How to Automate Goal Tracking in Jira with OKR Board

As a Business System Analyst and Atlassian Administrator, I have extensive experience installing, configuring, customizing, and migrating Jira and Confluence. Whenever the native functionality of Jira proves insufficient to meet specific requirements, I'm always eager to go deep into third-party apps available on the Atlassian marketplace to seamlessly bridge those gaps.

Strategic Goal Setting in Jira

For teams aiming to implement strategic goal-setting, particularly those embracing the OKR (Objectives and Key Results) methodology, Jira lacks built-in functionality. Admins often resort to various workarounds, such as incorporating additional hierarchy levels in Advanced Roadmaps, configuring custom fields, or even creating dedicated projects where Epics serve as Objectives and Stories function as Key Results.

Utilizing a dedicated OKR app can eliminate this manual overhead. So today, I'll be delving into the OKR Board for Jira by Oboard.

What is an OKR board for Jira by Oboard?

True to its name, the OKR Board is an OKR management tool, available for Cloud, Server, and Datacenter. Launched by Oboard five years ago, it boasts 3000+ installs and 3.9 out of 4 reviews rating.

What does Oboard's OKR Board for Jira do?

• As a typical OKR software, Oboard aligns teams and individuals around strategic company goals.
• As a built-in Jira plugin, it automatically calculates OKRs progress based on changes in statuses of Jira issues.

Ultimately, Oboard connects strategic objectives with daily operations by linking Issues (epics, stories, tasks, etc.) with objectives and key results. It quantifies the impact of daily Jira tasks on high-level company goals.

What are the key features of the OKR Board for Jira?

1.Alignment Board: The OKR board provides a versatile way to align objectives and key results across different user groups. It allows you to customize the structure to suit the organization's unique requirements. Plus it also easily integrates with Jira which enables you to link Jira issues and automatically monitor the progress of your OKRs.

2.OKR Roadmap: OKR roadmap allows you to cross-project and cross-team alignment. It can collect Jira issues from multiple Jira projects, even with the standard subscription. Roadmap is great to compare the planned timelines with the actual progress. This feature helps everyone understand and work towards common objectives.

3. Custom Dashboards: You can create your own custom dashboard to showcase the most important objectives and use them as a real progress report. The dashboard allows you to select up to 10 objectives and monitor them in a dedicated dashboard. You can have multiple dashboards for multiple reports. You can share the dashboard directly inside the app, and you can also export it in PDF format.

4. OKR Reports into Confluence: To access this feature you need to install the OKR board for Confluence plugin which is free. It allows you to create a confluence dashboard that will update in real time. You can create unlimited reports into confluence. You can also embed OKR reports from Jira to Confluence.

How to set up?

You can install the app on the Atlassian marketplace.To get started with the OKR board you would need to create a few prerequisite items:

1. Define OKR Interval: Specify the period or time frame for achieving OKRs.
2. Configure OKR Levels: Set up the hierarchy for future goals, from the company to the team level.
3. Create Groups: Establish groups and subgroups representing departments, teams, or squads.

And that’s it. Now you’re all set to add your Objectives and Key Results, link Jira issues and set custom weights to tie the calculation to your needs. Explore Oboard’s documentation for in-depth knowledge on installation and set up.

Notably, OKR Board is free for teams with 10 or fewer users in their JIRA workspace. Larger teams can avail themselves of affordable pricing ranging from $0.1 to $1.8 per user monthly, depending on the total number of users and the payment cycle.

If you’ve got any questions on the app and first-hand experience – feel free to ask ??

#OKR #management #oboard #Atlassian Atlassian Oboard OKR Software