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Working with the goal tree
Working with the goal tree

Working with the Goal Tree to better visualise your goals and alignments

Jared Ellis avatar
Written by Jared Ellis
Updated over a week ago

What can I learn from this page?

Working with the Goal Tree to better visualise your goals and alignments

Who is this guide for?

Performance Admins

Culture Amp’s goal tree allows you to visualize dependencies and alignment between different goals. It helps employees to understand how their individual goals contribute to team or company-level goals. It also helps to highlight dependencies between different goals.

Why use it

Having a clear view of the goals in your organization ensures that your goals are relevant to the company strategy and that everyone is aligned and working towards the same ‘north star’ - i.e., the same objectives. The goal tree makes it easy for all parts of your organization to see not only what the company is focusing on but also how the company is tracking towards meeting its strategic priorities.

When teams set goals that align with organizational objectives, team members understand the importance of their work and feel a greater sense of purpose and motivation. Likewise, alignment of employee-level goals with their team’s goals is equally important and results in greater team performance (Seijts & Latham, 2000). Alignment to broader objectives also helps identify priorities when time and resources are constrained.

Learn more about the science behind goal setting in our Guide to create and track goals

When to use it

Here are some suggestions on when you might find the goals tree view useful:

To help in setting aligned goals:

  • Help employees and teams visualize how their work fits into the bigger picture by using the goal tree to show how their effort contributes to the success of the company as a whole.

Tracking progress during operational or performance updates:

  • Consider using the goals tree during department or company meetings to discuss progress towards goals.

  • For goals to be successful, they should be tracked and evaluated regularly. Having a visual representation of what’s important to your company can help not only maintain alignment towards organizational priorities but can also assist in maintaining employee engagement.

How to use it

The goal tree features several functions that will allow you to customize your view and explore the goals in the tree in depth. These are listed below:

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  • Filter goals by due date

    • When a date range is selected, goals outside of this range will not be shown in the tree. Note that goals aligned to a goal with a due date will also not be shown.

  • Reset the tree to its default, closed state

  • Switch between tree view and list view

  • Viewing a single goal in the tree

    • Each card represents a goal and shows the goal title, level (company, department, individual, or team), due date, and goal owners. To update or track goal progress, click on the main body of the goal card to open the drawer. The bottom part of the card shows if there are goals directly aligned to a particular goal, and if so, how many there are. Click on this section to expand or contract a branch.

  • Zoom in and out

  • Panning

    • Panning is available by clicking and dragging the page.

Which goals will show in the tree?

Goals that can be seen by everyone, meaning goals that are directly or indirectly aligned to company goals, will appear, including:

  • Company goals will always automatically appear at the top level under your company logo

  • Aligned Department goals will appear under the relevant company goal

  • Aligned Team goals will appear under the relevant level (Department or Company)

  • Aligned development or business goals will appear under the relevant level (Team, Department, or Company)

Are some goals not appearing in the tree as expected? You may want to check both the visibility and alignment of the goal.

To check visibility, follow the edit steps outlined in update or track goal progress, and check the visibility setting.

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