Group Goals

Overview

Group goals are for development work that needs to roll up to a shared business, team, or organisational outcome without turning every participant into a copy of everyone else.

A group goal gives several people the same overarching outcome and shared group objectives. Each participant then works through their own connected individual goal, with personal objectives and achievables that make their contribution practical for their role, context, and current development need.

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When to use a group goal

Use a group goal when several people's goals need to be grouped under one shared business, team, or organisational outcome, but the work still needs to be owned and tracked person by person.

Good examples include:

• connecting different individual goals to one business goal
• aligning a team around a shared outcome after review or feedback
• helping a cohort contribute to the same organisational priority in different ways
• tracking organisational development work where individual contribution still matters

A group goal is usually not the right tool when only one person is involved, or when there is no useful shared outcome to connect the participants' work. In those cases, standalone individual goals are simpler and clearer.

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How group and individual goals connect

The connection is the most important part of the feature.

When a group goal is created, WeMatter creates the shared group goal and links it to individual goals for the selected participants. Those individual goals are not separate administrative duplicates. They are the participant-level working copies that carry the day-to-day development work.

The relationship looks like this:

• Group goal: the shared outcome for the whole group.
• Group objectives: the shared milestones that explain what the group is trying to achieve.
• Individual goals: each participant's connected goal inside their own goals area.
• Personal objectives: the participant-specific version of a group objective.
• Achievables: concrete tasks inside a personal objective.
• Updates: progress notes, blockers, discussion, and important activity over time.

This means a manager or WeMatter lead can hold one shared outcome at group level, whilst each participant still has a personal place to work through objectives in a way that fits their role, context, and development need.

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Group objectives and personal objectives

Group objectives are the shared milestones beneath the group goal. They describe the main outcomes the group needs to move towards.

Each group objective is connected to participant-specific personal objectives. Those personal objectives sit inside each participant's individual goal. They can carry their own personal framing and achievables, whilst still contributing back to the same group objective.

This structure is useful because shared outcomes often need both alignment and personal relevance. The group objective keeps the shared reference point clear. The personal objective keeps the work meaningful for the individual.

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Personalising linked individual objectives

A personal objective linked to a group objective does not have to repeat the group objective word for word.

The group objective gives the shared reference point: the milestone the group is trying to move towards, how that milestone contributes to the group goal, and any group-level weighting. The linked personal objective is where that shared milestone becomes specific to one participant.

When editing a linked personal objective, use personalisation to answer:

• What does this shared objective mean for this person?
• What part of the outcome are they best placed to influence?
• What role, context, customer group, team, or capability should their objective focus on?
• What wording will help them understand their own contribution without losing the shared intent?

In practice, this means the personal objective can have its own title and description. The shared group objective is still shown as context, so the person can see what their objective contributes to, but the working language can be made more relevant to them.

Use achievables to make that personal contribution concrete. Two participants may be linked to the same group objective but have very different achievables because their roles, responsibilities, or development needs are different.

For example, a group objective might be Improve customer onboarding consistency. One participant's personal objective might focus on writing clearer handover notes, while another might focus on coaching new starters through the same customer journey. Both contribute to the shared objective, but the work is personalised.

What stays shared

The group objective remains the common reference point. Use it for the outcome that should stay consistent across participants.

Typically shared:

• the group objective title and description
• the connection to the group goal
• the group-level weighting used for rolled-up progress
• the fact that participant progress contributes back to the same milestone

What can be personal

The linked individual objective is the participant's working version of that milestone.

Typically personal:

• the personal objective title
• the personal objective description
• the achievables that define what the person will actually do
• the updates, replies, evidence, and activity that show their progress

This balance lets a group goal hold one shared outcome without forcing everyone into the same development wording or task list.

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Objective weightings and group progress

Group objectives can be weighted. Weighting tells WeMatter how much each group objective should contribute to the overall group progress.

The group progress view then rolls up completion from connected participant objectives and achievables. In practical terms, this helps answer questions like:

• Which shared objectives are moving?
• Which participants are making progress?
• Where are achievables being completed?
• Which areas have had little recent activity?

The group workspace shows both the broad weighted progress picture and the person-by-person view. That matters because a group goal can look healthy in one area and still need attention for a specific participant or objective.

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The group goal workspace

A group goal has its own workspace with three main tabs.

The workspace is designed for oversight. It lets a manager, admin, or WeMatter lead review the shared goal without opening every individual goal one by one.

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Group objective pages

Each group objective can also be opened in its own workspace.

That page focuses on one shared milestone and the personal objectives connected to it. Use it when you need to understand progress against one part of the group goal rather than the full goal at once.

The group objective workspace also has Overview, Progress, and Activity tabs. It shows the participant objectives linked to that milestone, their status, achievable completion, progress, and recent activity.

This is especially useful when the overall group goal is broad, but one objective needs closer review or support.

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Rolled-up activity

The activity tab brings together updates and important events from connected participant records.

For a group goal, the activity view can include updates from connected individual goals and their objectives. For a group objective, the activity view focuses on the personal objectives and achievables connected to that shared milestone.

Use rolled-up activity to understand what is actually happening beneath the progress numbers. Completion percentages are useful, but updates explain the movement, blockers, and context behind them.

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Broadcast updates

Group goals also support broadcast updates.

When you post an update from the group goal activity thread, WeMatter copies that update to each connected individual goal thread. When you post from a group objective activity thread, WeMatter copies that update to each connected participant objective thread.

Broadcast updates are useful for:

• sharing a common direction or next step
• recording a group-level workshop outcome
• reminding all participants what the shared milestone requires
• giving the same context to everyone without writing the update several times

Broadcast updates are not the same as a private one-to-one discussion. If the message only applies to one person, add the update in that person's individual goal or objective instead.

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Opening group goal workspaces

Group goal and group objective pages may briefly show a loading state while WeMatter prepares the shared workspace and its participant-level progress data.

The loading state follows the same structure as the workspace itself: a summary header, the workspace tabs, the main overview panel, and the supporting sidebar. This keeps transitions predictable without showing detailed placeholder rows that could be confused with actual participant or objective data.

Once loaded, use Overview for structure and participants, Progress for rolled-up movement, and Activity for the update record behind the numbers.

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What participants see

Participants still work mainly from their own goals area.

When an individual goal is linked to a group goal, the goal page makes that clear with a linked group goal card. When an objective is linked to a group objective, the objective page also shows the shared milestone it contributes to.

From the participant's point of view, the practical behaviour is:

• their individual goal belongs to them, but contributes to a wider group goal
• their personal objectives can be personalised while staying linked to shared group objectives
• their achievables make their own contribution concrete
• their updates help both their own record and the group-level activity view
• group-level broadcast updates may appear in their individual threads

This helps participants understand why some details are shared and why some parts of the goal may be managed at group level.

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Good practice for managers and admins

Use group goals to create alignment, not to flatten individual development.

A strong group goal should have a clear shared purpose, a manageable number of group objectives, sensible objective weightings, and enough room for participants to make their own work specific.

Before setting a group goal, check:

• the group goal has a clear business, team, or organisational outcome
• the group objectives describe meaningful milestones rather than broad slogans
• the weightings reflect relative importance, not arbitrary ordering
• linked personal objectives can be adapted for each participant's role and context
• each participant will still have enough personal detail to know what to do next
• broadcast updates will be useful to everyone receiving them

After the goal is live, use the progress and activity tabs together. Progress shows movement. Activity explains whether the movement is recent, supported, and real.

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When not to use a group goal

Do not use a group goal just because several people need goals at the same time.

If there is no useful shared outcome connecting the participants' goals, create individual goals instead. If the work is only a project task list with no personal development component, a goal may not be the right product surface at all.

The best use of group goals is aligned contribution: one shared outcome, several people, personal progress, and a clear rolled-up view.