now break down your progress into smaller, cumulative milestones. Each milestone can have its own due date and target value, providing granular visibility into your journey towards the final goal. Now you can break down a complex sales target into quarterly milestones, each with its own mini-target!
- “Progress Setup” & “Update Progress” Split. The OKR and Metric tracking process has been separated into Setup and Update sections. This makes the process more intuitive and less prone to errors, ensuring that valuable data won’t be erroneously overwritten.
- Historical Updates. You can now easily input historical data by selecting a past date, ensuring your progress graphs accurately reflect your journey from the very beginning and remain relevant even if you’re adding data retroactively. And for ultimate control over your data, a new Progress history tab allows you to review and even delete previous value updates.
To add a historical data point, open the metric you wish to edit, click “Update Progress” and then click “Today” in the top left of the pop-up to open the calendar. There you can select the date for which the update will be applied.
Whether you’re already leveraging Oboard or are just exploring how it can revolutionize your goal management, we’d love to show you how these new features can empower your strategy execution. Schedule a personalized demo with our experts today and discover how to unlock the full potential of KPIs and Custom Metrics for your unique needs!
