Initiatives

An Initiative is the central entity in StartConsole — a strategic project large enough to warrant portfolio-level tracking, governance, and resource allocation. Everything in the platform connects to initiatives: OKRs link to them, squads deliver through them, budgets are allocated to them, and signals fire against them.

Initiative fields

Core fields

Field	Description
Title	The name of the initiative. Maximum 200 characters. Should be descriptive enough to identify the initiative without opening it.
Description	A summary of what the initiative does and why it matters. Maximum 2000 characters.
Owner	The person accountable for this initiative — typically the initiative sponsor or program lead. One user per initiative.
Status	The operational state of the initiative. See Status values below.
Start Date	The planned start date of the initiative. Used in the roadmap timeline.
End Date	The planned end date or target completion date. Used in the roadmap timeline and delivery signal monitoring.

Strategic alignment fields

Field	Description
Pillar	The strategic pillar this initiative supports. Required.
Theme	The theme within the pillar that this initiative belongs to. Optional but recommended.
OKR Link	The key result(s) this initiative is expected to move. Links the initiative to the goal layer. Multiple key results can be linked.

Financial fields

Field	Description
Allocated Budget	The budget committed to this initiative. Set at gate approval or business case stage. Displayed in currency. Used in cost signal monitoring.
Expected Value	The projected business outcome — revenue generated, cost saved, or risk reduced. Set at business case stage.
Realized Value	The actual outcome recorded after the initiative is completed. Compared to Expected Value to assess delivery on the business case.

Classification fields

Field	Description
Risk Level	The assessed risk of this initiative. Options: Low, Medium, High, Critical. Influences health status and signal monitoring.

Status	Meaning
Proposed	The initiative has been submitted and is awaiting gate review. This status triggers the gate approval workflow if gate mode is set to Strict.
Planned	The initiative has been approved and is scheduled for future delivery. Squads and dates are set but active work has not started.
Active	The initiative is in active delivery. Signals are monitored, deliverables are being tracked, and squads are allocated.
Completed	The initiative has been delivered. Realized value should be recorded at this point.
Cancelled	The initiative has been stopped. A reason should be logged as a Decision record before cancellation.

Field	Description
Title	What this deliverable produces. Maximum 200 characters.
Owner	The individual responsible for this deliverable.
Squad	The squad that will do the work. Required for capacity allocation.
Due Date	The target completion date. Used for delivery signal monitoring — overdue deliverables trigger a signal.
Status	Not Started, In Progress, Done, or Blocked. Updated by the deliverable owner.

Initiative fields

Core fields

Strategic alignment fields

Financial fields

Classification fields

Status values

Deliverables

Deliverable fields

Creating an initiative