Setting goals charts a course for success. For teams, it aligns everyone’s efforts toward a common purpose. Goal setting software helps teams set, track, and achieve their objectives more effectively. 

Whether you’re leading a small group or overseeing a large department, finding the right goal setting software can make a significant difference in strategic planning. It will give your team the right tools for staying organized, motivated, and on track to achieve their goals together. 

In this article, we’ll explore some of the top goal setting software options available, specifically tailored for teams. These tools offer features designed to make collaboration smoother and goal management efforts more effective. 

What is goal setting software?

Goal setting software is a digital tool designed to help individuals and teams define, monitor, and achieve their goals. It’s a centralized platform where users can create, prioritize, and track various objectives.

Setting goals using software facilitates collaboration and alignment toward common goals. It allows team members to break down larger objectives into manageable tasks, assign responsibilities, and track progress in real-time. This transparency also creates accountability and ensures that everyone works toward the same objectives, making teams more productive. 

Goal setting software also comes equipped with features such as milestone tracking, progress visualization, and communication tools, allowing teams to stay organized and motivated throughout the goal achievement process. With a framework for goal setting and management, this software empowers teams to prioritize tasks, stay focused on key objectives, and achieve better results collectively. 

Benefits of goal setting software

Using employee goal setting software offers numerous benefits for teams and companies, enhancing productivity, collaboration, and alignment by: 

  • Streamlining goal management: Centralizing goal-setting processes in one platform enables teams to define objectives, break them down into actionable tasks, and track progress. This streamlines the entire goal management process, saving time and reducing confusion. 
  • Enhancing accountability: Goal setting software allows team members to clearly see who is responsible for each task and track individual progress. This transparency holds team members accountable, motivating them to stay on track and meet deadlines. 
  • Improving communication: Many goal setting software solutions include communication tools such as comment threats, chat features, or integrated messaging systems. These tools facilitate seamless communication among team members, enabling them to discuss tasks, provide updates, and address any issues or challenges that arise. 
  • Promoting collaboration: Goal-setting software encourages collaboration among team members by providing a centralized platform for goal setting and task management. It allows for easy resource, update, and knowledge sharing, creating an environment where team members can collaborate easily. 
  • Improving data-driven decision-making: Many goal setting software solutions provide analytics and reporting features that give you insights into team performance, progress toward goals, and areas for improvement. This data empowers teams and leaders to make informed decisions, optimize workflows, and drive continuous improvement

7 best goal setting software

Goal setting software offers a range of features designed to streamline goal management, enhance collaboration, and drive results. Whether you’re leading a small startup team or managing a large corporate department, goal setting software can provide the tools and support needed to set, track, and achieve your team’s objectives. Let’s take a look at some of the best goal setting software. 

Confluence: Best overall goal setting software

Teams often face challenges translating complex, ambiguous goals into actionable tasks that drive tangible results. Thanks to its user-friendly features and extensive capabilities, Confluence is the top choice for comprehensive goal setting software. With pre-built templates and intuitive elements, teams can quickly create pages that break down intricate ideas into manageable tasks. 

Confluence also facilitates collaboration across teams, allowing you to gather input from various stakeholders. By organizing knowledge and surfacing relevant information, Confluence ensures that teams can access the insights they need to make informed decisions and meet deadlines. 

This approach eliminates the risk of overlooking crucial information, empowering teams to align their efforts more effectively with organizational goals. No more “you don’t know what you don’t know.”

Use the goals, signals, and measures template to set clear, actionable goals that keep your team focused, define signals that show they’re on the right track, and track progress with success measures. 

Confluence whiteboards: Best for visual collaboration

Confluence whiteboards is a dynamic platform for visual collaboration, enabling teams to brainstorm ideas, organize thoughts, and plan strategies in real time. These digital whiteboards promote creativity and engagement by providing a space for teams to visually map out their goals and initiatives with stickies.

With Confluence whiteboards, teams can transform abstract concepts into actionable plans, fostering innovation and driving goal attainment through visual collaboration. 

Jira: Best for task and project management

Jira excels as a task and project management tool, allowing teams to efficiently assign, track, and complete tasks related to their goals. Its user-friendly interface and comprehensive features make it an ideal solution for managing complex workflows and monitoring progress across multiple projects. 

With Jira, teams can break down goals into actionable tasks, assign responsibilities, set deadlines, and track real-time progress. With customizable workflows and comprehensive reporting, Jira empowers teams to stay organized, focused, and on track to achieve their goals. 

Jira Service Management: Best for SLA tracking

Jira Service Management offers tailored solutions for precise service level agreement (SLA) tracking, ensuring service level commitments are met. With customizable SLA configurations, teams can define specific metrics, response times, and resolution targets for different requests or incidents. 

This software provides real-time monitoring and reporting capabilities, allowing teams to track SLA performance, identify bottlenecks, and take proactive measures to meet service-level expectations. Jira Service Management’s intuitive interface and automation features streamline SLA management, empowering teams to deliver high-quality service and maintain customer satisfaction. 

Jira Product Discovery: Best for idea prioritization 

Jira Product Discovery supports effective idea prioritization within teams, enabling efficient decision-making and resource allocation. With customizable backlogs, user feedback integration, and voting mechanisms, teams can capture, evaluate, and prioritize ideas based on strategic objectives. 

This software provides visibility into idea status, priority levels, and dependencies, promoting collaboration and alignment among cross-functional teams. By streamlining the idea prioritization process, Jira Product Discovery helps teams focus on initiatives that deliver the most value and impact. 

Atlas: Best for business goal tracking

Atlas specializes in tracking all types of goals for businesses, providing insightful metrics and analytics to monitor progress and drive strategic decisions. With customizable dashboards and reporting tools, Atlas allows teams to track key performance indicators (KPIs), objectives and key results (OKRs), milestones, and other business metrics in real-time. 

With advanced analytics capabilities, teams can identify trends, patterns, and areas for improvement, empowering data-driven decision-making and goal alignment. 

Need help setting OKRs? Use this OKR template to get started. 

Loom: Best for async communication

Loom is an asynchronous communication tool that conveniently allows teams to share updates, feedback, and insights without the constraints of real-time meetings or emails. With its intuitive video messaging platform, Loom enables users to record and share video messages, screen recordings, or presentations with teammates. 

The asynchronous communication approach promotes flexibility, productivity, and engagement, as team members can consume and respond to messages at their own pace. Loom’s integration with other collaboration tools enhances workflow efficiency, making it valuable for distributed teams or those with varying schedules.

Successfully set goals with Confluence for free

While each of these software applications offers unique benefits for unlocking effective goal setting strategies, Confluence’s comprehensive platform stands above the rest. With an intuitive interface and extensive features, Confluence is a centralized platform for teams to collaborate, align their efforts, and track progress toward their objectives. 

With access to existing templates in Confluence, teams can standardize their goal-setting efforts and pave the way for success. Teams can utilize the SMART goals template to identify specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound goals that keep their work on track.

After you establish your goals with a SMART goals template, determine how you’ll accomplish them with an OKRs template. An OKRs template will guide you through defining key objectives and measurable results, ensuring a clear path to achieving your goals and maintaining alignment across the team.

Ready to discover your team’s true potential? Try Confluence today to successfully set goals and experience the difference it can make in your team’s productivity and performance. 

Goal setting software: Frequently Asked Questions

What features should you look for in goal setting software?

A few features to look for in goal setting software include: 

  • Customizable goal setting: Ensure the software allows for creating customizable goals tailored to the team’s specific objectives, including long-term goals, milestones, and KPIs. 
  • Task management: Look for features that enable breaking down goals into actionable tasks, assigning responsibilities, setting deadlines, and tracking progress for each task individually. 
  • Collaboration tools: Consider software with built-in communication and collaboration tools, such as tagging, commenting, and file sharing, to facilitate seamless communication among team members. 
  • Progress tracking: Look for software that offers real-time progress tracking, visualization tools, and customizable dashboards to monitor progress toward goals and identify potential roadblocks. 
  • Integration capabilities: Ensure compatibility with other tools and software commonly used by the team for seamless integration and data sharing, such as project management tools, calendars, or communication platforms. 

How can goal setting software help you achieve your goals?

Goal setting software supports teams in setting, tracking, and achieving their goals effectively by providing tools and features that streamline the goal management process. It enables teams to set clear and specific objectives, break them down into actionable tasks, assign responsibilities, and set deadlines. 

Additionally, goal setting software facilitates real-time progress tracking, allowing teams to monitor their performance, identify any challenges or bottlenecks, and adjust to stay on track. By fostering accountability, project collaboration, and alignment, goal setting software empowers teams to work cohesively towards common goals, increasing productivity and achieving better results collectively.

What are some best practices for using goal setting software?

Use these best practices to help you make the most of your goal setting software: 

  • Set SMART goals: Ensure goals are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound). SMART goals give the team clarity and direction. Use this SMART goals template to get started.
  • Regular reviews and updates: Schedule regular reviews of goals and progress to track performance, identify challenges, and make necessary adjustments to stay on track. 
  • Encourage collaboration: Promote a culture of collaboration and transparency by encouraging team members to share updates, feedback, and insights within the goal setting software. 
  • Provide training and support: Provide team members with training and support on how to use the goal setting software, including best practices, tips, and troubleshooting guidance.

Top 7 goal setting software for teams