What are Global OKRs?
Global OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) in Kendis represent your organization's top-tier, strategic goals. Unlike Program Objectives, which are PI-bound, Global OKRs typically span longer time horizons (quarters, half-years, or annually) and are defined at the Portfolio or Organizational level. They provide a way to align the entire organization, from top-level leadership down to individual departments or teams.
Objective: The aspirational What you want to achieve (e.g., "Dominate the Regional Market").
Key Results (KRs): The measurable How you will achieve the objective (e.g., "Increase market share from 10% to 25%").
What to Use Them For
Global OKRs drive strategic alignment and visibility across the entire enterprise, providing benefits such as:
Usage | Benefit in Kendis |
Enterprise Alignment | Used to cascade objectives top-down from the leadership level to Products, ARTs, Departments, and other functional areas. This ensures every program and team's work is tied back to the organizational strategy. |
Cross-Department Visibility | Global OKRs can be shared and linked across multiple Collections (representing different departments or areas) using Global Objective Relationships. This breaks down silos and provides transparency on how one department’s goal impacts another. |
Roadmap Visualization | Global OKRs are visualized on a Roadmap (specifically an OKR Roadmap or Portfolio Roadmap) rather than the Program Board timeline. This dynamic view clearly shows the strategic direction and planned delivery over multiple PIs or quarters. |
Progress Quantification | Key Results can be tracked via various methods: linked backlog items (for automated progress), cascading objectives (linking to a PI Objective's progress), or custom targets (manual KPIs). |
Detailed Navigation and How-To
This guide covers the systematic creation and management of Global OKRs within Kendis.
I. Starting Point: Accessing the OKR View
Unlike Program Objectives, which are on a specific board, Global OKRs are accessed from the main navigation panel.
Navigate to the Main Menu: From any board in Kendis, locate the left-hand navigation panel.
Access the OKR Section: Click the OKRs icon. This takes you to the Strategic Themes view. This area displays all top-level strategic themes for your organization, and if you are just getting started, this is where you will create your first one.
II. Creating a Strategic Theme
A Strategic Theme is the highest-level container for your Global OKRs.
Create a New Strategic Theme: From the Strategic Themes view, click the + Create button.
Fill out the Details: In the modal that appears, you will define your strategic theme by filling out the following fields:
Title: A clear and concise name for the theme.
Short Summary: A brief description of the theme. This will be visible in the listing.
Description: A detailed explanation of the theme's purpose.
Time Period: Select the timeframe for the theme from the dropdown. You have options for defining your strategic time horizon at a yearly (Year), half-yearly (H1/H2), or quarterly (Q1-Q4) level.
Priority: From the Priority dropdown, select the importance of this theme (e.g., Critical, High, Medium, Low). The options in this dropdown can be configured by a Super Admin in the Global Settings.
Type of Strategic Theme: From the Type of Strategic Theme dropdown, select the category for your theme (e.g., Growth & Expansion, Operational Efficiency, Technology & Innovation). The options in this dropdown are also configurable by a Super Admin in the Global Settings.
Status: From the Status dropdown, select the current state of the theme (e.g., Draft, Proposed, In Progress). The options in this dropdown can also be configured by a Super Admin in the Global Settings.
Owner: Select the Collection (department, program, etc.) that owns this strategic theme from the dropdown list. This provides a clear ownership structure at the organizational level.
Responsible: Assign a specific team member who is responsible for the overall success and execution of this theme.
Collections: This is a crucial field for cascading. Click + Add Contributing Collections to open a new modal. From here, you can select the programs, teams, or departments that will contribute to this theme from a hierarchical list. Once you select a collection, it will appear as a tag within the Collections field.
Finalize Creation: Once you have filled out the details and added the contributing collections, click Save.
III. The Strategic Themes View: Understanding the Dashboard
Once you have saved your strategic theme, you will be taken back to the Strategic Themes dashboard, which displays all themes in a table format. From here, you can:
View Key Information: At a glance, see the Title, Short Summary, Type, Status, Time Period, Responsible, and Owner for each strategic theme.
Filter and Search: Use the search bar and the filters for Time Period, Responsible, and Associations at the top of the page to quickly find specific themes. You can also click the Favourites, All, and Closed tabs to toggle which themes are displayed.
Create New Themes: The + Create button is also available from this view to start the process of creating a new strategic theme at any time.
IV. The Strategic Theme Details View
When you click on the Title of a strategic theme from the dashboard, you will be taken to a detailed view. Here, you can:
View Strategic Theme Information: The title of the strategic theme (e.g., "Digital Transformation") and its short summary will be displayed prominently at the top of the page.
Navigate: You have two navigation options:
Back: Takes you back to the main Strategic Themes list view.
Details: Takes you to the detailed view of the strategic theme, where you can edit the fields you configured during creation, such as Type, Collections, Time Period, and Priority.
Create and Manage Objectives: Below the header, you will find sections dedicated to creating and managing objectives for each of the collections you added as contributors. This is where you can begin creating the objectives that will cascade down to the teams.
The OKR Roadmap: The OKR Roadmap is another powerful way to visualize your strategic plan and progress. A detailed guide on this will be provided in a separate help article.
V. Creating Objectives in the Details View
In this detailed view, you can create a new Custom Objective Group to organize objectives that are separate from any of the contributing Collections. You can also create objectives within the contributing Collections you've added.
Add a Custom Group: Click the + Add Custom button, located to the right of the Back button at the top of the page.
Name and Save: A new row will appear. Type the desired name for your custom objective group (e.g., "My Department's Goals") and click the green checkmark to save.
Reorder: The Objective Groups can be reordered in the listing by dragging and dropping them.
Add a Collection: To add objectives to a Collection, click + Add Collection. This will link a contributing collection to the group. A new section for that collection will appear below.
Add Objectives: Once a custom group or a collection section is created, you can add objectives to it using the + icon.
Quick Actions: Objective Shortcuts
When you hover over an objective, a set of icons will appear to provide quick access to key actions without having to open the full modal.
Edit (Pencil Icon): Clicking this icon opens the title text field of the objective, allowing you to edit it.
Link Item (Link Icon): Clicking this icon opens the Link Items modal, where you can link features, stories, and other backlog items to the objective.
Create Key Result (Key Result Icon): Clicking this icon opens the Create Key Result text field, allowing you to add a new Key Result directly under this objective.
Link Objective (Objective Link Icon): Clicking this icon opens the Link Objectives modal, which is used for creating cascading objectives by linking this objective to other objectives.
The Objective Modal: After an objective is created, you can click on its ID to open a detailed modal. This modal gives you a comprehensive view of the objective and its properties.
Details Tab: This tab contains all the main fields for the objective. Here, you can change the Status and Type. You can also set the Time Period and Responsible person. The Objective Groups field in this modal is a dropdown where you can link this objective to multiple other groupings within the theme. This will cause the objective to appear in both locations.
Linked Items Tab: Here you can link the objective to various items for progress tracking, including Key Results and items from your ALM tool.
To link this Global Objective to a specific Program Board objective, you would follow these steps:
Click + Link Objective at the top right of the objectives section within the "Linked Items" tab.
In the "Link Objectives" modal that appears, click the Program Board Objectives tab.
From the Select Collection dropdown, choose the program or ART that contains the objective you want to link.
From the Select Program Board dropdown, choose the specific program board.
Select the objective you want to link from the list.
Click Save.
Once linked, this creates a bidirectional connection: the Global OKR will track progress from the Program Board Objective, and the Program Board Objective will have a visible association to the higher-level strategic theme.
History Tab: This tab shows a log of all actions performed on the objective.
Watchers Tab: Here you can add watchers to the objective. Anyone added as a watcher will receive email notifications about changes and progress.
Associations Tab: This section is used to associate the objective with other collections, a key function of Global OKRs.
Progress Flow Tab: This tab provides a visual overview of the objective's progress.
VI. Creating Key Results and Tracking Progress
Key Results (KRs) are the measurable outcomes that define the success of an Objective. When creating a Key Result, you have three options for how its progress is tracked:
By Items: This option automatically calculates progress based on the completion of linked Features, Stories, or other backlog items.
By Objective: This is used for cascading. It automatically tracks progress by linking the Key Result to a lower-level Objective’s progress (e.g., linking a Global Key Result to a Program Board Objective).
Target: This is the manual tracking method. Clicking on a KR's ID will open a modal where you can select Target as the Progress Criteria. You will then be able to enter the progress manually using the following fields:
Start: The starting value of the metric (e.g., 500 new users).
Target Value: The final value you aim to achieve (e.g., 10,000 new users).
Unit: The unit of measurement (e.g., "Users," "$", "%").
Progress: The current value of the metric. You will manually update this field to reflect the current progress.
The system will then calculate the percentage completion based on the data you enter.
VII. Understanding Progress in the Strategic Theme View
In this view, you can track progress at three levels, from the individual objective up to the entire strategic theme. The progress is automatically calculated and is visible in the green progress bars and percentages.
Progress by Objective: Each individual objective has its own progress bar and percentage shown in the Progress (%) column.
Progress by Objective Group: The progress of all objectives within a specific group (e.g., "P-1 Operations") is rolled up and displayed in a progress bar on the group's header. This gives a quick overview of a collection's overall progress towards its goals within this strategic theme.
Progress by Strategic Theme: The total progress for the entire strategic theme is rolled up from all contributing objective groups and is shown in the header of the view with a prominent green progress icon. This gives a high-level, at-a-glance view of the total progress of the strategic theme.
Collection Navigation: You can click the icon next to a group's name to navigate directly to that specific collection's view, which is useful for seeing the objectives in their original context.
Drill-Down to Linked Items: To view the items linked to an objective or key result, you can click the arrow icon next to its name. This will expand the row and show a list of the linked items. You can continue to expand features to see their user stories, which gives you a full, top-down view of the work contributing to a strategic theme.
Date Constraint: When creating objectives and key results, remember that the end date for a Key Result cannot be past the end date set for the parent Objective.
By creating a strategic theme and adding contributing collections, Kendis will automatically create an Objectives section within each selected collection's view. These collections will then be able to create their own objectives and link them to the strategic theme.