Identifying the right goals to work on is an art in itself—but turning those goals into actual results is without a doubt the hardest part.

To achieve a goal, you first need to put someone in charge of it. In Perdoo, that person is called the Lead. You can lead a KPI, Objective, Key Result, or an Initiative.

Only one person can lead a goal, but that doesn’t mean that the Lead is the only person working on that goal. The Lead of an OKR will often need several others to work on related Initiatives.

The lead should be kept accountable, but should also receive appropriate support from Contributors and his/her manager. Leads need to stay on top of progress, while managers need to provide coaching for goals that don’t progress well.

The Perdoo Check-in feature supports those goal leads and managers.

We’ll zoom in on the benefits of Check-ins below. If you’d like to get started right away, here’s how to:

Individual progress updates are time consuming and require much clicking around. You’re also likely to forget to update a few goals. That may not be an issue for you, but can be annoying for an Objective lead who wants to see how the related Key Results or Initiatives that you lead progress.

Check-ins let you update all your progress at once. Once every week (or twice, as this is a customizable setting), everyone leading goals will receive a reminder to submit their Check-in.

Slack:

Microsoft Teams:

For the goals that aren’t automatically updated, this can help you save up to 30 minutes per week!

A survey amongst 592 of our customers found:

Check-ins turn erratic progress updates into a simple weekly habit, and ensure that all goals are always up-to-date.

There are many reasons why the lead should regularly update progress. The most important one is, without a doubt, the scientifically proven relationship between frequent progress updates and goal attainment.

Benjamin Harkin (Ph.D. of the University of Sheffield) conducted a meta-analysis of 138 studies comprising in total 19,951 participants. He found that prompting participants to monitor their progress increased the likelihood that the participants would achieve that goal.

The more frequent the monitoring, the more likely they were to succeed. As Harkin states: “Monitoring goal progress is a crucial process that comes into play between setting and attaining a goal.”

A survey amongst 592 of our customers confirmed this:

Check-ins make sure that you’ll update progress each week, which helps you deliver stunning results. And delivering stunning results will drive the business—and your career—forward.

You may be working on goals that contribute to other goals. For example, you may be leading an Initiative for another person’s Objective. Keeping your goals up-to-date through a simple, weekly Check-in keeps your co-workers informed about your progress. That not only prevents annoying emails and Slack messages about status updates, it’s also just the right thing to do. Achieving goals is teamwork.

For managers, Check-ins provide an easy way to review the progress of their direct reports. Managers find their direct reports on their Home view. Once a direct report has submitted their Check-in, you’ll see Checked-in behind their name. Clicking on Checked-in will take you directly to their most recent Check-in.

We recommend that you review the Check-in during your 1:1 with your direct report(s) (here’s why). However, you can also review the Check-in in your own time. In both cases, you’ll always be fully up-to-date on your direct reports’ progress while maintaining your distance. It enables you to provide the required coaching and support, without micro-managing them.

Need a hand? Contact our friendly Support team via the in-app chat at the bottom-right of your screen, or email support@perdoo.com.

Next article in our quick start guide: Add a profile picture