Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
What Are Strategy Elements?
In Cascade, strategy elements form the foundation of your plans. Here’s how each element is defined and used:
Plan
The overarching container for all elements, typically aligned to a major organizational initiative or department.- Read how to create a plan here
Focus Area
A thematic grouping of Objectives, such as "Sustainability" or "Customer Excellence." Focus Areas represent strategic priorities within a plan:- The same Focus Areas can be shared across different plans. The more you share, the greater the alignment towards the company's goals or vision and this can be seen in the alignment score in the Insights.
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They are not hidden by privacy settings in a plan and all the focus areas will be available for everyone in the workspace.
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Watch our video on focus areas to learn more. Read how to add a focus area to an existing or newly created plan here.
Objective
A statement of success that describes what the organization or team is aiming to achieve with a clearly defined deadline.- An objective's progress and health will be determined by it's success criteria (measures, actions, projects)
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Watch our video on objectives to learn more. Read how to add objectives to your focus areas here
Tip: Objectives are versatile and can represent high-level goals or be used for team-level projects, depending on your strategy structure.
Measure
A quantifiable definition of how your Objective is going to be assessed.
- Measures provide tangible indicators of success and will represent a value.
- You can track a measure manually or connect it to a source like Google Sheet and Excel.
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Watch our video on measures to learn more. Read how to add measures to your objectives here.
Important: Measures are one of the two elements in Cascade (alongside Actions) that can have progress updated, making them essential for tracking outcomes.
Action
- A qualitative breakdown of progress toward an Objective. Actions represent specific tasks, initiatives or even projects depending on the level of detail you need.
- You can track actions manually, by defining milestones or creating checklist items, or by connecting to a tool like Jira and track progress from within Cascade.
- Watch our video on actions to learn more. Read how to add actions here.
Tip: If you are tracking an overall project as your lowest level of detail, use the Action element to categorize it as a "project."