Initiatives

Connect goals to the projects delivering them, state progress and health, and see a budget totalled from the linked projects.

An initiative is a named piece of strategic work that sits between a goal and the projects delivering it, such as “Fund III raise” or “Digital asset platform consolidation”. It records what the work serves above it, what carries it below, where it stands, what it costs and what could stop it.

Key concepts#

Priority: Critical, High, Medium or Low. The list is sorted by priority, Critical first, then by name.
Status: Draft, Active, Completed, Cancelled or Archived. New initiatives start as Draft.
Health: On track, At risk, Off track or No status. New initiatives start at No status.
Progress: A percentage from 0 to 100 that you set. It isn’t calculated from the linked projects.
What this serves: The goals and objectives the initiative exists to move.
What delivers it: The projects (and teams) doing the work. The budget is totalled from these projects.

Initiatives, goals and portfolios

A goal is an outcome you want. A portfolio groups projects so you can track budget and health. An initiative is one piece of strategic work that can span several projects and teams, and points at the goals it exists to move.

Who can use initiatives#

Permissions

goal.viewgoal.creategoal.edit

Initiatives use the goal permissions. goal.view shows Initiatives in the sidebar and lets you read them. goal.create lets you create one. goal.edit lets you change status, health, priority and progress, link and unlink goals and projects, and manage the initiative’s risks.

The Initiatives page#

Open Initiatives from the sidebar. Each card shows the initiative’s name, priority and status (for example “Critical · Active”), its health and its progress. Use the status menu at the top right to show All statuses or only one status.

Create an initiative#

Type a name in New initiative…
Up to 255 characters.
Choose a priority
The menu next to the name defaults to Medium.
Select Create
The initiative appears in the list as Draft, No status, 0%. Select its card to fill in the rest.

Say where it stands#

At the top of an initiative’s page are Status, Health, Priority and Progress. The three menus save as soon as you choose. Progress saves when you leave the field, and takes a whole number from 0 to 100.

Progress and health are independent. “80% and off track” is a real and useful thing to say. Neither is calculated from the linked projects; the projects are shown alongside the numbers, not used to produce them.

Link what it serves and what delivers it#

Link a goal#

In What this serves, open Link a goal…
Choose one of the goals you can see.
Select Link
The goal is added to the list with a Goal badge and links through to the goal.

Link a project#

In What delivers it, open Link a project…
Select Link
The project is added with a Project badge, and its budget is included in the budget total.

Initiatives can also be linked to OKR objectives and key results (under What this serves) and to teams and departments (under What delivers it). These links appear on the page, but the web app’s link menus offer only goals and projects. The same thing can’t be linked twice.

To remove a link, hover over it and select the × (Remove link). The goal or project itself isn’t affected.

Budget#

An initiative has no budget field of its own. The Budget section totals the budgets of the projects linked under What delivers it, so if a project’s budget changes, the initiative’s total changes with it. Project budgets are set from the budget button in each project’s header, which needs the project.manage permission.

Each currency is shown on its own line with its project count. Different currencies are never added together, because UnitX doesn’t apply exchange rates.
Linked projects that have no budget are counted and named in a note, for example “1 of 3 linked projects carry no budget and are not in these totals”. They aren’t treated as costing nothing.
With no linked projects, the section says there’s nothing to total yet.

Risks#

The bottom of each initiative page has a Risks register. It works the same way as on goals and objectives. See Strategic risks.

Tips and limitations#

Link an initiative in both directions. An initiative with no goal above it has no stated reason to exist, and one with no project below it has no work behind it.
Priority is one of four words, not a 0–100 score. UnitX doesn’t calculate a strategic score.
In the web app, you set an initiative’s name and priority when you create it. Its description, owner, sponsor and dates can’t be edited there, and the web app has no delete option. To retire an initiative, set its status to Cancelled or Archived.
If an initiative is deleted (for example through the API), its links and risks are deleted with it. The linked goals and projects aren’t affected.

FAQ#

All the work under my initiative is done. Why is it still 0%?

Because nobody has set it. Progress on an initiative is a statement you make, not something UnitX works out. Update it when you’re ready to stand behind the number.

Why can’t I type a budget?

There would then be two answers to what the work costs, and they would drift apart. The projects hold the figures and the initiative adds them up.

Why are two currencies shown separately?

UnitX doesn’t convert between currencies, so it shows each total on its own line rather than one incorrectly summed figure.

Still stuck? Search the docs with ⌘K, open Help inside UnitX, or contact support.