Set Strategic Initiatives and Goals for my Business.

Problem to solve

Many businesses plan their upcoming work using a Top Down approach, where they begin with a Strategy item or Initiative, and begin mapping out specific deliverables or project goals, often over a longer period of time (a quarter or even a year), before they start writing individual issues.

As a User of GitLab,

I need to be able to connect the work we are doing to the goals of the business,

So we can report on the effort and progress towards those goals

Similar Offerings in the market:

• TFS Plans and SAFE Framework
• AHA Imperatives : Goals and Initiatives

Some common structures we have seen leveraged

Set at Company/Org Level:

• Themes/Goals (Set at Company/Org Level)
• Initiatives (Assigned to a Theme/Goal, specific, measurable, time limited)
• Programs (Products/Depts report on effort/Weight/Time towards an Initiative/Theme)
• Epics/Feature (Assigned or tagged to an Initiative)
• Issues (Effort/Weight/Time reported at the issue level)

Program Area Level:

• Themes/Goals (Set at the Dept or Program Level)
• Initiatives (Assigned to a Theme/Goal, specific, measurable, time limited)
• Teams (Teams report on effort/Weight/Time towards an Initiative/Theme)
• Epics/Feature (Assigned or tagged to an Initiative)
• Issues (Effort/Weight/Time reported at the issue level)

Internal Use Case : OKRs

• High Level Objective created as an Epic for a dept/team
• Key Results created as Issues and assigned to an Epic
• (Upcoming) Health Status to track On Track/Needs Attention/At Risk

Reach

• Rachel (Release Manager)
• Parker (Product Manager)
• Delaney (Development Team Lead)

Further details

Primary use case is to enable business leaders (at the executive, org, or department level) to create a set of Business Goals and Initiatives and map effort towards them over a time line. This will allow them to understand how much work was committed and executed towards a goal, track progress towards a goal, and report success/failure over a timeline.

Example OKR/Strategic Planning Wiki we demo to customers

Proposal

Pending

Permissions and Security

Pending

Documentation

Pending

Availability & Testing

What does success look like, and how can we measure that?

Business Success Metrics

• Increase in IACV due to ultimate sales
• Increase in Plan adoption at the Portfolio level

Product Usage Success Metrics

• Number of accounts using Goals/Initiatives
• Number of Goals/Initiatives created
• Number of epics/issues assigned to a Goal/Initiative

What is the type of buyer?

Per our Buyer Model We are targeting on Ultimate, which is for strategic organizational usage, with the purchasing decision led by one or more Execs.

Links / references

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