Coming Soon: Build Annual Plans That Actually Work With OKRs and Forecast Modeling

It’s annual planning season!

Across the company, leaders are setting targets, scoping new initiatives, and shaping the roadmap for the year ahead.

But if you’ve been through this before, you know how quickly plans lose relevance. Goals that looked clear on paper become harder to measure in practice, teams lose sight of the bigger picture, and the assumptions you made about resources and impact rarely hold up.  

And now, with markets changing overnight and resources stretched thin, annual planning is only getting harder. To succeed in 2026, companies will need a new approach – one that makes plans measurable, adaptive, and grounded in data.

This October, we’re launching two new features to help you build annual plans that last:

• OKRs, so you can define clear objectives, set measurable goals, and give every team visibility into how their work contributes to company success. 
• Forecast Modeling, so you can test your assumptions and commit to targets with confidence. 

Together, they’ll give you a new system for connecting strategy to execution, and the flexibility to stay on track when things change.

Build annual plans that teams actually deliver

In most companies, the planning process is fragmented: strategy gets documented in slide decks, plans are built in spreadsheets, and progress is tracked in separate tools. 

With OKRs and Forecast Modeling in Databox, you can: 

• Align your entire company: Set your strategy, define company-wide objectives with connected goals andsub-goals,invite unlimited users, and make the plan visible to everyone. 
• Manage everything in one place: OKRs, forecasts, dashboards, and performance data all live in Databox, so strategy, planning, and tracking are finally connected.
• Track progress automatically: OKRs update in real time and send notifications when things change, so your team always knows whether you’re on track or need to adjust.
• Build plans based on reality: Convert forecasted values into measurable OKRs, so plans are grounded in data from the start. 
• Test assumptions before committing resources: Run scenarios to see the impact of different strategies, resources, or market conditions, and commit only to realistic ones. 
• Create shared accountability: Assign ownership and cascade OKRs down to teams and individuals so everyone understands their role in achieving company objectives, and stays accountable for results.

Start building your annual plan in Databox

Here’s how to build your 2026 plan from the ground up, using OKRs and Forecast Modeling:

1. Define your “north star”

Before you define objectives or set targets, your team needs to understand what they’re working toward, and why.

That’s why the first step in setting up OKRs in Databox is to use the Strategy Overview to document your company’s mission, vision, and long-term goals. This gives every team a shared place to guide planning and see how their daily work connects to the bigger company strategy.

2. Turn your strategy into clear objectives

Once your strategy is in place, it’s time to define your Objectives—the high-level priorities your company is committing to this year.

When creating a goal in Databox, you’ll soon see an option to create an Objective. Setting up an objective is simple: 

• Add a title to capture the high-level priority
• Assign an owner and accountable team so responsibility is clear from the start
• Set a timeframe to keep progress measurable and time-bound
• Choose privacy settings to control who can view and contribute

Once created, you’ll be able to click into the objective to access the details page. Here, you’ll see everything related to that objective in one place, like progress history, owner, and the specific goals and sub-goals linked to it. 

3. Make your objectives measurable

Once you’ve set an objective, the next step is to define the Key Results—the measurable outcomes that show whether you’re making progress.

In Databox, Key Results are represented as Goals. 

From the objectives detail page, you’ll be able to link existing goals or create new ones. Goals can be created from the metrics you’re already tracking, so progress is updated automatically. Or, you can set them manually by entering target values and updating progress yourself. Learn more about Databox Goals.  

For example, if our objective is to “Grow our recurring revenue base,” one Key Result could be to “Increase MRR by $100K this year.” In Databox, we’d create a new goal for MRR and link it directly to the “Grow recurring revenue” objective, making the connection between strategy and execution clear.

4. Test your assumptions before committing resources

Once you’ve defined your Key Results, the next step is to make sure they’re achievable and understand what it will take to get there.

That’s where Forecast Modeling comes in.

It lets you simulate different scenarios using historical data and the drivers that impact your main KPI. You’ll be able to choose from five forecasting models at launch, with a sixth model planned to support additional needs. Add impacting metrics to see how they influence performance, and then model increases or decreases to test different assumptions.

The result? You’ll know whether your goals are realistic and which levers matter most, so you can commit resources with confidence.

For example, if our Key Result is to “Increase MRR by $100K this year,” we can forecast MRR and add impacting metrics like Net New MRR, Churn Rate, and Expansion MRR. From there, we can test different assumptions like: 

• What if Net New MRR grows 15%?
• What if churn improves by 2%?
• What if expansion increases 10%?

Databox will then generate three projections side-by-side (Optimistic, Realistic, and Pessimistic), along with correlation scores that show which drivers have the greatest impact on our main KPI. 

Instead of guessing, we can quickly validate if $100K is achievable and see exactly which areas we need to prioritize to get us there. 

5. Turn forecasts into trackable goals

You can keep tweaking your model until the forecast aligns with your target. Once you’re confident in the scenario, you’ll be able to use forecasted values to set measurable goals.

While this won’t be available in the initial launch, it’s already planned as an improvement, so you can validate your assumptions and turn them into trackable, accountable goals. 

Then, link the goal directly to the Key Result or Objective it supports using the details page. That way, your forecast becomes a live goal your team is accountable for. 

For example, let’s say our model showed that hitting $100K in new MRR depends on reducing churn. We can convert that churn prediction into a goal, then add it as a sub-goal under our MRR Key Result.  

6. See how your plan comes together

By repeating these steps, you’ll be able to build out your full annual plan, documenting your objectives, linking measurable goals, and validating them with forecasts.

Once your plan is in place, OKRs will make it easy to see how everything connects. With the Strategy Map view, you’ll be able to visualize the relationships between objectives, goals, and sub-goals at a glance. Or, switch to a List View for a more detailed breakdown of your progress.

7. Align your entire company around what matters most

With unlimited users in Databox, you can invite your entire company to participate, so everyone has visibility into the strategy and understands how their work contributes to the bigger picture.

Each team member will be able to see the objectives, goals, and sub-goals they’re responsible for, while automated notifications will keep everyone accountable. If something starts to fall off track, teams will be alerted right away so they can adjust before small issues turn into bigger problems. Leaders will get transparency across departments, and individual contributors will get clarity on how their daily work drives company success.

A better way to plan and execute in 2026

For too long, annual plans have lived in slide decks and spreadsheets, quickly losing relevance as assumptions change and teams lose focus. 

With OKRs and Forecast Modeling in Databox, you’ll be able to align your company around clear objectives, validate your plans with data, and keep every team accountable as the year unfolds.

Join the waitlist to be the first to know when these features go live, and in the meantime, watch our exclusive early demo videos of both OKRs and Forecast Modeling! 

And to help you make the most of these tools, learn the framework behind them in Predictable Scale, our free, self-paced course. You’ll learn how to set a focused strategy, turn it into a clear plan, and keep teams aligned as you execute.