📋 WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
How to use Asana’s Goals feature to set company OKRs, connect everyday project work to strategic outcomes, track progress with automated check-ins, and build executive-level strategy dashboards — all inside Asana without a separate OKR tool.
Why Most OKR Programs Fail (and How Asana Solves It)
OKR (Objectives and Key Results) as a methodology is widely adopted but frequently abandoned. The most common failure mode isn’t the goals themselves — it’s the disconnect between the goals set at the beginning of the quarter and the actual work happening in project management tools day-to-day. Teams set OKRs in one system (a spreadsheet, Lattice, Notion), execute projects in another (Jira, Asana, ClickUp), and then spend end-of-quarter scrambling to reconcile the two.
Asana’s Goals feature, which is part of the Advanced, Enterprise, and Enterprise+ plans, solves this by embedding OKR tracking directly inside the same platform where work gets done. When a project in Asana is connected to a Goal, progress on that project automatically contributes to the Goal’s progress bar — no manual updates, no spreadsheet reconciliation, no end-of-quarter surprises.
For teams already using Asana for project management, the Goals feature makes adding OKR discipline a workflow improvement rather than a tool adoption challenge. For a full understanding of Asana’s feature set, see our Asana Review 2026.
Asana Goals: Plan Requirements
Asana Goals is available on the Advanced plan ($24.99/user/month) and above. It is not available on the Starter plan. Here’s what’s included at each tier:
| Feature | Starter | Advanced | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goals (OKRs) | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Portfolios | ❌ | ✅ Unlimited | ✅ Unlimited |
| Goal sub-goals (nested OKRs) | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| AI Portfolio Risk Insights | ❌ | ✅ (Asana AI add-on) | ✅ |
| Automated status updates to goals | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Goal check-in requests | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
Step-by-Step: Setting Up OKRs in Asana Goals
Step 1 — Access Asana Goals
Goals is accessible via the left navigation bar in Asana — click Goals (the target icon). If you don’t see it, confirm your plan includes the Advanced tier. The Goals section shows a clean hierarchy: Company Goals at the top, then Team Goals, then Individual Goals (if enabled by your admin).
Step 2 — Create Your Top-Level Company Objective
Click + New Goal and configure it as your company-level Objective. In OKR terminology, the Objective is the qualitative statement of what you’re trying to achieve — e.g., “Become the market leader in APAC mid-market by Q4 2026.” Set:
- Name: Your Objective statement
- Owner: The executive accountable for this Objective (typically CEO or VP)
- Time period: Annual or quarterly (Asana supports both)
- Privacy: Company-level objectives are typically set to “Everyone in organization can see”
Step 3 — Add Key Results as Sub-Goals
Inside the company Objective, click + Add sub-goal to create each Key Result. Key Results are specific, measurable outcomes that define what achieving the Objective looks like — e.g., “Increase APAC ARR from $2M to $3.5M,” “Close 15 new enterprise accounts in APAC,” or “Achieve NPS of 50+ among APAC customers.” For each Key Result, set:
- Metric type: Number (revenue, count), Percentage, or Yes/No (milestone completion)
- Starting value: Current state
- Target value: The end-of-period goal
- Owner: The team lead responsible for this Key Result
- Update method: Manual check-in, auto-update from connected project, or auto-update from connected portfolio
Step 4 — Connect Projects to Key Results
This is the critical step that separates Asana Goals from standalone OKR tools. Inside each Key Result, click + Add supporting work to connect Asana projects, portfolios, or tasks that are the work driving this Key Result. When connected:
- Project completion percentage automatically contributes to Key Result progress
- Project status changes (On Track, At Risk, Off Track) roll up to the Key Result status
- Team members working on the connected project can see which company OKR their work is contributing to — a powerful motivational connection that most project management setups lack
For example, connecting an “APAC Sales Outreach Campaigns” project to the “Close 15 new enterprise accounts” Key Result means that every task completed in that project contributes visibly to the strategic goal.
Step 5 — Set Up Weekly Check-In Requests
Configure automatic check-in requests to ensure Key Result owners update progress consistently. In the Goal settings, set a check-in cadence (weekly or bi-weekly). Asana will automatically send reminder notifications to the Goal owner asking them to update the current value and add a comment on status. This replaces the Friday “please update your OKR spreadsheet” emails that most organizations rely on and routinely miss.
Step 6 — Build Team-Level OKRs That Cascade from Company Goals
Create Team Goals (sub-goals of the Company Objective) that represent each team’s contribution to the company Objective. For example, under the company Objective “Become APAC market leader,” the Sales Team Goal might be “Close 15 enterprise accounts” and the Customer Success Team Goal might be “Achieve 95% APAC retention.” Team leads own these goals and connect their team’s Asana projects to their respective Team Goals.
This creates a visible cascade from company strategy → team goals → individual projects → daily tasks. When anyone in the organization updates a task status, they can trace that action up to its contribution to a company objective — this is what Asana calls the Work Graph.
Asana Goals vs. Dedicated OKR Tools
| Capability | Asana Goals | Lattice / Leapsome | Tability / Mooncamp |
|---|---|---|---|
| OKR hierarchy (company → team → individual) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Auto-update from project work | ✅ (native) | ⚠️ (integration) | ⚠️ (integration) |
| Performance review integration | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
| OKR coaching & methodology guidance | ⚠️ Basic | ✅ | ✅ |
| No additional tool for PM teams | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| AI risk detection | ✅ (Portfolio Risk) | ⚠️ Limited | ⚠️ Limited |
Bottom line: If OKRs are deeply integrated with performance management and HR, dedicated OKR platforms like Lattice have stronger HR-specific features. But for most product, engineering, marketing, and operations teams that want OKRs to connect to their daily project work, Asana Goals is the most practical solution because it eliminates the tool-switching overhead.
Advanced: Using Asana AI for OKR Risk Detection
On the Enterprise plan or with the Asana AI add-on, Asana’s Portfolio Risk Insights feature scans all projects connected to your Goals and flags risks automatically. If a project that’s a key contributor to a Q3 OKR shows signs of slipping (tasks overdue, status changes to At Risk, milestone missed), Asana AI alerts the Goal owner proactively — before the quarter-end retrospective reveals the miss.
This is particularly valuable for large organizations where a single Goal might have 10–20 connected projects across multiple teams. Manually tracking all of those for risk signals is impractical; AI surfacing the critical alerts changes the game for OKR program management. See our Asana Automations Guide for more on Asana’s AI and automation capabilities.
Who Should Use Asana Goals for OKRs?
✅ Asana Goals Is Perfect For:
- Organizations already using Asana for project management — zero additional tool to adopt
- Companies 50–500 employees wanting to implement OKRs without buying a dedicated OKR platform
- Product and engineering teams running quarterly OKRs tied to roadmap milestones
- Executives wanting a single dashboard showing all company OKRs with real-time progress from connected project work
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Asana Goals available on the free plan?
No. Asana Goals requires the Advanced plan ($24.99/user/month billed annually) or higher. The Starter plan does not include Goals. If you’re on Starter and need goal tracking, you’d need to upgrade to Advanced, which also unlocks Portfolios, custom dashboards, and priority support.
How does Asana Goals differ from Tasks and Projects?
Tasks represent individual work items. Projects group tasks around a deliverable. Goals represent strategic outcomes that multiple projects contribute to. The key difference is directionality: you complete tasks to finish a project; you complete projects to achieve a goal. Goals give your projects strategic context — answering “why are we doing this?” at a level that tasks and projects alone don’t.
Can Asana Goals integrate with Salesforce for revenue OKRs?
Asana has a native Salesforce integration that can sync opportunity data. For revenue-based OKRs (e.g., “Reach $5M ARR”), you can set up an automation that pulls deal close data from Salesforce into an Asana project, which then rolls up to the revenue Goal. It requires some setup but eliminates manual revenue tracking for OKR progress updates.
How do I handle OKRs for a team that uses both Asana and Jira?
Asana’s Jira integration allows you to sync Jira issues into Asana tasks. Once synced, Jira issues appear as Asana tasks that can be connected to Goals, providing OKR tracking coverage even for work that lives in Jira. Progress on Jira issues (as they update in Asana via the sync) contributes to Goal progress. This is the most practical approach for mixed-stack organizations rather than forcing all work into a single tool.
🎯 Expert Bottom Line
Asana Goals is one of the most underutilized features in the Asana platform in 2026. Teams on the Advanced plan who aren’t using it are missing the single most powerful way to connect their daily project work to strategic outcomes — and to demonstrate the business impact of their team’s efforts. The setup investment is meaningful (4–8 hours to properly configure a company-wide OKR hierarchy) but the quarterly and annual visibility it creates is transformative for leadership alignment. For organizations evaluating a dedicated OKR tool, run a 90-day pilot with Asana Goals first. For teams already on the Advanced plan, there is no reason to pay for a separate OKR tool.
Related Posts:
