# Goals and the roadmap

> How goals, milestones and roadmap tasks fit together, what each status means, what you change on the dashboard and what you ask Willo to change.

Last updated: October 16, 2026

Source: https://www.willo.ai/docs/business-records/goals-and-roadmap

Goals say where the business is going. The roadmap says how it gets there: milestones along the way, and the tasks that make them happen.

## Goals

A goal is a short, measurable aim with a description and a progress percentage, such as "Get the first 20 paying customers" or "Reach 1,000 newsletter subscribers". A business usually has three or four active ones.

Each goal has a status:

| Status | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| Active | Being worked towards. Shown on the Overview. |
| Completed | Reached. A goal set to 100% progress is completed automatically. |
| Paused | Kept, but not being worked on for now. |
| Cancelled | No longer relevant. |

**Business → Overview** shows your active goals with progress bars. To add, change, pause or complete a goal, ask Willo in chat. There's no edit button on the dashboard for goals.

## Milestones

Milestones are the checkpoints on the way to a goal, with target dates: "Website live", "Content foundation", "First 100 visitors", "First revenue". Each one can be linked to the goal it serves, and carries a health signal (on track, at risk, off track) as well as a status (upcoming, in progress, completed, missed).

## Tasks

Tasks are the actual work, each under a milestone. A task has:

- a **category**: product, content, marketing, research, revenue or operations,
- an **impact** and an **effort** score from 1 to 10, which set its priority,
- estimated dates, and any tasks it depends on,
- a flag when it **needs you**: things only a person can do, such as setting up a payment account, connecting a domain or adding a real customer review.

| Task status | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| Planned | On the roadmap, not yet ready to start. |
| Ready | Can be picked up. |
| In progress | Being worked on. |
| Completed | Done. |
| Skipped | Taken out of the queue. |

## Who changes what

**On the dashboard** (**Business → Roadmap**, marked Beta): view the roadmap as a timeline, a board, a list or a calendar; add tasks; mark tasks complete; skip them; and delete tasks you added yourself. Editors, admins and owners can make changes.

**In chat**, ask Willo to add tasks or milestones, re-prioritise, skip a task or bring one back. Willo can't mark a task complete on your behalf. A task is recorded as complete when its work actually runs, or when you mark it complete on the Roadmap page.

## How Willo works from the roadmap

When you ask "what should we do next?", Willo reads the roadmap and your goals before answering.

When the **Growth Engine** is on, it works through the roadmap on its own: it takes the most pressing ready task, putting anything due first and then going by priority, does it, and records the outcome. It skips anything flagged as needing you. When the roadmap runs low, it plans more from your active goals. Each outcome appears in **Business → Activity**. The Growth Engine comes with paid plans and starts switched off: an owner or admin turns it on in **Settings → Autonomy**, where they also set a daily limit on what it may spend.

Agent Programs can also update goal progress and roadmap tasks as part of their runs.

> **Tip: Tasks that need you.**
>
> Tasks flagged as needing you don't move until you do them. Check the roadmap for them now and then: they are often the ones that lead to revenue, such as connecting payments or adding real reviews.

Related: [Set a goal and let Willo plan against it](https://www.willo.ai/docs/business-records/set-a-goal-and-let-willo-plan-against-it), [Decisions](https://www.willo.ai/docs/business-records/decisions).