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Purpose

Sub-targets allow teams to break down a Key Result into smaller, trackable components that provide clearer insight into progress, accountability, and performance drivers. By using sub-targets, organizations can move beyond a single aggregated metric and understand how results are achieved, not just whether they are achieved.

This capability ensures that progress is:

• Measurable at a granular level
• Transparent across contributors
• Consistently calculated across the platform
  

Business Case

As organizations scale, Key Results often depend on multiple inputs, systems, or workstreams. Tracking all progress at a single Key Result level can hide risk, delay corrective action, and reduce accountability.

Sub-targets solve this by enabling:

• Granular accountability
  Different owners can be responsible for different sub-targets while still contributing to one Key Result.
• More accurate progress calculations
  Each sub-target can have its own formula, baseline behavior, update direction, and cadence.
• Better decision-making
  Leaders can quickly see which part of a Key Result is ahead, behind, or blocked.
• Auditability and traceability
  Internal IDs, sources, formulas, and ownership provide a clear data trail for governance and reporting.
• Scalability
  Sub-targets support complex outcomes without requiring separate Key Results for every metric.

Overview

Sub-targets are configured from within a Key Result’s Card View. They live in the View Details panel and contribute directly to the Key Result’s overall progress based on the rules defined by your organization.

Each sub-target can be fully customized with:

• Its own calculation logic
• Update rules and frequency
• Direction of progress (increasing or decreasing)
• Baseline handling
• Ownership and data source
• Unique internal identification

How to Add a Sub-Target from the Card View

Step 1: Open the Card

Navigate to the card that contains the Key Result where you want to add a sub-target.

Step 2: Open Key Result Details

• Under the Key Result, click the ellipsis (⋯)
• Select View Details
  

This opens the detailed configuration panel for the Key Result.

Step 3: Locate the Sub-Targets Section

Within View Details, scroll to the Sub-Targets section. This is where all sub-targets are created, edited, and managed.

Sub-Target Configuration Details

When adding or editing a sub-target, the following fields are available.

 

1. Description

• Clearly defines what the sub-target measures
• Should explain why the metric exists and what success looks like
• Recommended to include units, thresholds, or contextual notes

Example:
“Average response time for customer support tickets during business hours”

2. Formula

Defines how the sub-target value is calculated

Can be manual or system-driven depending on configuration

Ensures consistent calculation across reporting, dashboards, and exports

Best practice:
Use formulas that are simple, repeatable, and easily understood by stakeholders.

3. Source

Identifies where the data comes from

Examples include:

• Internal systems
• External tools
• Reports
• Manual entry

This improves transparency and trust in the data.

4. Owner

• Assigns responsibility for maintaining and updating the sub-target
• Owners are accountable for data accuracy and timeliness
• Ownership can differ from the Key Result owner

5. Frequency

Determines how often the sub-target should be updated

Common options include:

• Daily
• Weekly
• Monthly
• Quarterly

This helps align expectations and reporting cadence.

6. Update Behavior

• Defines how updates occur
• Supports alignment with operational rhythms and reporting cycles

7. Direction of Progress

Specifies how success is measured:

• Increasing
  Higher values indicate improvement
  (revenue, adoption rate, completion percentage)
• Decreasing
  Lower values indicate improvement
  (defect count, response time, error rate)

This ensures progress is interpreted correctly across dashboards.

8. Baseline Handling

You can choose whether the baseline should be:

• Included
  Progress is measured relative to the starting point
• Ignored
  Baseline is excluded from progress calculations

This is critical for ensuring accurate progress tracking depending on the metric type.

9. Internal ID

Assigns a unique identifier to the sub-target

Used for:

• Reporting
• Integrations
• Auditing
• Data consistency across environments

For more information about how Internal IDs are generated, displayed, and used throughout the platform, see Internal IDs for Key Results.

Important:
Each Key Result and each sub-target should have its own Internal ID to avoid ambiguity.

How Sub-Targets Impact Progress

Once configured and saved:

• Sub-targets contribute to the Key Result’s overall progress
• Calculations respect direction, baseline rules, and formulas
• Progress rolls up into dashboards, reports, and exports

This ensures the Key Result reflects real, structured progress rather than a single flat value.

When to Use Sub-Targets

Sub-targets are ideal when:

• A Key Result depends on multiple contributing metrics
• Work is distributed across teams or owners
• Progress needs deeper visibility
• Precision and governance are required

Outcome

By using sub-targets, teams gain:

• Clear visibility into progress drivers
• Stronger accountability at every level
• More trustworthy and explainable metrics
• Scalable tracking for complex outcomes

Sub-targets turnkey Results into actionable, transparent performance systems - without losing alignment to the bigger goal.

Summary

Think of Sub-targets as the steppingstones that lead to your biggest achievements. Instead of waiting until the finish line to see if you've succeeded, Sub-targets let you celebrate progress along the way, identify roadblocks early, and keep every contributor moving in the right direction.

The more thoughtfully you design your Sub-targets, the clearer your path to success becomes. Small milestones today lead to big outcomes tomorrow!