# Source: https://linear.app/docs/initiatives.md

# Initiatives

Use initiatives to group projects by company objective to align on your organization's goals and track progress towards achieving them. 

![Initiatives on a Linear workspace called RideShare](https://webassets.linear.app/images/ornj730p/production/6da64501f5bd32cedef0dbf9b1faf9b09f676e58-3024x1730.png?q=95&auto=format&dpr=2)

## Overview

An Initiative is a manually curated list of projects with an accompanying document. All Initiatives are shown within a single Initiatives view at the workspace level. Their purpose is to express the goals and objectives an organization aims to achieve and to monitor progress towards those aims. This enables high-level planning across multiple projects and long timelines.

Leadership can use the top-level Initiatives view to see a quick overview of ongoing goals, objectives, and their progress. This allows them to assess overall progress without needing to drill down into each individual project.

## Basics

### Create and view initiatives

Enable Initiatives from [Settings > Initiatives](https://linear.app/settings/initiatives) and navigate to the Initiatives page in your sidebar to create and view existing Initiatives. This page contains all active Initiatives in your workspace. Each Initiative name appears with a short summary, Initiative owner, associated teams, number of projects within, target date, and health status. You can also create a new Initiative from here.

To create an Initiative, all you need is a name. Initiatives will be visible by all members of your workspace except for guests. 

There is no concept of a “private” Initiative—Initiatives are always shared workspace-wide. If a project belonging to a private team is added to an initiative, the project remains visible only to those in the private team but the Initiative is viewable by others.

### Initiative Health and Active Projects

When viewing Initiatives, use the Initiative Health and Active projects columns to quickly assess how work is progressing. 

![Initiative health and active projects displayed](https://webassets.linear.app/images/ornj730p/production/bd52bb969d596bccc676f6f49c388ea80beb55ce-954x480.png?q=95&auto=format&dpr=2)

**Initiative Health** shows whether the latest initiative update indicated work was on track, at risk, or off track. Click on it to read the full update.

**Active Projects** rolls up data for individual projects in the initiative based on each project's latest project update. These are color coded, and clicking on them shows the associated updates:

* **Green**: On track
* **Yellow**: At risk
* **Red**: Off track
* **Gray**: No recent update 

For projects marked as at risk or off track, consider commenting and to check in and offer assistance. For projects without a recent update, you can mention the project lead to check for any missed updates or potential blockers. Read more about Project and Initiative Updates [here](https://linear.app/docs/initiative-and-project-updates).

### Lifecycle management

Designating Initiatives as planned, active or complete clearly signals the Initiative's current state. When an Initiative is completed, it will move to the completed section to maintain a historical record of work. To change the status of an Initiative, click on the Initiative and update its status from the Initiatives overview page.

### Initiatives overview page

Use the Overview page to share detailed information about the overall Initiative and the projects within it. From this page, you can access and modify the following Initiative properties:

  * **Status:** Indicates if an Initiative is Planned, Active, or Completed.
  * **Owner:** Initially set to the creator of the Initiative but can be reassigned to another workspace member.
  * **Target Date:** The expected completion date of the Initiative.
  * **Resources:** Relevant documents or links associated with the Initiative.
  * **Latest update:** The most recent Initiative update.
  * **Descriptions:** Detailed information about the Initiative.
  * **Project List:** Each project included in the Initiative.

### Initiative graph

Each curve on an initiative graph represents the rate of completed issues within a single project in that initiative -- rising during periods of high activity and leveling off during quieter periods or after project completion. Hover over the x-axis to see your most active projects in a given week, or focus one at a time.

![Graph of projects in an initiative, with toolchain refresh in focus](https://webassets.linear.app/images/ornj730p/production/3c264b6668a09f156fce371c8afc4b92a9ce0b58-1520x680.png?q=95&auto=format&dpr=2)

## Example use cases

* **Engineering managers** might look at a pipeline view to help them manage immediately upcoming staffing needs
* **Product leaders** may want to use and revise a scenario plan across multiple quarters
* **Marketing leaders** might look at a release timeline filtered only on projects that require serious GTM communication
* **Product leaders** may want to see an overview of all larger asks from customers that are currently being prioritized and actively worked on

## Initiatives vs. Project Views

Initiatives are manually curated lists of projects that typically align with organizational goals, allowing leadership to easily track progress towards these goals.

If you want to group and filter projects automatically — but they don’t align with clear organizational goals or need close progress tracking — we recommend using [project views](https://linear.app/docs/projects#attach-project-views-to-workspace-projects-page) instead. You can also use [project labels](https://linear.app/docs) to help further categorize and organize projects. 

The advantage of project views is that once you set up relevant project filters, all future projects matching these criteria will be automatically included. These views are also visible to all members of your workspace.

For example, you can create a project view to filter all projects with an “In Progress” status, allowing you to see all such projects across your workspace in one place. Another example is creating a view that filters all projects involving your team members, providing a consolidated view of team activities.