Align your team's work with your company's goals with our latest feature: Objectives

The past couple of years have been hard on Startups. Rising interest rates have led to a freeze in new funding, forcing many companies to cut staff and resources. At least 3,200 have gone out of business entirely in 2023, with many more teetering on the edge. 

At Shortcut, we have a unique view into this: thousands of Startups use Shortcut to manage their projects, initiatives, and product development work. We meet with hundreds of these customers each year to discuss the challenges they're facing, and how we can improve Shortcut to solve their problems. 

Recently, we've noticed one pretty strong theme emerging from these conversations that could be partly to blame for the current state of Startups: lack of alignment around strategic goals.

Our customers tell us that it's often challenging to ensure everyone in the organization is aligned and driving towards the right objectives. The teams building the products are focused on delivering one outcome, while those that are setting the company strategy may have an entirely different outcome in mind. This misalignment can lead to delayed launches, wasted engineering effort, and missed targets. 

Most organizations try to address this by creating OKRs that they hope everyone will remember and revisit throughout the quarter. The truth is, however, that almost always these objectives are forgotten or worse, ignored. It's not really anyone's fault. The objectives live in one place while the actual development work lives in another - the two are disconnected. This can lead to misalignment and cause leadership to lose confidence in the teams building the products, while simultaneously causing those building the products to lose sight of how their work meets the needs of their customers and the business. 

To help address this misalignment, we're launching something brand new: Objectives.

🎯 Objectives help Connect Strategy with Execution

They ensure everyone in an organization is aligned with its strategic goals. Teams can define Objectives and Key Results, connect them to Epics, and track ongoing progress. 

‍🚀 Objectives Help Drive Results by Keeping Goals Top of Mind

It's important to manage goals in the same tool teams use to manage their work so that they know how their work ties back to broader company objectives.

🧠 Objectives Help Teams Work Smarter with Real-time Visibility

Getting a clear picture of all Epics being worked on for each Objective helps teams track progress continuously, and lets them adjust goals or initiatives in real-time, if needed.

With the launch of Objectives, we're excited to finally bring together Strategy and Execution in one tool, helping ensure everyone in an organization is aligned and building the right products that drive results for the business. 

Objectives will be available on all plans. Learn more about Objectives or try it out now!

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