Initiatives

An initiative is a piece of work your organization commits to, such as applying for a vacancy, passing a resolution or running a petition drive. Every initiative has:

• a mission;
• a named owner who answers for it;
• at least one measurable success criterion;
• usually a due date.

Its work is broken into milestones and tasks. Its decisions go in the decision log, and its outcomes appear on the timeline of every issue it addresses.

Initiatives are part of the Initiative Engine, the part of the app that plans and tracks your organization's work. The Initiatives tab shows them on a board with one column per status. Choose Show completed and cancelled to see finished ones too.

Opening an initiative

Project leads open initiatives, under Initiatives → New initiative. Owners can too, because an owner holds every role. An initiative can also be opened for an issue, from a link that names the issue: the form says which issue the initiative addresses and links the two when you save. To open one from an opportunity, use Start an initiative on the opportunity's page: the form names the opportunity, and the initiative opens linked to it as the record it came from.

Every initiative must meet the execution standard. The form will not save without:

• Mission: what the initiative is for.

• Named owner: a member of the organization who answers for it. They are told when they are named, depending on their notification settings.

• Success criteria: at least one, each with:

  • what is counted, such as "Applications submitted";
  • a numeric Target and a Unit, such as 1 and applications;
  • where it Starts at (the baseline).

  The target must differ from the baseline. A target above the baseline counts up and one below counts down.

If something is missing, the form lists every problem at once.

The other fields:

• Starts and Due.
• Budget envelope with a currency.
• Restricted (see below).

The project chosen in the header files the initiative under that project.

Status

Project leads change the status, owner, due date and visibility under Settings on the initiative's page. Initiatives are never deleted.

Success criteria and readings

Each success criterion has a small chart of its readings, with a line at the target. To add a reading, team members enter a value under New reading and choose Record. Readings are never edited: record a new one instead. Progress is how far the latest reading has moved from the baseline toward the target.

Hover over the chart, or focus it and use the arrow keys, to read each point.

Milestones and tasks

Milestones are the initiative's commitments: each has a title, someone who answers for it and a due date. Mark one Completed, Missed or Cancelled from its Update… menu, or Reopen it. The Execution Dashboard counts whether milestones are kept by their due date.

Tasks are the steps. Each has an assignee, a due date and optionally a milestone. The statuses are:

• To do;
• In progress;
• Blocked, which asks what it is waiting on and shows that note on the task;
• Done;
• Cancelled.

Waits for makes a task depend on other tasks in the same initiative:

• a task cannot be marked Done until every task it waits for is done or cancelled;
• a task waiting on open work shows Waiting;
• a dependency that would make a loop is refused.

Choose Dependencies above the task list to see the tasks as steps, in the order they can be done.

The initiative's team does this work: its owner, its members, and anyone assigned a task. Assigning a task to someone adds them to the team. Project leads also manage the team in the Team box on the initiative's page.

When a task is assigned, blocked or due within two days, the people concerned are notified, depending on their notification settings.

Budget envelope

The budget envelope is the amount the initiative may spend. Changing it later takes the finance steward role (or owner) and a reason. The change is written to the decision log as "Budget envelope changed from … to …", with the reason as its rationale.

Outcomes

When the initiative, or one of its milestones, has a result, record it under Outcomes:

• Result: Achieved, Partly achieved, Not achieved or Not known yet.
• What happened.
• Optionally, Lessons.

Each outcome appears on the timeline of every issue the initiative addresses, as "initiative: Initiative outcome recorded". Outcomes are never edited; a correction is a new outcome that names the one it corrects.

Restricted initiatives

A restricted initiative is visible only to:

• the organization's owners;
• its named owner;
• its team.

For everyone else, it and its milestones, tasks, decisions and outcomes are left out of every list, search, link panel and issue timeline, and of My work and the dashboard. Opening its address answers "not found". Whoever opens a restricted initiative joins its team. Assigning a task in a restricted initiative requires the assignee to be on the team already.

Timeline

Initiatives → Timeline shows live initiatives from their start to their due date. Diamonds are milestones, and filled ones are done.

Search and links

Initiatives and decision log entries appear in search, subject to restricted visibility. An initiative's Linked records shows what it addresses and what it came from. An initiative can be linked to issues, to the opportunity or research note it came from, and to other records.