Task management vs. goal management: why your company needs both

These days it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by technology – no matter how powerful we know it to be. In both our personal and professional lives, there seems to be an app for everything. So it’s no surprise that some are taking the “less is more” approach, curbing their screen time and decluttering their devices. 

When it comes to performance management, however, this outlook may be counterproductive. Research shows that both employee satisfaction and engagement scores rise when employees have access to the software and tools they need to do their job well. And where other tech users are spoiled for choice, 7 out of 10 HR departments still don’t have the cutting-edge technology they need to enable truly engaged employees. 

One reason companies might shy away from new technology is not wanting to use too many different tools. This hesitation can also result in managers limiting themselves to fewer options, and choosing to stick with the tools they already have rather than strengthening their digital infrastructure with additional capabilities. In practice, however, there is much to be gained from reinforcing your task or project management apps with a goal management system. 

For example, many Leapsome customers come to us with an HR Information System (HRIS) such as BambooHR or Personio in place, but lack tools  for Performance Management & Employee Engagement. Similarly, most companies have task or project management software in place such as Trello, JIRA, Monday or Asana, but, while these tools play an important role, they do not do a good job of helping the company define and manage their overarching strategic goals. That’s where Leapsome comes in. With our Goal and OKR Management platform, users are able to take the long view on their goals across individual, team and company levels, giving them greater oversight of their progress.  

And with a clear understanding of what each tool caters to, goal and task management apps can complement each other perfectly; helping your company remain focused on its North star as well as the day-to-day work. 

To draw a brief comparison, remember the days before instant messenger apps, when everyone communicated by email? In one way, apps like Slack offered to do the same job (or a better one, some argue) as email: enabling written communication between colleagues. But anyone who uses Slack knows that operating on different timescales often entails a different way of communicating: and Slack provided a perfect channel for short, instant dialogue that wasn’t possible with email. 

In a similar way, goal management tools like Leapsome allow you to harness a different perspective on your goals. Rather than a to-do list or project plan, the Goals feature encourages you to zoom out and consider your ambitions over a longer time frame, usually in quarterly cycles (but these can be adjusted to any length). Even if you don’t use an OKR system, this can be incredibly helpful when you sit down to figure out where you want to be in a year’s time. 

Unlike to-do list apps or task management software, Leapsome fosters a holistic overview of goals with its parent-child goal system, which is helpfully mapped out as a company goal tree. By being able to visualise the relationships between goals across different levels of the company in this way, it’s much easier to get a sense of how goal completion affects overall progress: and individuals can better understand the significance of their own objectives to the bigger picture. Furthermore, you can set up recurring goal cycles with fixed timelines, which helps to get into a rhythm whilst reducing the amount of admin you need to conclude and set up each cycle. 

Finally, Leapsome’s Goal & OKR feature organizes everyone’s priorities in one place. Where one team might use a different task app to another based on their respective needs and preferences, Leapsome’s Goals & OKRs feature provides a consistent overview of the entire organisation’s progress. Extra features such as people analytics, project tags and requesting feedback on goals make it possible to stay on top of each goal cycle and track progress along the way. Furthermore, regular goal progress reminders help you keep your goals in plain sight: while the integration between Leapsome’s Goals and Meetings features provides a solid foundation to check in on progress in person.

To ensure smooth transitions between each platform, we recommend setting up tags within your task management system that correspond to your goals in Leapsome. As an example, if one of your goals is to hire new employees for a specific team, you might add an “OKR Q1 2020 - Team hiring” tag to all the tasks in your project management system that would impact that particular goal. This will make it even easier to understand the overlap between both systems as you go.  

In short, there’s so much to be gained from a long-term goal management tool like Leapsome. It widens your vision, as well as encouraging collaboration and accountability in pursuit of progress. And for those already using Leapsome, goals integrate seamlessly with other core modules (1-on-1 Meetings, Reviews) to help goal tracking become an ingrained process for everyone. You don’t have to change the way you use your daily to-dos: Leapsome’s Goals & OKR Management feature just adds the capabilities you need to stay aligned and keep your long-term vision on track.