Strategy is a set of choices that explain how your organization is different. With Strategic Pillars, you’re able to make sense of those choices and communicate your strategy in a way that's understood by your people.
By visualizing the relationships between your strategy and the goals you need to deliver that strategy, Perdoo brings strategic alignment to a whole new level!
In this article:
Before you start: Read this article to decide on your Strategic Pillars and understand how to combine strategy with OKRs to boost strategic alignment.
Setting up Strategic Pillars
Once you’ve decided on your Strategic Pillars, it’s time to set them up in Perdoo.
Need inspiration? Check out our Strategic Pillar examples.
⚠ How you set up your Pillars depends on whether you’ve already added strategic Objectives to your Map. If you have and would like to replace these Objectives with Strategic Pillars, head to Option 2: Migrating long-term Objectives section below. If that doesn’t apply to you, Option 1 is for you:
Option 1: Starting from scratch
Go to Map
At the top of your Map, click the + icon next to the Strategic Pillars "lane", or click the link to Add your first Pillar.
Type in the name of your Strategic Pillar, and hit Enter/Return.
Your Strategic Pillar has now been created. You can then add additional Strategic Pillars (repeating the steps above). From there, you can add long-term Objectives to align under your pillars: Simply click the + icon in your longest OKR cadence (the "lane" below your Strategic Pillars.
Option 2: Migrating long-term OKRs to Strategic Pillars
If you’ve already been using the Map, your current long-term company Objectives may already translate your strategy and could be replaced by Strategic Pillars. But they might already have other Objectives aligned to them. The solution: migrate Objectives in the longest cadence of your Map. The Objective will become a Strategic Pillar and all its aligned Objectives will be realigned to the Pillar.
Watch this video to follow along in real-time. Or read below for instructions.
Create your Strategic Pillars
The first step is to create your Pillars.
Head to Strategy > Map.
At the top of your Map, click the + icon next to Strategic Pillars, or click the link to Add your first Pillar.
Type in the name of your Strategic Pillar, and hit Enter/Return.
Migrate long-term Objectives to your Strategic Pillar
Follow these steps to replace a long-term Objective with a pillar that you’ve created. Objectives currently aligned to this Objective will then align to your Strategic Pillar.
Open the Objective in your longest cadence that you’d like to transform into a Strategic Pillar. Then, click on the three dots in the top-right corner of the Objective screen.
In the dropdown list, click “Re-align Sub-Objectives”
In the window that appears, click the blue text: “Click here to align to Strategic Pillar instead”
Select the Strategic Pillar that you’d like to migrate this Objective to. And click Save.
The aligned Objectives from your long-term Objective have now been aligned to the Strategic Pillar.
If you are looking to migrate all Objectives in your longest cadence to Strategic Pillars, then you should repeat the steps above to create new Pillars and migrate the sub-Objectives of your long-term Objective. Once you've done that, you'll likely have an empty longest cadence. You can archive or delete this cadence in Configure>Cadences.
Your Strategic Pillars function in the same way as Objectives – you can click the blue + icon to add an aligned Objective, or realign existing Objectives to different Strategic Pillars via drag and drop. You can also re-order Strategic Pillars via drag-and-drop, or fold your Pillars (by clicking on them) to hide all their aligned Objectives.
* NOTE: Strategic Pillars appear in the Map from left to right from oldest to newest created.
Add context to Strategic Pillars
From your Map or Strategic Timeline, use the 3-dot menu > Edit Strategic Pillar > Save in order to add a description to your Strategic Pillar.
Communicate your strategy effectively with additional context that resonates with your team. Add context to explain why this is a Strategic Pillar. Are their trade-offs you'll have to make? Explain your choices so that everyone's on the same page.
Hover over a Strategic Pillar in your Map to view your description:
Align KPIs to Strategic Pillars
Your strategy isn't time-bound (unlike an OKR). It's your strategy up until you change it. So the success of a Strategic Pillar is measured through KPIs as, unlike Key Results, KPIs don't have a due date.
Please note that only Superadmins can align KPIs to Strategic Pillars.
When aligning a KPI to a Strategic Pillar, you can choose an existing KPI or create a new KPI. Simply click on the three vertical dots on the top-right of your Pillar, as shown below.
* NOTE: There is no limit to the number of KPIs you can add to a Strategic Pillar. KPIs can alway be broken down into more granular metrics, so it's important to really focus. The intention is to add those high-level metrics that truly communicate how you're doing.
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.