User Guide
How to understand, create, update, and complete goals when you are working on your own development in WeMatter.
Who this is for
This guide is for people working with their own goals in WeMatter.
That may mean you own the goal yourself, or you have access to contribute to a goal that supports your development. Either way, the aim is the same: to help you understand how goals work in the platform and how to use them well over time.
Why goals matter for you
Goals are where development becomes concrete. They take the insight gathered in Foundation, frameworks, and scorecards and turn it into something you can return to, work on, and update as progress happens.
For that reason, goals should not feel like an administrative afterthought. A good goal gives you a clear development direction, breaks that direction into manageable parts, and makes it easier to talk about what is moving and what is stuck.
Where to find your goals
You will usually find your goals in the main Goals area.
You may also encounter them from your profile, especially if a manager, WeMatter lead, or admin is setting or generating a goal for you. And after a completed WeMatter scorecard, you may be invited to generate a goal directly from that review outcome.
Already have a goal?
If a goal already exists, open it from the Goals area and use the Objectives and Updates tabs to see what needs attention next.
Understand the structure first
Goals are easier to work with once the hierarchy makes sense.
The goal is the overall development direction. Objectives break that direction into measurable milestones. Achievables sit inside each objective and make the work more concrete. Updates keep the goal alive over time.
This is important because a goal in WeMatter is not meant to be a single sentence that gets forgotten. It is designed to become an active record of development.
Creating a goal
Depending on your permissions and your organisation's workflow, a goal can be created manually or generated with AI.
Manual setup
Best when the development direction is already clear and you want direct control over the framing from the start.
AI-generated draft
Best when you want a stronger first draft built from scorecard, framework, and Foundation context where available.
Manual creation gives you a blank structure to work from. You set the goal title, explain its relevance, and then build out the objectives and achievables that will make the goal actionable.
AI goal generation is a major part of the product. It can use scorecard, framework, and Foundation context to create a stronger first draft. This is especially valuable after a scorecard has been completed, because the platform has richer evidence to work with.
Whether a goal is written manually or generated with AI, it should still be read carefully and adjusted where needed.
The simplest rule is this:
- use manual creation when the direction is already well understood
- use AI when the platform already holds useful context and you want help turning it into structure
Working with objectives and achievables
Goals become much easier to use once they stop being abstract. That is where objectives and achievables start to matter.
An objective should describe a meaningful milestone rather than a loose idea. An achievable should describe something concrete enough to track and complete.
A strong goal usually feels layered. The title gives the direction. The objectives show the major pieces of progress. The achievables make that progress visible in day-to-day work.
Deadlines can be added at goal, objective, and achievable level, but they need to make sense together. The product protects against obvious conflicts, such as setting an achievable later than the objective or goal it belongs to.
Why updates are so important
Updates are what make a goal ongoing.
Without updates, a goal is really just a plan written once. With updates, it becomes a live record of progress, context, blockers, and reflection. That is why the Updates tab matters just as much as the Objectives tab.
Use updates to explain what has changed, what has been learned, what remains difficult, and what kind of support may be needed. If other people are involved, updates also make it easier for them to understand momentum without relying on memory alone.
What a good update captures
Movement, blockers, context, and any change that helps the next reader understand where the work really stands.
Tagging an update to a specific achievable
When you are working inside an objective, the Updates tab lets you tag a new update to a specific achievable.
In the editor footer, select the tag control and choose the achievable the
update relates to. The product labels achievables in order as short tags such as
a1, a2, and a3, making it easier to connect the update to the right piece
of work without repeating the full achievable title every time.
This is useful for two reasons. First, it makes the update itself more precise, because readers can see exactly which achievable moved, stalled, or needs attention. Second, it makes the updates view easier to use later, because the objective timeline can be filtered down to updates for a single achievable.
That means tagged updates are not just neater. They make the objective easier to read, easier to review, and easier to manage over time.
As a quick rule of thumb, tagging is most helpful when:
- one objective contains several achievables in flight at once
- the update is about one specific task rather than the whole objective
- someone else may need to review progress later without extra explanation
Understanding access
Every goal has an owner. It may also have editors and contributors.
If you are the owner, the goal primarily belongs to you. Editors can help manage the goal on your behalf. Contributors play a more supportive role, mainly through updates and replies rather than by changing the core goal details.
This distinction matters because not everyone involved in a goal is there for the same reason.
Understanding status and deadlines
Goals can appear as On Track, At Risk, Achieved, or Overdue.
Those labels are there to help people read the current reality of the goal. A goal that looks healthy may be on track. One that is slipping can be marked at risk. One whose deadline has passed without completion will show as overdue.
And to mark a goal as achieved, the goal needs to be genuinely complete. In the current product, that means it must have objectives and all of those objectives must be completed.
If your goal was generated from a scorecard
Some goals are created directly after the WeMatter stage of a scorecard. In that case, the goal is not appearing in isolation. It is being shaped by the review that came before it.
That can make the goal more useful, because it is grounded in a recent picture of performance, alignment, and development need. It also means the goal is best read as the next step in a wider journey rather than a brand new topic.
If your goal is part of a group goal
Some goals are linked to a wider group goal. When that happens, the goal page makes clear that your individual goal contributes to shared group-level work.
You may see a linked group goal card on your goal page. You may also see that one of your objectives is linked to a group objective. That means the shared milestone is being set at group level, whilst your own objective and achievables show how you personally contribute to it.
In practice:
- your goal still belongs to you
- some objective structure may come from the group goal
- your achievables make your own contribution concrete
- your updates can help the wider group activity view show real progress
- group-level updates may appear in your individual goal or objective thread
If you want the fuller explanation of how this connection works, read Group Goals.
Opening goals and objectives
Goal and objective workspaces may briefly show a loading state while WeMatter checks access, gathers the latest goal data, and prepares the workspace.
Those loading states are intentionally simple. They show the shape of the page that is about to appear, such as the summary header, tabs, main work area, and supporting side panel, without showing placeholder details that could be mistaken for real goal content.
When the workspace finishes loading, use the Overview, Progress, and Activity tabs to move between the goal structure, completion picture, and timeline record.
A good mindset to take
Treat goals as living development documents.
They are not there to make growth look tidy. They are there to make it visible. Use them to record movement honestly, keep objectives realistic, and update the goal often enough that it still reflects reality.
At its best, a goal becomes more than a promise. It becomes an active development thread that helps other people support you more effectively.
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