The Microsoft Viva family has been around for a little while now and I really think it will become a big product for Microsoft – eventually. There doesn’t seem to be much focus on it at the moment but I’m sure that will change…and Viva Goals will help that. It is built on Ally.io which Microsoft acquired back in October 2021 and really aligns to the need for businesses to be more streamlined and focused than ever.
What is it?
Microsoft Viva Goals is all about OKRs – Objectives & Key Results – and helping organisations keep them visible in order to achieve what the business aims to do. An OKR is defined as:
“a proven goal-setting framework for creating alignment, focus and building a highly productive and engaged work culture to drive your business outcomes.“
Enabling everyone in a business to see what they, and everyone else, are working towards helps create more efficient, united organisations.
Microsoft have some great resources on OKRs as a concept here.
Features
Although currently only available in Private Preview (and only in English), the product features within Viva Goals include:
Which gives a good overview of what can be done with the product. Of course, Viva Goals will have strong integration with Teams to help make OKR usage an integral part of internal communication.
I think understanding and successfully using OKRs will be a key skill sought after by many organisations – I’ll be completing the OKR Champion program on Microsoft Learn to get up to speed!
Cloudy with a chance of Licensing 