Joyn drives their company goals forward with Asana

Highlights

Challenge

• To promote internal alignment, Joyn initially introduced Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), but the company quickly learned that the traditional OKR format wasn’t the right fit for their organization. 

• OKRs left them with objectives that were too inspirational and vague, and individual teams were required to define three to five outcome metrics to document their goal achievement. 

• Employees spent a lot of time on an often futile search for suitable metrics and many felt constrained by the rigid requirements.

Solution

• Since Joyn was already using Asana to manage their work, it was easy for them to begin setting and managing goals in the same platform.

• By linking strategic business goals with operational team goals, Asana created transparency and helped them define meaningful goals that could move the company forward. 

• Participation in the goal-setting process gives individual teams an opportunity to contribute their expertise and creates clarity: employees know the purpose of their work, the overall plan, their responsibilities, and can prioritize daily work accordingly.

Outcome

• A more flexible and efficient goal setting and management process allows the company to be agile and respond to market changes quickly

• More easily break down annual goals into cross-functional and team goals so everyone can see how their work contributes to the company’s success

• Reduced goal management for team leads by 60% with Asana Goals

Annual goals are now broken down more–and they’re much more specific. Teams can, therefore, really work with them. ”

Asana for goal management

Implementing concrete and flexible goal setting with Asana Goals

Joyn tested out different systems like OKRS for goal management, but they weren’t the right fit for their company culture. They also wanted to connect their goals to the work teams are doing to measure progress. 

By linking strategic business goals with operational team goals, Asana creates transparency and facilitates meaningful goals that move the company forward. 

Full visibility into goal workflows

• With Asana, teams can now easily and clearly articulate their team goals, what they want to achieve (WHAT), and how success can be measured (HOW). 

• Metrics are either team-specific key performance indicators (KPIs), or milestones or deliverables that teams want to achieve. 

• In their goal description, teams outline why the goal is important and how it contributes to the company's success (WHY). 

• As internal or external circumstances change, teams can easily adjust or realign their goals. 

• This ensures new insights are incorporated regularly and that goals continue to be relevant to the team and Joyn.

Connecting goals to work

• Joyn uses a top-down and bottom-up approach to goal setting to ensure that all levels of the company are actively involved in development, can fulfill their roles, and contribute knowledge and input. 

• Goals are linked across the company in Asana and visible to all relevant employees.

• First, the management team defines overarching annual goals with corresponding metrics for achievement based on market data, competition, the current situation, and the company's strengths and weaknesses.

• Based on this, opportunities and risks are defined and translated into cross-functional goals in Asana that sit between annual goals and team goals. 

• In the third step, individual teams develop concrete goals for their work to support the cross-functional goals.

Teams are able to use Asana to make decisions to meet our goals. ”

Asana Goals helps Joyn live its company culture

Sebastian Todt and his team see managing their work in Asana as a strategic advantage for Joyn. Apart from the impressive efficiency gains, Asana Goals supports the error culture and iterative learning process by documenting why a goal was created. This ensures teams and Joyn remain flexible and can easily pivot to new targets as the market evolves.