Overview
Quantive Results allows you to align and link objectives. Although the two features differ, they both promote transparency and focus, by establishing a relationship between the objectives. Setting the relationship between two or more OKRs is important for monitoring your company's progress.
Definition
The difference between them is the following:
Aligning OKRs
Aligning OKRs is a fundamental aspect of the OKRs process where it is expected that everyone pulls in the same direction to achieve their business goals.
It allows you to set a parent-child relationship between two or more objectives from either the same session or between different aligned sessions.
You can have one parent objective and more than one child objective, but one child objective cannot have more than one parent objective.To align an OKR with another OKR in a different session, the two sessions must be aligned with parent-child relationships in order for OKRs from both sessions to populate in the parent field.
Notice in the example below my 2023 Yearly Session is aligned as the parent session to my Q1 2023 session.
Now when searching for a parent objective in my Q1 2023 session, objectives from my 2023 Yearly Session can now be selected.
For more information, see Align sessions and objectives.
Linking OKRs
Linking OKRs through the "Related items" section allows you to link an Objective or a Key Result from different sessions without being directly aligned with those sessions.
It allows you to set a relationship between Objectives or Key Results from different sessions that do not have a parent-child relation.
One objective from different sessions can support the same objective, even if they are all from different sessions and don't have a parent-child relation.
For more information, see Link Objectives or Key Results.
Use cases
Aligning OKRs
A simple use case for aligning OKRs is when an employee's OKRs are directly supporting the team's OKRs.
EXAMPLE: Personal OKR can be to Bring MRR up to 15%, while the related team’s OKR, which is aligned to it, can be Skyrocket the North American monthly sales.
Linking OKRs
OKRs in Quantive Results may support or block each other without being directly aligned. This works well for development, design, and engineering teams whose work may be planned and executed in monthly cycles which are related to quarterly or annual company OKRs.
EXAMPLE: A monthly design team OKR can be Identify three new use cases for Feature X. This can be directly related to the company's annual OKR to Smash the product's new user adoption level. However, the two may not be aligned, because the design team OKR can also support other teams' OKRs, such as product and engineering.