Add Focus Areas to your Plan

Focus areas are the "foundation stones of your strategy". They expand on your Vision Statement and start to create some structure around how to actually get your organization to achieve its objectives. You can think of these as carefully-crafted "categories" of your plans that provide context, and group a set of related objectives. For example, focus areas can be - Expand global recognition, Aggressive growth, Launch new product lines, Zero regulatory issues, and so on. 

Add Focus Area:

You can add focus areas while creating or importing a plan. From the Planner page, click Add Focus Area to add a new or existing focus area.

When you click Add new Focus Area, you'll see a list of focus areas added in your workspace. You can select from the list or type the new one and click + Create <focus area name>. Give the focus area a relevant Description, Commencement (Start), Retirement (End) dates, and click Save.

Assigning dates provides additional level of control to align planning efforts across multiple teams. Some points to note are:

• Assigning dates is optional.

• Commencement date can be set without a retirement date (and vice versa).

• Not possible to assign a time horizon to focus area (only single dates are supported right now).

• Based on the dates, the focus area will display Current, Upcoming and Retired labels. Hover over the label to see the dates.

• Applying date filters at the Planner level will filter the focus areas and the objectives beneath it. Note that if the focus area is outside the dates applied in the filter but the objectives within it are in the range, then the focus area along with those objectives will be displayed in the Planner.

• When you're adding a new focus area in a plan where date filters are applied, then only those focus areas that fit in the date range will appear in the drop-down list. Click Show all to remove the filter and see all the focus areas in the workspace.

• If a focus area is shared across plans, and one of its objectives in another plan matches the date filters, then that focus area will be displayed in the current plan where the date filters are applied with no objectives. And if you apply date filters in the plan where that objective is originally housed, then it'll show the retired focus area as well as the objective.

To add an existing focus area, click Add existing Focus Area - the My Focus Area Library opens. Search for the specific focus area(s), or filter them by plans, and choose the relevant ones from the list. You can select one to many focus areas as you wish.

Once the focus area is added, click the three dots against them to:

• Edit - edit the title, dates, and description of the Focus Area (and "types" in case of "Essentials and Enterprise+" tiers)

• Explore - get an insight of the focus area (See The 'Explorer' View)

• Merge - objectives and all its success criteria from the initial focus area will be moved into the selected Focus Area (note: you will need to type "MERGE" to confirm changes)

• Remove from plan - delete them from the plan once the objectives under them are deleted. This will remove this Focus Area only from that specific plan.

Dive deep into Focus Areas:

Click Explore against a focus area to view detailed information on it. You can also navigate to this page from the Plans and teams > All focus areas, and select the specific focus area. This page gives you a picture of horizontal alignment with the plans, the objectives, and the teams associated with these focus areas.

	Click the three dots to edit or delete the focus area. Edit - the Focus Area details box opens, and lets you edit the focus area name and its description. Delete - Once you delete all the objectives under it, you can delete this focus area. Remember that, if you delete a focus area from here, it'll be removed from all the plans its part of.
	Click to either add or edit the focus area details.
	"Focus Area Health over Time" - Hover the mouse over the line chart to see the average progress (in %) of the focus area over time.
	"Focus Area Health by Plans" - Hover the mouse over the donut chart to see the health of the focus area across plans.
	"Objective Count" - Hover the mouse over the donut chart to see the total count of objectives and their health.
	"People and Teams" - The bars display the number of collaborators, and the teams associated with the focus area and its related objectives.
	Toggle between the Plans and the Objectives tab to view relevant details.

"Plans" tab:

Expand the Plans to view the objectives associated with the focus area in that plan. Click on the "Team" to either view the team information from that Teams home page or click Assign to team to assign the plan to a team. 

Click the plan to view its details from the Planner Sidebar. Click the three dots against the plan here, to access the Plan Settings or click View Alignment to view its alignment from the Alignment page.

Hover the mouse over the objective rows, and click the

• (Pencil icon) to inline-edit the title of the objective. You can also edit the owner and the dates inline by clicking on the owner icon and due date fields.

• (Explore icon) to view the details from the goal-hub,

• (Alignment icon) to view its alignment from the objective alignment map (Alignment > Align > Objectives tab)

Click the three dots against the objective to either edit from the Edit Objective Sidebar or delete it.

To add/edit the success criteria, or make any progress on the manual slider, you need to go to the Objectives tab.

"Objectives" tab:

Expand the Objectives to view the associated success criteria.

Hover the mouse over the goal rows, and click the

• (Pencil icon) to inline-edit the title of the entity. You can also edit the owner and the dates inline by clicking on the owner icon and due date fields.

• (Explore icon) to view the details from the goal-hub,

• (Alignment icon) to view its alignment from the associated objective's drilldown view.

Click the three dots against any of these to either edit them from the relevant Sidebar or delete them.

Scoot the manual slider to update the progress with a comment. You can add projects/measures/actions/contributing objectives inline from the + icons (Add), and selecting the relevant entity.

FAQs

Can I delete a focus area that's shared across multiple plans?

Yes. If you need to delete a focus area from all the plans its part of, then you can delete it from the Plans and teams > All focus areas page. If you need to delete a focus area only from a particular plan, then just click the three dots against it, and click Remove from Plan to do so.

Retired Focus Area is still showing up when plan is filtered for a current horizon.

This might happen when the focus area is shared across plans and an objective under that focus area in some other plan is in this chosen horizon. Since the objective is in some other plan, you'll only see the focus area that is retired in the current plan with no objectives, and if you apply date filters in the plan where that objective is originally housed, then it'll show the retired focus area as well as the objective.

I added an existing focus area, it got added but there're no objectives.

This is the way it's supposed to work so that you've the flexibility to create your own objectives that'll determine its health.

How do I see the health of focus areas only for a particular plan?

You can look at that from the Alignment > Plans, click on the relevant plan, and click View plan details. You'll see the Plan sidebar with the health of each focus area in that plan.

Also, you can see this from the Health of your Plan widget from the Dashboards page. (See Work with Dashboards)

If you wish to see the health of a focus area that's shared across plans, then from the Plans and Teams > All focus area page, click the relevant focus area, and you'll get an overview of its aggregated health over time, how its distributed across the teams, the number of objectives under it, and so on.

Can I reorder the focus areas within a plan?

Yes. Click Reorder plan, and click the drag and drop icon to reorder the focus areas within a plan. Once done, click Complete reordering to save the changes. See How to Reorder within a Plan? for details.

Can I add multiple types to the same focus area?

No, you cannot choose multiple types for a single focus area.

All the objectives under the focus area are achieved, but the focus area health is still on track.

Yes, it is maintained on track so that you can keep adding objectives to your plan, and work towards your company's vision.

Why are the focus areas of a private plan visible to everyone?

We do not have privacy permissions for focus areas because focus areas are mostly used as a strategic pillar in which the same focus area(s) can be shared across multiple plans to drive the strategy outcome/alignment. For example, when you create a new plan you can add an "existing" focus area in which all focus areas need to be visible to add this. Although you have a private plan with focus areas only in that private plan, this does not make the name of the focus area private, it only makes the plan itself private.

What'll happen to the objectives that're beneath a focus area that's retired?

Based on the due dates of the objectives, their progress and health will be tracked. If you're applying date filters at the Planner level and the retired focus area is outside the range, then it'll be hidden. But at the same time, if one or many of the objectives are still in the date range, then the focus area will still be available to house these objectives.
A best practice will be to look at those objectives that're at risk or behind in these retired focus areas and move them under current or upcoming focus areas to work and achieve those desired outcomes.