Goal Types and better support for OKRs are coming soon

[#1]

We’re excited to announce a major update to the Goals app: Goal types. This new feature gives your organization the flexibility to define and use your own goal terminology - whether that’s Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs), Big Rocks, or simply Goals.

Alongside this, we’re introducing Success measures for more robust tracking of outcomes, plus enhanced charts for even better visibility.

Our aims for this release:

• Enable accurate OKR modelling without workarounds

• Clarify the relationship between goals, metrics, and success measures

• Lay the foundation for clearer goal hierarchies, more powerful reporting and customisation

The new goal types experience will begin rolling out to all Atlassian customers starting December 1st, 2025.

What’s new

Goal Types

You can now define goal types that match your organization’s preferred framework and terminology. Name these types however you like, so everyone is aligned and speaking the same language. As an admin, you can access and configure this feature in the Goal settings page within the Goals app.

• Common names for Goals include Objectives, Big Rocks, BHAGs.

• Common names for Success measures include Key Results, Success Metrics.

Success measures

We’ve heard your feedback that tracking success for a goal needs to be easier and more flexible. Previously, you could only add one metric per goal, and there was no way to clearly differentiate between a sub-goal and key result.

Now, with Success measures, you can:

• Add multiple success measures to each goal

• Assign dedicated owners and post updates to each success measure

• Rename “Success measures” to match your company’s terminology (e.g., “Key results” for OKRs)

This gives you a clearer way to track key outcomes without mixing them with you goal hierarchy. Existing goal structures will remains intact, allowing you to create and add sub-goals.

New: Dedicated section for key results

Existing: Key results modelled as sub-goals

Enhanced charts

We are introducing enhanced visualisations to Goals, making it easier to track progress at a glance and over time.

 

What will change for you

To better support OKRs and clarify hierarchy, metrics and progress roll up behaviour will change.

We want to make this a smooth transition, so existing metrics and sub-goal roll ups will remain intact until a success measure is added to an existing goal, which changes the behaviour - details below.

Metrics

What's changing: Metrics now attach only to success measures, instead of directly to goals. This ensures all metrics are tied to your key outcomes.

What stays the same: Existing goals with metrics will continue working as-is. You can keep updating values and maintaining your reporting.

New: Metrics can be linked to success measures only

Existing: Metrics can be linked to Goals

Progress roll ups 

What's changing: Progress is now averaged from linked success measures. Sub-goals will no longer contribute to the progress. All goals will have a progress roll up by default.

What stays the same: Existing goals keep their current roll up method until you add a success measure. At that point, progress will automatically roll up from those success measures instead, and sub-goal roll ups no longer apply to that goal.

New: Progress rolls up from success measures only

Existing: Progress rolls up from sub-goals

Let us know what you think

This release is a foundational step toward better reporting and future customisation. We’ll be monitoring adoption and feedback closely and will continue to iterate. We hope you’re as excited as we are!

Please share your feedback with us - what you love, what you’d like to see improved for these features, and any questions.

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FAQs

What is the difference between a success measure and key result?

Success measures and key results represent the same thing. Both describe clear, measurable outcomes that help you reach a higher-level objective. The only difference is the terminology - you can choose the terms that best fit your team’s framework and language.

Will this break my current reporting?

No. Your existing reporting will continue to work. When you’re ready, you can add success measures and your progress will start rolling up from them instead of sub-goals.

Can we keep using sub-goals?

Yes, you can continue using sub-goals just as before.

Any progress roll up will continue to work as before. Once you add success measures, your progress will automatically update based on those new success measures.

What happens if I have metrics linked directly to goals now?

Tracking metrics directly on goals today? No problem - you can keep using your current setup and reporting.

When you add a success measure, progress will roll up from those success measures instead. You’ll get a confirmation before this permanent change is applied.

Resources 

https://support.atlassian.com/platform-experiences/docs/what-are-goal-types/

https://support.atlassian.com/platform-experiences/docs/manage-your-goal-types-and-success-measures/

[Tomislav Tobijas]

Uuu, this is nice! 👏

Definitelly going to try it out 🙂

[Aled James]

This is great. Now we just need to be able to set different goal levels, or permissions / access controls within Goals:

• Company Goals - visible to all
• Team Goals - if desired, only visible to the relevant team/department members, not other teams
• Individual Goals - should only be visible to the individual member of staff (with the ability to share with others if they wish, e.g. their manager)

[Dave Mathijs]

But when will the Atlas Group Product Group be renamed to Goals? 😜

[Paul Mazzuca]

Fantastic news team! We look forward to adopting this! I can tell you all put a lot of effort into thinking the design decisions through.

[Logi Helgu]

Looks nice...and this explains the functionality I saw in the webinar a few days back but couldn't find on my site ;) 

[Yousra A_]

Thanks looks great! It would be also really helpful to have a clear hierarchy view showing goals, sub-goals, and Key Results in a single structure. Is this available now or planned in the roadmap?

[Lorenzo Betto]

Same as @Logi Helgu , after the webinar earlier this week I wasted quite a lot of time trying to figure out why I couldn't find Key Results.. I googled, talked to Rovo which got me documentation that returned an 404 error, asked my Jira Admins to check... And why is there so much documentation on using OKRs with Jira Goals if OKRs are only rolled out on the 1st of December!? 

[Ahmet Kilic - T2T]

Technology fits here for teams!

Agility is now easier to adapt to the tool for any OKR framework. Huge thanks to the formerly Atlas team :)

[Simon Kolivand]

Looking very much forward to this!

Will it be available for all customers today? Or will you start to roll it out by today.

[Lorenzo Betto]

I don't see this feature yet, what does the roll out look like?

[Nicola Sun]

Hi @Simon Kolivand @Lorenzo Betto 

Appreciate your interest in this new feature. The rollout for this feature is happening progressively. If you don’t see the feature yet, you should receive it by the end of next week. Thanks for your patience! 

[Nicola Sun]

Hi @Lorenzo Betto 

Thanks for raising this. We’re aware that some of the documentation currently available online is outdated and can be confusing when trying to find information about OKRs. Our team is actively reviewing and updating these materials so they reflect the latest experience.

Really appreciate you calling this out - it helps us improve both the product and the resources around it.

[Nicola Sun]

Hi @Yousra A_ 

Thanks for your feedback, glad to hear it's looking good so far. 

A consolidated hierarchy view of goals, sub-goals, and key results isn’t available in the current release, but it’s something we’re exploring. 

Would you mind sharing a bit more about what would be valuable? For example:

• Would this hierarchy appear in the goal directory, within an individual goal, or somewhere else?

• What data would you want to see at each level of the structure?

• Are there specific use cases or workflows this view would help support?

Your input will help us better understand the problem and shape our thinking.

[Damian Dabrowski]

Does this new feature allow users to link a Key Result / Success Measure to multiple goals? It's a deal breaker for the way we work, as we have some KPIs are cut across multiple goals, but am not finding an easy to to make this work in the Goals app without having to duplicate the same KPI.

Either way looking forward to more configuration and features in the Goals app - very exciting!

[Birgit P]

Looks great.

Any chance on an indication of the rollout? I have a division-level briefing next week and it's something I might want to show and introduce with relatively immediate notice..

[Greg D]

Hi @Nicola Sun, related to @Yousra A_comments on hierarchy: we've been encouraging teams to use Goals alongside their Jira work items, with Plans providing visualization of how everything connects.

However, we're encountering three significant hierarchy issues:

1. In Jira Plans - Broken Goal Hierarchy When grouping by Goals in a plan, each sub-goal appears as a separate grouping disconnected from its parent Goal. This makes it impossible to see the full goal hierarchy and how work rolls up to company OKRs.

2. In Goal Directory - Missing Work Items The Goal directory shows only Goals and sub-goals as line items. Projects and Jira work items (Initiatives, Epics, Stories) don't appear in the hierarchy view, even though they're linked to Goals and represent the actual work being done.

3. On Goal Pages - Segmented Display On individual Goal pages, sub-goals, Projects, and Jira work items are displayed in separate sections rather than as a unified hierarchy. This obscures the relationship between strategic goals and execution work.

What would help: A consistent hierarchical view across Plans, Goal Directory, and Goal pages where:

• Goals form the top strategic layer
• Sub-goals nest under parent Goals
• Projects, Initiatives, Epics, and Stories appear nested under their linked Goal/sub-goal
• Work linked to a parent Goal appears at that level (alongside sub-goals)
• Work linked to a sub-goal appears nested under it (and rolled up to the parent)

This would create a true goal-driven planning hierarchy: Company OKRs (Goals) → Team Objectives (sub-goals) → Execution Work (Projects/Jira items), all visible in one coherent structure.

It would also be great in the Goal Directory to have more control over where each column is located, an expand all/collapse all function, filters/views based on a relative last updated timeframe (not updated in x), and some other view improvements. Then custom automation rules, customizable notification timings, and other features would also help for adoption. Looking forward to more features on the Goal side with ways to clean up what is currently there through enhanced sharing permissions/restrictions, deleting, hierarchy, and more!

[David Williams]

Hi Nicola, the new metrics and goal type feature is great! Couple of feedback points:

1. Granular Linking Control
Is there a way to control which goals and key results are available for teams to link to work items? We use a cascading OKR framework and would expect teams to link work items only to their respective Area Key Results (AKRs), and not the overall (parent) Goal or its Goal Success Measure. Without this control, it will be difficult to maintain consistent data and a clear, accurate view of team contributions.

Also, it would be really useful for some admin control over who can create goals. We learnt this the hard way when the Teams platform experience launched with no control.

2. Jira Plans Hierarchy and Roll-up
Without the goal-to-KR hierarchy reflected in Jira Plans it is currently difficult to get a rolled-up view of how the AKRs ultimately contribute to the Company Goals. Attempting to add both the overall Goal and the AKR creates duplicate swimlanes, which defeats the purpose of an aggregated strategic roadmap. Jira Plans is key for us in visualising team work driving our company goals

Last thing, it would be nice to be able to be able to customise the icons for goals and KR's and for that to reflect in the different apps.

Thanks

[Birgit P]

Some practical feedback:

1) It would be very very useful from UI perspective if you could update multiple metrics at once.
We use Goals already extensively for development projects; but we like this version and want to introduce it for a KPI framework. This should apply to teams, as well as for some systems. (performance parameters here).
This is now possible, however, you basically have to open 5 KPIs per goal instead of being able to batch update 5 numbers. 

2) Since we're looking at this from 3 perspectives:
- Team goals
- Technical dev goals
- (not relevant here, but): System goals
It would be good if you could have a way to display the status of subgoals on the very nice new overview page as well.. That's more of a local goal framework interest, but our teams have KPIs + technical goals.. 

3) Kudos to the request for some admin control on who can create goals.. 

[Nicola Sun]

Hi @Damian Dabrowski ,

Thanks for your feedback. At the moment, a Key Result or Success Measure can only be associated with a single goal. We’re exploring ways to make these relationships more flexible in the future, though we don’t have a timeline or commitment to share yet. Your use case is really helpful in informing our ongoing planning.

[Nicola Sun]

Hi @Birgit P , 

The rollout should be complete by the end of week. 

[Nicola Sun]

Hi @Greg D , 

Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback. We understand the challenges you've described with hierarchy across Plans, the Goal Directory, and individual Goal pages. The level of detail you’ve provided is incredibly helpful and will help inform our ongoing planning.

[Nicola Sun]

Hi @David Williams

Thanks for sharing your feedback, and I’m glad to hear the new metrics and goal types are helpful. 

• At the moment, granular linking control is not supported. Your feedback is a valuable input here for our planning. 
• Admin control over who can create goals is something we’re working on, and we hope to share more soon.
• Regarding Jira Plans hierarchy, we completely understand the challenge - this aligns with similar feedback from others in the thread. 

Thanks again for taking the time to share your feedback. 

[Nicola Sun]

Hi @Birgit P , 

Great to see that you are trying out the new feature, and thanks so much for the feedback. 

We understand the need to multiple metrics at once and suggestion to display sub-goal status is also helpful for informing our ongoing planning. 

Admin control over who can create goals is something we’re working on, and we hope to share more soon.

[Daniel Marcovici]

Hi @Nicola Sun , this is a cool update! 

Now when an individual goal has success measures, its reporting has greatly improved, but this goal might be a part of a cascading system of several goals, but the rolled up percentage is only taken by the success measures. 

We could do this before with the metric to roll up from child goals. Is there a new way to achieve what we require? Is there a plan to bring this back? 

Thanks!