A handy guide to help you learn the Cascade's language.
Action
An Action is a part of the Strategy Model, nested underneath an Objective. It is a specific item that will be completed in order to work toward an objective. Actions are tracked through milestone completion.
Example: ‘Hire a new Head of HR’, or ‘Update training program’
Alignment
Alignment is the term used to describe the structural relationship between two items in a plan.
Example: The Objective ‘Grow aggressively and take names’ is aligned to the Focus Area ‘Becoming an Industry Leader’
Checklist
A checklist represents an activity or a group of activities or tasks to be completed by a specific date. You can have a couple of checklist items to be completed on the same date, and you can also back-date your checklist items. In Cascade, checklists are associated with tracking the Actions.
Example: For the action, "Set-up a new vertical for People and Culture", the checklist items can be "Hire a People and Culture Lead", "Set up the process and related documentation", "Build a team", and so on by specific dates.
Contributing Objective
A contributing objective is an objective that contributes to the health of another objective, and is linked to it to impact the overall success.
Example: The Objective "Create posters to increase visibility and publicity", will be the contributing objective to the Objective "To make the brand get lot of likes and views on social media".
Collaborator
A collaborator is a user that is working on a given item, but is not the owner.
Example: If my boss owns the Objective ‘Create maximum footfalls for website’, but I am also working towards that Objective, I would be a collaborator for that item.
Enterprise+
Enterprise+ is the name of the paid tier in Cascade best suited for organizations looking to uplift their strategy, partnering deeply with Cascade to transform their execution. It includes everything that Essentials has to offer plus unlimited Strategy Execution Advisory, dedicated Strategy Execution Director, custom integrations and tailored strategy execution workshops.
Essentials
Essentials is the name of the paid tier in Cascade best suited for organizations looking to initiate and centralize their strategy execution in a digital format, with a little help from our strategy execution experts.. It includes unlimited users, plans, dashboards, reports including custom charts, custom strategy frameworks, strategy controls and assigned Success Manager.
Expected Progress
Expected Progress is the term used to describe the ideal progress value for a given item at a given point in time.
Example: The expected progress for my objective ‘Book 10 demos’ is 2 demos by April 10th, 2022.
Focus Area
Focus Area are categories that provide context and organize a set of related objectives. You can create multiple Focus Areas in your plan.
Example: Expand Global Recognition, Grow Sustainably and Responsibly.
Free Teams
Free Teams is the name of the free tier of Cascade best suited for a small team just getting started with strategy execution. It includes four users, unlimited plans, 2 dashboards, and live chat support.
Health
Health is an attribute that provides a summary of an entity based on its current performance and your expected progress and timeline. It can be At Risk, Behind, On Track, Achieved, or Exceeded.
Example: My Objective is to complete 5 actions by June, and I’ve got 4 actions done in May, so my Measure is probably in good health.
Measure
Measures are KPIs that allow for the success of an objective to be tracked. A Measure will track progress via a specific metric.
Example: The measure associated with my sales Objective is Annual Revenue, tracked in $.
Metric
A metric is a quantifiable measure used to track and assess the performance or progress of a business function. In other words, metrics are a way for businesses to track and consolidate their KPIs in different applications. These're not time-bound.
Example: Maintain the NPS rating of 10 (not time-bound)
Milestone
A Milestone represents a percentage of an Action to be completed that has been connected to a specific date. Its an activity or set of activities that needs to be completed in a certain order by a certain date. In Cascade, milestones are associated with Action.
Example: If my action is ‘Launch a new coffee menu item’, my Milestones could be “New recipe” by June 1st, “Taste recipe” by June 15th, and “Launch” by June 30th.
Mission
The Mission represents what your organization is striving to achieve through the execution of its strategy.
Examples: To make the brand more environment-friendly, To deliver contents suitable for all age groups, and so on.
Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
The Multi-factor authentication or Two-factor authentication (2FA) is an additional security layer that requires a code (OTP), in addition to the username and password while authenticating. This can be enabled or disabled for all the users in a workspace only by the Admins.
Nested Objective
A nested objective is an objective that is added as a "success criteria" to another objective, and included in the progress calculation of that objective. This "nested" objective cannot be shared with other objectives or plans.
Example: The Objective "Increase social media campaigns", will be a nested objective to the Objective "To make the brand get lot of likes and views on social media".
Objective
Objectives are the descriptions of future states, or targets, that your organization will reach by executing their strategy. Objectives fall under Focus Areas and, will be composed of some combination of Actions, Measures, or Contributing Objectives.
Example: One of my university’s Objectives is to “Have a global outreach program”. Inside that Objective are Actions like ‘Tie-up with universities across the globe’.
Plan
A Plan is the road map your organization has for where it’s going and how it’s going to get there. The Plan is made up of your Focus Areas, Objectives, Actions, and Measures.
Example: "Create a self-serve knowledge base to enhance customer experience".
Planslation
Planslation is the process of translating existing strategic goals, plans, or documents into a stronger and more streamlined structure within Cascade, so they become agile, dynamic, and executable.
There are a few key steps required to ensure that your existing documentation is structurally sound so that we can map it to a Cascade framework, import it into the system, and bring it to life! Reach out to us and we can guide you with the steps.
Premium
Premium is the name of the middle tier of Cascade for organizations with 5+ users who have access to all of our awesome reporting capability, permissions and visibility settings, 10 dashboards, and live chat, phone, and email support.
Progress
Progress is the indicator of how close to completion an item is at a given point in time. This is typically tracked with a percentage.
Example: I’ve made $5k of my $10k plan, so my Progress is at 50%.
Project
A Project is a part of the Strategy Model, nested underneath an Objective. It is a group of tasks or actions executed to achieve the desired outcome. The health of a project is determined by the actions nested under it.
Example: Shift towards sustainable operations, transform to a technology company, and so on.
Relationships
A Relationship between functions or entities defines the way the work is impacted. It can have a qualitative or quantitative effect on the other, and allows you to see how initiatives are connected and impact each other.
Example: The Measure "Target 5000 delivery units per day" is dependent on the Project "Optimize resource and procurement in manufacturing units".
Risks
When there's an anticipation of an uncertain event or condition, that has an effect on the outcomes that you wish for, then they're termed Risks. In other words, risks are things which you're worried could happen with regard to the objective, but have not necessarily happened yet. This effect may be negative, or a deviation from the expected.
Example: Internal risks can be compliance violation, operational deviation from strategic decisions, or external risks like market crash, inflation, pandemics, and so on.
Role
A role is the term used in Cascade to describe the level of access someone has inside a workspace. There are four roles: Admin, Manager, Contributor, and Viewer. Each role has a different level of permission.
Example: I have been added to a Workspace as a Contributor, so I can create and edit plans that I have access to.
Strategy Model
Strategy Model is the term used in Cascade to describe the structure on which the plans and their components are built. Its the framework that exists as a blueprint to your business' growth.
Success Criteria
Success Criteria is the term used in Cascade to describe what defines success for a given Objective - the Measures, Projects, and Actions that need to be completed in order to meet that Objective.
NOTE: The #1 reason you will immediately get value from Cascade is because it turns “rough” timelines into more meaningful journeys to success. It ALL comes from Success Criteria.
Example: The Success Criteria for my Objective ‘Increase Pizza Sales’ are the Action ‘Hire a new marketing lead’ and the Measure ‘Pizza Sales to $50.
Tracking
Tracking in Cascade is how you keep an eye on the progress of a given item. You’ll track it by updating tasks, recording progress made, and keeping an eye on the health, of different items in your plan.
Tags
Tags or Goal tags are properties that define a goal, and can be used to identify different categories of work. Available only in Essentials and Enterprise+ tiers, tags can be applied to plans, objectives, projects, actions, and measures.
Example: Strategic, operational, financial KPI, mergers and acquisitions, leading or lagging indicator, and so on.
Values
The Values represent the aspects of your organization that will allow you to successfully execute this strategy.
Example: Values can be customer-friendly, collaboration, empathy, and so on.
Vision
The Vision is the summary of the future identity of your organization. The Vision is what will be the end result of your organization’s strategy.
Examples are, To become the market leader, to become the best social media influencer, and so on.
Workspace
A Workspace in Cascade encapsulates all of the data in your organization’s ‘bucket’. It will contain users, plans, teams, reports, and so on. One person can have access to multiple workspaces, but content, like plans or reports, cannot exist across multiple workspaces.