The original blog post was published on https://okrframework.org/en/ and you can access the post here: OKR Best Practices — Seven Steps To Guide Your Team.

Remember that aligning your entire organization is just a small skill set that you must possess in order to ADAPT your project-centric company toward a product-led company, that´s why the OKRs are an important part of the project to product movement.

If you are an executive leader looking to ADAPT your company to the digital era, check out more about our approach by clicking the link: ADAPT Methodology™.

Before your team start drafting your company OKR, read these seven OKR best practices to avoid the most common mistakes in setting up your company goals.

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is a good framework for keeping your team aligned with the long term vision and mission of your company. As any good framework, there are some good tips to use, in this article we will talk about OKR best practices.

OKR Best Practices

The system was developed by Andy Grove of Intel and has been adopted by big and small companies. You have to understand the nature of OKRs before writing anything. It has two essential characteristics. These are:

The Structure

Two major questions that have to be answered when creating OKRs for your company are given below:

1. Where do we want to take our company (goals)?
2. How will we get there (measurable steps)?

Your entire team must consider these questions to be very important when following the OKR best practices for your company. It’s essential for key leadership teams down to team members. Answering these two questions fosters a cascading interplay of objectives that keep the entire company aligned and aware of what direction the company is taking.

The Philosophy

There are a few characteristics that set OKRs apart from other goal-setting strategies. One of such characteristics is that it consists of ambitious goals. Achieving all the goals set by your team or employees means that they are playing it safe by setting easily attainable goals. While goals are ambitious, OKRs are achievable.

Another feature is that the goals should be measurable. The goals should be tied to tangible milestones will be used to track progress. A third feature is that OKRs are geared towards transparency. Each person’s OKR is visible to other members of the organisation. Lastly, the okr framework is designed to improve performance and not merely to evaluate the employee.

OKR benefits

• It keeps your company aligned with the company’s objectives.
• OKR helps you concentrate on what’s really important with a focus on measurable key actions.
• It promotes transparency by allowing employees to know and understand the roles of everybody else and their impact on the company. This also ensures accountability and responsibility.
• It measures how everybody (from departments to teams and individuals) is doing in terms of achieving their goals.
• OKR challenges your employees to surpass their limits and set ambitious goals. This leads to groundbreaking achievements.

OKRs as Practised Today

Companies that use of OKR have created a solid system of cascading OKRs from the top level to the bottom level. Each result cascades to the next level as an objective for that team or individual.

In some organisations, OKRs are cascaded in a directional approach. Thus, the management allows individual teams to contribute by asking them to state their aspirational and personal development goals.

Best Practices in Writing OKRs

Below are the OKR best practices many companies follow:

For Objectives:

• Each team, department or individual should have 3–5 objectives.
• The objectives should be achieved in a certain time-frame (e.g. after one year or one quarter). It’s not an ongoing task.
• Objectives must be ambitious. In Google, a 70% success rate is considered a remarkable performance.

For Key Results:

• There are 3 key results per objective.
• Key results must be measurable.
• They are the steps needed to achieve an objective. Thus, attaining them is tantamount to achieving your objectives.
• They are not activities, but outcomes.

OKRs: Getting Started

The process explained below will help you and your team adapt to OKR in about six weeks before the start of another year or quarter.

First Step: Identify Team Objectives and Key Results

Identify three to five primary objectives of your team in the coming year or quarter. It should be in line with the vision and mission of the company. Identification of the key results come after this. The steps to achieve these goals should also be stated.

Second Step: Decide on How Your Team will Organise OKRs

Monitoring OKRs can be challenging, but there are tools and methods that your company can make use of to do this. You can make use of spreadsheets.

Your team has to identify a systematic process to roll out the OKRs to your team members, otherwise, it can get disorganised.

Third Step: Working with Team Leads in Drafting Objectives

You need to gather all departmental heads and cascade the significance of OKRs. The benefits of OKRs to each department and the company as a whole should be stated.

Organise a meeting with the heads/executives involved so you can create a process of rolling out OKRs together.

Fourth Step: Cascading OKRs to Team Members

The next step would be to organise the team leads/managers who will cascade the new process to their respective teams. They have to ensure that the OKRs are understood by the team members.

Fifth Step: Writing of Individual OKRs

Following the meeting of the leads/managers, the team members should be directed to write their individual OKRs. Managers and team members should collaborate at this stage.

At the initial check-in, the team member should make a comparison between individual objectives and what the manager expects. The individual’s objectives have to be in line with those of the company.

At the end of the check-in, the immediate superior and team member should reach a compromise. The immediate superiors should allow their team members to make their own decisions and goals, but at the same time, ensure that these are in line with the values and goals of the company.

Sixth Step: Calibration

At the end of the first cycle of OKR, it is crucial for your company to evaluate how the individual OKRs may have affected any of the team or high-level company OKRs. This evaluation will precede a company-wide meeting where team heads will discuss the direction of the company for the next quarter or year.

Seventh Step: Monitoring Individual OKRs

Managers must check on the progress of the employees and see to it that the key results are being achieved. OKRs are also a great way to measure the performances of team members and promote accountability.

With the above steps and best practices stated, the adoption of OKRs by your company will be an easy process. If you need guidance on how to implement this, feel free to reach out to us.

Did you like this article?

If you liked this article and you are looking for a way to align everyone in your organization, let’s have a call or simply download our OKR Guide. We also offer OKR consulting and OKR training, but our approach differs from other companies, we believe OKRs should be fully integrated with your product development. If you want you can attend our OKR Webinar.

The original blog post was published on https://okrframework.org/en/. You can access the post here: How to Properly Conduct an OKR Evaluation to Keep Your Team Aligned

How to properly do an OKR evaluation for your team so everyone will be kept accountable, high performing and in cadence with the phase of your company.

Remember that aligning your entire organization is just a small skill set that you must possess in order to ADAPT your project-centric company toward a product-led company, that´s why the OKRs are an important part of the project to product movement.

If you are an executive leader looking to ADAPT your company to the digital era, check out more about our approach by clicking the link: ADAPT Methodology™.

At least two weeks before the quarter ends, it’s time to assess the OKRs of you team in your department. Has your team been successful? As a department, have you achieved your goals? Were your team’s key results effective? Also, you need to plan for your OKRs in the next quarter.

If you want to have an effective way of assessing the OKR of your department, there are two ways/methods to do this. They’re called confidence ratings and grading approach.

OKR Evaluation Confidence Ratings: Pros & Cons

This is a simple system that is widely used by start-ups and smaller teams that are new to OKRs. When setting OKRs, they basically set a confidence rating which reflects the probability of their team achieving their objectives.

The rating is typically between 5 and 10. Each week, members are asked whether their confidence levels have changed or not. They factor in what they have done so far in achieving their key results. Whether they are on track or behind schedule.

They look at every bit of data from the previous weeks and check whether the team is making progress or not or getting closer to their goal or slipping away. You as the department head, team leader or manager is in charge of adjusting the confidence to a higher rating as they become confident that they are close to the results they want.

The confidence level could either go up or down week on week. It depends whether progress has been made or a setback showed up. After two months of the implementation of OKRs, however, the confidence level of the team should settle into a more stable outcome.

Two weeks before the quarter ends, you can already assess the outcome of the OKRs. You can say whether you only have a 50/50 chance of achieving your team objectives. The sooner you call the results, the earlier you can make plans for the next quarter.

There are two major advantages of the use of confidence ratings in evaluating OKRs of your department. The first one is that it serves as a reminder for employees to keep track of their OKRs.

Since they will be asked about their confidence levels week on week, they will have the initiative to track their own progress and ensure that they are focused on their key results. It is an easy and very effective way for a company to instal the habit of success tracking.

The second major benefit of using confidence ratings is that it leads the way to meaningful conversations. When the team’s confidence levels dropped, everyone can talk about the could-be-betters. What has gone wrong? What could have been done differently? They can brainstorm ideas to correct the drop and get back on track.

Because a team’s OKR affects everyone else’s OKRs, it can be a serious concern for the entire organisation. The leader should, therefore, feel it comfortable to open conversations and ask his team members what he can do to help.

By the time you evaluate your department’s OKRs, you either mark your confidence level as 10 or 0. If they achieve two out of their three key results, it means the OKR has been successful.

This grading system helps a team double down on possible goals and get rid of efforts that are clearly out of range. This streamlines processes and eliminates unnecessary efforts and workaround.

The downside, however, is that some employees might “sandbag” the system by setting one easy objective, one difficult objective, and one impossible objective. The manager has the major role in ensuring this doesn’t happen.

OKR Evaluation & Grading Approach: Pros & Cons

The second approach to evaluating OKRs is called the ‘grading approach’. This is the system used by Google. At the end of each quarter, teams and individuals grade their results using the data collected. A grade of 0.0 means that they failed, 1.0 means that the OKR was a complete success, while a score between 0.6 and 0.07 is the ideal score.

Having a score lower than this suggests that the team is not achieving what it needs to be achieved. For companies that are new to OKRs, it can be uncomfortable to be behind their goals.

Most companies implement a scoring system wherein the key results are measured at the end of the quarter or several times during such period. However, many fail to define a set of scoring criteria which is an important element of key results.

The scoring criteria are necessary especially if you want to use a standardised scoring system for your company and must be defined upon the creation of the OKRs. Technically, Key Results are not yet finalised until the team has defined their scoring guideline and system.

Prior to assigning a final score, it can be helpful to conduct a mid-quarter check-in for all levels, from key departments down to teams and individuals to give everyone a sense of where they are. An end-of-quarter check-in will be used to prepare you and your team in the succeeding quarters.

Other organisations perform a midpoint check, some perform a monthly check. In Google, their philosophy is to hire smart people, give them a goal, and give them the freedom to accomplish it. One smart technique as advised by experts is to keep OKRs visible. Not only does this promote transparency across all teams, but it is also an effective strategy to communicate scores and establish a sense of accountability. Everyone will be somehow ‘forced’ to update their self-ratings when the quarter is almost over.

There are a ton of tools that your team can use to track your OKRs and measure your progress. Buying a tool should be your last resort. It can be helpful to experiment with various approaches to find the right technique that works for your team and could get you to the results you want.

Gathering your department’s teams for feedback is always the best way. Collaboration is the key to success in implementing any change, a new process, or a different management okr framework. At first, it can be a struggle to keep things in order and implement OKRs smoothly. But with a scoring system in place, it should be easy for you to evaluate your OKRs.

We hope this helps. If you want to take a closer look of how your entire company perform as a whole, you might want to check out our organisational mastery quiz. We’ve established scientific and concrete metrics to see where you can still improve your company.

Feel free to also forward this other heads of departments in your company (or even to the CEO). It reveals concrete areas that hold your company back from achieving its true potential.

Did you like this article?

If you liked this article and you are looking for a way to align everyone in your organization, let’s have a call or simply download our OKR Guide. We also offer OKR consulting and OKR training, but our approach differs from other companies, we believe OKRs should be fully integrated with your product development. If you want you can attend our OKR Webinar.

The original blog post was published on https://okrframework.org/en/ You can access the post here: How OKR Works: A Beginner’s Guide.

So you want to start implementing OKR for your organisation? This is how OKR works from top to bottom. Check out the beginner´s guide.

Remember that aligning your entire organization is just a small skill set that you must possess in order to ADAPT your project-centric company toward a product-led company, that´s why the OKRs are an important part of the project to product movement.

If you are an executive leader looking to ADAPT your company to the digital era, check out more about our approach by clicking the link: ADAPT Methodology™.

In this article, we will explain how OKR works. Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is a phenomenal goal setting framework that many organisations utilise. It’s a simple, easy, straightforward and results-driven system.

Companies like Intel, Google, Amazon, Spotify and many others have been using OKRs for years. It has been described as an effective tool that promotes accountability, transparency, productivity and engagement among employees from to bottom. The okr framework helps leaders to keep everyone on the same page.

OKRs will work for your company if properly implemented. However, one of the biggest challenges in adopting this framework is getting started. In order to start the right way, there are some vital steps that will allow you to successfully implement OKRs.

This article contains a checklist which you can use as a quick accessible reference to write your own Objectives and Key Results. The way you write your OKRs really matters. This is because they are not just about goals. They also provide a framework for strategy and execution.

Putting more effort in writing OKRs as a team can give room for innovative goals. The framework also serves as a communication tool for conveying strategy to your entire team.

You need to familiarise yourself with the framework’s two major components. The first component is focused on your goals, while the other talks about key results.

Tips on Writing an Objective

In understanding how OKR works, you need to know the qualities of a good objective. One quality should be qualitative goals. The goals should be clear and unambiguous. Another quality is that the objective should align with your corporate strategy as well as the company’s goals.

Setting objectives can be a difficult task. Companies that have adopted OKRs know how tempting it can be to organise a great number of objectives at every possible level. Below are the key questions that you should be able to answer when setting relevant effective objectives.

1. Is the objective inspiring?
2. Does it aid you in achieving the goals of your organisation?
3. Is the objective absolutely necessary?
4. Can it be achieved in a fixed period of time?

Tips on Writing Key Results

Key results are the backbone of any OKRs. Without specific, measurable KRs, it will not be an easy task for anyone in your company to realise their objectives. Therefore, understanding how OKR works entails knowing how to write key results.

Simply put, KRs are quantitative indicators of whether the objectives have been achieved. They are not KPIs. Key results are the specific steps you should take in order reach your objectives. Generally, KRs should adhere to the SMART guideline.

Below are the questions that you should be able to answer when writing KRs.

1. Is your KR a result, not just an activity or task?
2. Does it help you attain a specific objective?
3. Can it be achieved in a fixed period of time?
4. Does it belong to either an operational or stretch type of goal?
5. Is it important enough to appear in the top 5 KRs for the objective?

OKRs Examples and Templates

Before proceeding with the following examples and templates, be mindful that there is no universal approach for all possible uses and cases. The sample below is only a guideline for wording your OKRs. You can change this anytime.

Sample Template:

We plan to succeed in ___(OBJECTIVE)_____, as measured:

by _____KR_____,

by _____KR_____,

by ____KR______.

We plan to achieve this by __DATE__.

Check out the following examples of OKRs:

Example #1

Objective: Increase employee engagement.

Key Results:

1. Execute at least three engagement activities per department.
2. Decrease the attrition rate from 15% to 10%.
3. Increase eNPS from 70% to 90%.

Example #2

Increase production by 40%.

Key Results:

1. Hire 10 more staff.
2. Provide incentives to most productive employees.
3. Rearrange staffing schedule.

Example #3

Objective: Improve the new marketing process

Key Results:

1. Develop personal relationships with 10 potential customers.
2. Increase lead generation by 15%.
3. Launch 4 webinars in three months.

More Tips on Proper Writing of OKRs

1. Keep your OKRs specific and simple. Make sure to prioritise your objectives according to what your business needs.
2. Share your objectives. It is important to let your team members and the rest of the company know about your objectives. This will enable them to have a clear idea about what your goals are and how they can contribute to the realisation of these goals.
3. Have measurable KRs. Make sure that your key results are measurable so that you can know if they have been achieved or not.
4. Do not worry about stretch goals. The best objectives are not easy to attain. Encourage your team members so that they can reach great milestones. With continuous feedback and coaching, they will be able to reach their goals.

The success of your OKRs process greatly depends on how you write them. The guidelines, examples and tips in this post will surely go a long way in improving your OKRs writing skills.

Did you like this article?

If you liked this article and you are looking for a way to align everyone in your organization, let’s have a call or simply download our OKR Guide. We also offer OKR consulting and OKR training, but our approach differs from other companies, we believe OKRs should be fully integrated with your product development. If you want you can attend our OKR Webinar.

The original blog post was published on okrframework. You can access the post here: The System Of OKR At Google.

Curious how OKR at Google works? This is how they implement the OKRs for the entire company. What’s its secret? Check it out.

Remember that aligning your entire organization is just a small skill set that you must possess in order to ADAPT your project-centric company toward a product-led company, that´s why the OKRs are an important part of the project to product movement.

If you are an executive leader looking to ADAPT your company to the digital era, check out more about our approach by clicking the link: ADAPT Methodology™.Remember that aligning your entire organisation is just a small skill set that you must possess in order to ADAPT your company to the digital era! If you are an executive leader looking to ADAPT your company to the digital era, check more about our approach by clicking the link: ADAPT Methodology™.

Google is one of the largest multinational technology companies in the world today. Apart from being a search engine, the technology giant has many products and services, with some being acquired or purchased over the years.

The secrets to Google’s success are numerous, but there is definitely one that cannot be overlooked called OKRs. This can be adopted by a company’s management. OKRs is an acronym for Objectives and Key Results.

OKRs was adopted by Google when the company was just a start-up. John Doerr, one of the company’s investors, introduced the system as a method of setting goals and achieving them. The system originated from Intel.

As a simple structure, OKRs is designed to aid individuals, teams and companies in setting challenging goals and attaining them through measurable actions. The system can also be applied to your personal life.

The Application of OKRs at Google

If you are looking to adopt OKRs the way Google utilises it, here are the steps:
Set a clear objective. Make sure you set clear, specific and measurable objectives for your company.

They shouldn’t be ambiguous. For example, saying that you want to improve your sales department is not an objective that expresses clarity. Rather, you should say “I want to improve our annual sales by 30%.” Next, set a number of “key results” which should all be measurable. These are the qualifiers that would tell you that your team has achieved its objective.

At Google, employees have 4–6 OKRs per quarter. It’s not healthy or productive to go beyond this threshold. This will be an impediment to focus. They also have OKRs at different levels such as personal, team and management. Everyone works together to ensure that their company is on track in terms of hitting their targets.

Google does OKRs yearly. Annual OKRs are the umbrella objectives where the rest of the individual and team OKRs can be patterned from. Even so, these OKRs are prone to changes as the year goes by.

An Actual Example of the Application of OKRs at Google

A great example of the application of OKR at Google is the one by Rick Klau.

An example of his OKRs is given below:
Note: The following example is not copied in verbatim.

Objective:

Improve the Reputation of Blogger

Key Results:
Reach out to Blogger users personally.
Set up a Twitter account for Blogger and personally update discussions regarding the product.
Speak at three events to re-assert Blogger’s leadership in the industry.
Coordinate Blogger’s 10th anniversary with massive PR (Public Relations) efforts.
Fix the DMCA process and get rid of the music blog takedowns.

Best Practices in OKRs

While measuring OKR at Google, it takes only a few minutes. They put extra effort in attaining personal goals without worrying about grades.

At the end of each quarter, employees grade their key results through a specific and quantifiable set of scales. The fact is that attaining a perfect score of “1” is not the goal.

The aim is to achieve a score of 0.6 or 0.7. The reality is that getting a score of “1” means that you are not doing your job particularly well, but deliberately underperforming to gain an unfair advantage.

On the other hand, a score of 0.4 indicates that an employee needs to look deeper into how they work. It could mean that you have to make adjustments to the existing processes or review the key results in order to realise the set objectives.

Having a low score means that employees need to think about a different approach to how they work. This is a vital aspect of OKRs. Basically, there is always room for adjustments and improvements.

It’s essential for any company especially in a world as dynamic as today’s business sphere.
The merit of OKRs is that it’s accessible to everyone from the head down to the frontline employees. It’s a part of their internal profile.

This is a transparent system that enables anyone to see what the goals and scores of others are. It helps everyone to understand what others are working on. With this, employees can get guidance on how to organise their OKRs for the next quarter or pattern their goals.

Conclusion

It’s important to note that OKRs can’t be used to determine promotions, but it is a part of the criteria. It has many merits as can be demonstrated by Google and other companies.

OKRs is appealing to many companies because of how simple and straightforward it is. It also promotes efficiency, transparency and a deep sense of responsibility. Individual OKRs are best executed under the guidance of supervisors or managers who should be able to give regular feedback and coaching.

Organisations that implement OKRs have their own processes and guidelines. It’s crucial to experiment on what techniques work best for your organisation. There is no universal approach to implementing OKRs.

Have you tried using OKRs in your organisation? How did it help your team? What are the best practices or procedures that you can share?

Did you like this article?

If you liked this article and you are looking for a way to align everyone in your organization, let’s have a call or simply download our OKR Guide. We also offer OKR consulting and OKR training, but our approach differs from other companies, we believe OKRs should be fully integrated with your product development. If you want you can attend our OKR Webinar.

The original blog post was published on https://okrframework.org/en/. You can access the post here: OKR Benefits — Full Maximisation Of Value For Your Company

OKR benefits many companies in the world, like Google, Intel, and other tech and non-tech companies. Find out how it can for work for your organisation.

Remember that aligning your entire organization is just a small skill set that you must possess in order to ADAPT your project-centric company toward a product-led company, that´s why the OKRs are an important part of the project to product movement.

If you are an executive leader looking to ADAPT your company to the digital era, check out more about our approach by clicking the link: ADAPT Methodology™.Remember that aligning your entire organisation is just a small skill set that you must possess in order to ADAPT your company to the digital era! If you are an executive leader looking to ADAPT your company to the digital era, check more about our approach by clicking the link: ADAPT Methodology™.

Would your company or organisation benefit from Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)? Well, this is what we will explain in this blog post, the OKR benefits. This goal-setting framework is useful for any company regardless of the industry. Below are some of its major merits.

OKRs is an Agile System

The okr framework is different from traditional goal-setting methods in the sense that they are reviewed on a short-term basis. The short cycles allow for speedy adjustments and enable companies to adapt to change.

It Promotes Collaboration

Another OKR benefit is that it ensures alignment, interdependency and unity among employees/teams. It promotes collaboration which facilitates better problem-solving.

It Saves Time When Setting Goals

Setting goals can be a difficult and time-consuming process. However, with this framework, goal-setting is fast and easy for every level of the organisation.

Fosters Better Communication

It promotes transparency by letting everyone have access to what others are doing. This will enable employees to understand the goals of the company and what their individual contributions should be.

It Drives Engagement

The bidirectional approach of OKRs is of advantage to connecting employees with the company’s objectives. This promotes engagement.

Accountability and Autonomy

OKRs foster a sense of responsibility and autonomy in employees. It gives them a sense of accountability and ‘mutual obligation’.

Ensures Focus and Discipline

OKRs make sure that you have fewer goals in a shorter time-frame. This allows employees to focus on their GSDs. This also boosts their discipline and effort over the company initiatives.

Boosts Confidence in Setting Higher Goals

OKRs boost confidence in setting ambitious goals. It involves using stretch goals to aid your employees in setting higher goals and attaining them.

The above advantages of OKRs can also be referred to as OKR benefits enjoyed by a company.

Tactical Versus Strategic OKRs

Using OKRs only for a shorter term (e.g. three months) might cause teams to miss the big picture (the ultimate goals of the company). Therefore, there may be need to set annual goals. You might want to adopt this strategy or test it and see what works for your company or team.

Companies that have utilised OKRs for so long understand that different goals can have different cadences. For example, tactical goals tend to change faster than strategic goals. Therefore, OKRs separates tactics and strategies by utilising a nested model.

Strategic goals are long-term high-level goals. This doesn’t mean that they are not subject to changes. The company has to be open about their strategy and make necessary reviews. On the other hand, tactical cadence is adopted for setting short-term goals. They are adopted primarily by teams and involves regular check-ins for tracking progress.

How to Determine a Successful OKR Approach?

A successful OKR approach can be determined by the following:

• Annual strategic OKRs which will be used by the whole company.
• Quarterly tactical goals for teams, coupled a mid-quarter review.
• Weekly check-ins for tracking results.

What OKR Cadence Is Suitable for Your Company?

In most cases, the quarterly cadence makes more sense because it provides adequate time for employees and managers to develop initiatives and measure their effects on the company. The shorter the cadence, the smaller the overhead. Also, the longer the cadence, the lower the business uncertainty.

To adopt a shorter cadence, you have to adopt a streamlined approach to develop OKRs. Otherwise, you will take more time than necessary in setting goals. Also, if your company/organisation faces uncertainty or your market changes too quickly, having long cycles of OKR is not going to help.

Implementing OKRs in Your Company

If you are new to OKRs, it is advisable to start with a quarterly tactical cadence in addition to a mid-quarter review. This will give room for your team to learn and adapt to the new model. You can also have joint cadences for separate teams, depending on necessity. For example, you can set an annual OKR for a sales department and utilise quarterly OKRs for a different department.

Your goal should be to maximise synchronisation opportunities. This gives room for all teams in the company to sync at least once a year in order to ensure alignment.

Cascading is a different approach where there is a top-down process with no feedback cycles.

Decisions simply flow from the management to the team-member level. However, the rule of thumb in executing OKRs is that 60% of it should be defined by team members from the bottom to the top. This also means that executives/leaders also have a say on what OKRs should be about.

As an executive or leader, you shouldn’t be afraid to experiment. Feedback from your team is also very important, so keep an open mind. This is because adopting OKR is for everyone in your company to be in sync. You can’t achieve this without feedback from those at the lower levels.

Did you like this article?

If you liked this article and you are looking for a way to align everyone in your organization, let’s have a call or simply download our OKR Guide. We also offer OKR consulting and OKR training, but our approach differs from other companies, we believe OKRs should be fully integrated with your product development. If you want you can attend our OKR Webinar.

The original blog post was published on https://okrframework.org/en/. You can access the post here: Objective and Key Results: A Tool To Engage Your Employees

Before you dip your toes in writing your organisation’s Objective and Key Results, understand the okr framework, components, and common mistakes first.

Objective and Key Results: How to engage your employees to commit to the company goals

Remember that aligning your entire organization is just a small skill set that you must possess in order to ADAPT your project-centric company toward a product-led company, that´s why the OKRs are an important part of the project to product movement.

If you are an executive leader looking to ADAPT your company to the digital era, check out more about our approach by clicking the link: ADAPT Methodology™.Keeping everyone in your team in sync can be a real challenge especially if you don’t hold the members of your team engaged with the visions of your company. For a traditional corporate milieu, this is not a surprise. And probably the reason why many feel that they’re a bit lost about the direction of the company that they are working for.

This is more apparent to millennials you work with. According to a study conducted by Gallup in 2016, only 40% of millennials feel connected to the visions and goals of the company they work for. Remember that a few years from now, the entire workforce will be composed of millennials. So this should be one of your priorities in transforming your company into a high performing team.

But how do you really keep everyone on the same page? The answer is by involving your employees in the goal setting. A study conducted in 2015 shows an increase of employee performance by 12–15% if they’re involved in company goal setting.

What would 12–15% increase in performance mean to your company? I bet a lot

The good news is there’s a framework that can make this happen. It’s called OKR. OKR can literally lead your company into a unified transformation and mind-shift if implemented the right way.

This is exactly the level of transformation and evolution that what we offer to our clients in our Organisational Mastery Program. If you want to know more about it, feel free to take our Organisational Mastery Test. It won’t take you 5 minutes

Back to OKRs . . .

OKR, which stands for “Objective and Key Results” is a very simple management tool that is designed to promote engagement among team members and ensure that everyone is aligned to the primary objectives of their organisation. It is widely used by many companies, including Google, and is characterised by having measurable goals.

OKR as a Framework to Goal-Setting

Contrary to traditional goal setting methods, OKRs are clearly defined, tracked, and measured on a regular basis. In most companies, it is done quarterly. OKR is a simple, dynamic process that greatly helps in promoting the team’s engagement and creativity.

Ensuring that everyone in the organisation is aligned with the company goals is one of the main benefits of OKRs. It keeps everyone on the same page, with clear priorities. Can you imagine the transformation it can bring to your company?

The concept of OKR originally came from Intel which spread steadfastly to many Silicon Valley startups and companies. It has such a powerful impact that even Google used it, supporting its growth from just 40 employees to over 60,000. And it’s not just Google that has uncovered the benefits of OKRs. Now, it is a popular management tool that is used by other companies like Spotify, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Airbnb.

While the majority of companies that use OKR may seem like tech companies, it is a well-rounded approach that can be used by other companies in other industries. In fact, it is currently used by Walmart, ING Bank, Bradstreet, and The Guardian. So yes, it works for every industry and would likely work for your company as well.

OKRs Key Components

John Doerr, an American Investor and venture capitalist who also worked in Google, introduced the idea of OKR. Starting his career at Intel and later on invested in Google, Amazon, and other giant companies, Doerr gave a pitch on OKR and how it can benefit the company. Below is his Goal-Setting Formula.

I will ­­(OBJECTIVE) as measured by (SET OF KEY RESULTS).

His simple formula describes two things: 1) what one has to achieve and 2) how is he going to measure this achievement. Note that OKR involves measurable results. Without scaling it, a goal is not a goal. It is simply a desire.

As given in the formula, OKR is consists of two things: the Objective and Key results. Objectives are basically the person’s goals which are qualitative descriptions of what he or she wants to achieve.

These are short, engaging and inspiration statements that are meant to motivate and challenge the team.

Key results, on the other hand, refer to the set of metrics that measure an individual’s progress in achieving his or her goals. As Former Google Vice President Marissa Mayer puts it, “If it does not have a number, it is not a Key Result.”

Under each objective, there are 2–5 key results. The idea is to keep the Key Results as few as possible as having more would be difficult to remember.

Examples of OKR

EXAMPLE ONE

Objective: Create a positive customer experience.

One of the key goals of every business is to provide their customers with a positive experience. This statement is engaging, motivating and at the same time, challenging. The objective sounds wonderful. But without key results as a way to measure how far a team or individual has gone through in terms of achieving the Objective, it remains just a goal.

This is where the importance of Key Results come in. As an executive of your company, how do you know that your team is serving customers with superb attitude? Obviously, you take into account how people are perceiving your products through various measures like the Repurchase Rate and Net Promoter Score.

Basically, you want to know how the customers feel about dealing with your company, whether they would buy again, and if they will recommend your business to other people.

However, looking at the NPS and repurchase rate alone might not be enough to accurately conclude that you are providing an awesome customer experience. It could even encourage you to make customers happy and satisfied at any cost, which could later on harm your business.

What else can you look at then? One good key result would be measuring your Customer Acquisition Cost. This keeps the balance between making customers happy and keeping the cost under control.

Your OKR should look something like this:

Objective: Create A Superb Customer Experience

Key Results:

1. Maintain Customer Acquisition cost under Y
2. Raise Repurchase Rate from X to Y.
3. Improve Net Promoter Score from X to Y.

EXAMPLE TWO

Say you are operating a digital company and one of your objectives in your first year is to delight your customers. Your OKR can look like this:

Objective: Delight our customers.

Key Results:

1. Lower order cancellation from A% to D%.
2. Increase Net Promoter Score from A to C.
3. Improve average daily visits per active user from X to Y.
4. Increase Organic traffic from X to Y.

Note that the Key Results, as shown in this example, should be clear and specific. You have to identify the numbers to measure the results. While the objective is a high-level statement of what you want to happen, the Key Results are specific, measurable actions. Key Results are very important. They just don’t measure your goals, they also define what your goals are.

Ways to Apply OKRs in Your Team

OKR is a versatile tool. There’s no single way to use it. You can tweak it depending on your needs and what’s best for your team. Regardless of how you plan to implement OKRs, here are some core concepts that should remain the same:

Your goals should be agile.

OKRs are never meant to be static or rigid. These goals adapt to the organisation’s needs and way of working (company culture). OKRs are created and reviewed between shorter periods. It can also be changed as needed.

OKR is a simple tool.

OKRs are among the most effective organisational tools mainly because it is so simple and straightforward. Objectives are stated concisely, as well as the key results. This is to avoid confusion and ensure that everyone in the team or organisation is aligned.

It is done on a quarterly (sometimes annually or even monthly) basis, reducing the time spent on setting goals. As a result, organisations invest more in achieving their goals, not just in setting them.

OKR promotes transparency.

The main goal of OKRs is to ensure that everyone in the team is on the same page. Thus, they are usually open to anyone within the organisation. Individuals across all teams or departments have access to what other people are doing, what their goals are, and how well they are performing.

OKR is dynamic.

Organisations are ever-changing. Change is critical for a company to keep up with the competition in their respective industries. OKRs are flexible. They can be changed to adapt to the company’s changing needs.

It involves bi-directional goal-setting.

Unlike the traditional top-down model, OKRs are more time-efficient and add value. In his book, World Rules, former VP of Google People Operations Laszlo Bock said: “Having goals improves performance.

Spending hours cascading goals up and down the company, however, does not. It takes way too much time, and it’s too hard to make sure all the goals line up.” This kind of cascading method drives engagement and makes the process even simpler and faster.

OKRs centre around ambitious goals.

The philosophy behind OKRs is that if your team is reaching your goals 100% every time, it means that your goals are too easy. Thus, if your team is achieving a perfect score in your key results, it is not an indication of success, rather, a nudge that you have to motivate them to do better. OKRs are designed to help teams set challenging goals.

Instead, OKR targets bold, ambitious goals. Besides aspirational objectives, OKR believes in enabling the team to set challenging goals. Goals that make the team rethink the way they work to reach peak performance.

The importance of setting ambitious goals is widely acknowledged. In fact, in the book “Ten Things We Know to Be True”, Google mentioned: “We set ourselves goals we know we can’t reach yet because we know that by stretching to meet them we can get further than we expected.”

OKRs promote a safe ground for employees to thrive.

Organisations that use OKRs provide a low-risk environment for their employees to experiment and set challenging goals. Members will not be punished or lose money if they set ambitious goals. This makes them more motivated to aim higher. Furthermore, they are rewarded for their impact on the business.

OKR is a continuous process.

OKR is a process, not an event. It involves cultural transformation. It changes over time.

Common OKR Mistakes

Some companies tend to do it wrong. Here are some common OKR mistakes that many organisations do. Avoid them at all cost.

1. They use OKR like a task list. OKR measures how you deliver value, not do tasks. There is a fine difference between value-based and activity-based key results.
2. They set too many OKRs. OKRs work best when done one at a time. OKRs include high-level goals per quarter, particularly your top priorities.
3. They don’t align their OKRs to the company goals. Teams should align their goals with that of the other teams, and the organisation as a whole.
4. They set it and forget it.
5. Goals are only goals without measurable actions.

How to Write Good OKRs

So what do you think? Would OKR help your company to reach the next level? If yes, here’s a concise way to help your team get started.

The most effective OKRs are short and easy to understand. They should be challenging and not boring. Most of all, they should fit the organisational culture. OKRs don’t have to be formal statements. They can be stated using the language used in your organisation. Furthermore, separate metrics from initiatives. There are usually 2–5 key results per objective so your team won’t be overwhelmed.

If you need more guidance in implementing this framework in your company, feel free to reach out. Don’t forget to take our Organisational Mastery Test so we can accurately diagnose the improvements we can implement in your company.

Did you like this article?

If you liked this article and you are looking for a way to align everyone in your organization, let’s have a call or simply download our OKR Guide. We also offer OKR consulting and OKR training, but our approach differs from other companies, we believe OKRs should be fully integrated with your product development. If you want you can attend our OKR Webinar.

The original blog post was published on https://okrframework.org/en/. You can access the post here: Objective and Key Results Examples to Help Your Company Set Effective Goals

Check out these Objective and Key Results examples to get your company started in adopting OKR. Don’t have to guess anymore!

Remember that aligning your entire organization is just a small skill set that you must possess in order to ADAPT your project-centric company toward a product-led company, that´s why the OKRs are an important part of the project to product movement.

If you are an executive leader looking to ADAPT your company to the digital era, check out more about our approach by clicking the link: ADAPT Methodology™.It’s not enough that you have goals for your company. If your company is not experiencing growth, it’s either you are targeting the wrong goals or you are not utilising the right goal-setting methodology.

As the leader of your organisation, you have to fix this. This is where OKRs come in.

Using Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is probably the easiest and most efficient way of setting organisational goals.

Big companies like Amazon and Google have been using it for a long time. They all recommend this framework to any company that wants to experience rapid growth.

Below is an overview of the okr framework plus objectives and key results examples to aid you in understanding how to write it properly.

What is Objectives and Key Results?

Objectives are statements of a company or an individual’s goals for a specific period of time. They answer the question “Where do I want to go?”

Before writing your objectives, you need to understand that they have to be specific, easily understandable, brief, straight to the point and tangible.

Key Results bring your company closer to its stated objectives. Completing each KR means being one step closer to your objectives. Below are the key qualities of the most efficient KRs:

• They are significant.
• They are not just a to-do list.
• KRs should be easily understood by others without the need for interpretation.
• They have a time-frame with a due-date for each key result.
• KRs are scalable.

OKR Best Practices

Writing down your OKRs for the first time can be challenging. One of the best OKR practices by Google and many other companies is writing down 3 to 5 objectives per level (e.g. per person, per team or per department).

Going above this limit is not advisable as it could cause distraction. OKRs are a great tool to set priorities right. You only get to work on a few objectives per quarter.

Another best practice when writing OKRs is to use common language that your team understands.

Contrary to your organisation’s mission and vision statement, OKRs are specific and measurable. If your OKRs trigger confusion among your employees, you need to revise it.

Objective and Key Results Examples

Look through the following objectives and key results examples as a guide to set yours:

Example 1.

Objective: Lower Attrition Rate by 15%.

Key Results:

• Promote engagement among team members via incentives.
• Organise bi-weekly coaching sessions for low performers.
• Start a skill acquisition program for interested team members.

Example 2.

Objective: Make our customers happy.

Key Results:

• Conduct a monthly survey to get customers’ feedback.
• Organise a bi-weekly calibration session for QA involving selected team members.
• Increase customer retention by 80–90%.
• Obtain an NPS score of 9.5.

Example 3.

Objective: Establish a friendly, “family” like Company Culture.

Key Results:

• Achieve a 90% score in monthly employee PULSE survey.
• Revise and expand the employee recognition program.
• Launch a monthly “Town Hall” wherein employees can openly ask managers and leaders about anything and talk about their concerns.
• Celebrate small wins and significant progress every two weeks.

Example 4.

Objective: Raise revenues by 25%.

Key Results:

• Offer a 35% discount for two consecutive weeks.
• Join at least 7 mall bazaars this month.
• Reduce distribution cost by 10%.
• Re-calculate product cost and markup.

Example 5.

Objective: Improve the training process.

Key Results:

• Put up a dedicated L & D Team.
• Centralise the training process for all teams and departments.
• Create a playbook for the new training process.
• Assign an L & D representative for each department.

Example 6.

Objective: Open 20 stores by December 2019.

Key Results:

• Complete all necessary permits and documents for all 20 locations by March.
• Purchase materials and start store renovations/construction by April.
• Promote stores opening via radio and television until launch date.

Example 7.

Objective: Hold company-wide retreat in November.

Key Results:

• Ensure that funding will be well-allocated for the company-wide retreat.
• Boost production by 30% to reach the quota that will cover expenses for the retreat.
• Hire and train sub-contractors to participate in the production while employees are away on retreat

Example 8.

Launch company cross-skilling to support seasonal roles.

Key Results:

• Select a pilot group for the cross-skilling experiment.
• Create a cross-skilling playbook that can be utilised by any team or department.
• Identify the key responsibilities of team leaders and POCs.
• Assess the scores (QA and productivity) of the cross-skilling pilot group.

Example 9.

Objective: Grow the company 3X bigger!

Key Results:

• Speed up hiring process without compromising quality of staff.
• Hire 80 employees by end of the year.
• Hire a new Marketing VP by September.

Example 10.

Objective: Improve our SEO on the internet.

Key Results:

• Improve website design.
• Incorporate relevant tags and backlinks.
• Invite guest bloggers and hire content writers to regularly update the website.
• Assign a dedicated online marketing team to monitor our SEO ranking.

Example 11.

Objective: Increase Monthly Newsletter Engagement Rate by 40%.

Key Results:

• Redesign the layout of newsletter.
• Add more useful content, apart from the regular product updates and special offers.
• Feature one interesting article each time.

More Tips to Writing Good OKRs

• Consider that employees’ feedback is valuable for you to come up with challenging and effective OKRs. Hold a meeting that is dedicated to brainstorming OKRs. Each team should organise theirs.
• Look into your historical data. It will guide you in coming up with realistic “stretch” goals and key results.
• OKRs is a “bottom-up” process. Allowing employees to set their own OKRs is one of the best ways to promote engagement, foster agreement and ensure that everyone collaborates in order to attain the overall goals of the organisation.
• Your OKRs should be clear. Use common words that everyone will understand. If anything seems vague, edit/revise it.

Goal-setting is a key organisational process. With the OKR examples given and other sub-headings, you should be able to set your objectives in no time!

Did you like this article?

If you liked this article and you are looking for a way to align everyone in your organization, let’s have a call or simply download our OKR Guide. We also offer OKR consulting and OKR training, but our approach differs from other companies, we believe OKRs should be fully integrated with your product development. If you want you can attend our OKR Webinar.

The original blog post was published on https://okrframework.org/en/. You can access the post here: OKRs: The Ultimate Guide That Explains Everything

OKRs: the internal grading system Google uses for its employees could benefit your organisation too! In this article, we described how can you apply them.

Remember that aligning your entire organization is just a small skill set that you must possess in order to ADAPT your project-centric company toward a product-led company, that´s why the OKRs are an important part of the project to product movement.

If you are an executive leader looking to ADAPT your company to the digital era, check out more about our approach by clicking the link: ADAPT Methodology™.The goal of OKR framework is for every member of the organization — from the key stakeholders and leaders down to the team members — to understand the objectives of the company through a set of defined, specific and measurable actions.

With today’s complex nature of organizations, team members often find themselves feeling lost amidst the rapid changes that they deal with every day. Often, the strategic plans and goals of the company are too high-level and abstract that employees don’t just feel lost, but also feel discouraged and find a lack of purpose.

OKR at Google: A Case Study

OKRs have changed the way many companies achieve their GSDs. Companies like Twitter, Zynga, Oracle, LinkedIn, Trello, Hobsons, Sears Holding Corp. and other huge brands are known to have adopted the Objective and Key Results (OKRs) to achieve their goals.

But it wasn’t a new concept. One of the pioneering companies that used OKRs is no other than Google. When the company was just less than a year old, one of its investors, John Doerr, proposed using OKRs. The idea was adopted from Intel and proven to be highly effective regardless of the type of organisation.

How do they do it?

In one of his presentations about how OKRs work, Google Ventures partner Rick Klau gave a very fascinating insight about how Google operates. OKR is pretty simple. It starts with setting up an objective and followed by identifying several “Key Results”.

Note: The Key Results should be quantifiable.

It’s the only way to know whether you have achieved your objectives. At the same time, your objectives should be measurable and concrete. Saying you want to significantly increase your sales is not definitive and measurable, rather abstract. You say you want to increase your annual sales by 30%.

At Google, objectives are set annually and quarterly. When Klau took charge of Blogger — a blog-publishing service owned and operated by Google — the objective tackled during one quarter is to improve the company’s reputation.

While Blogger was a huge platform and has been around for many years, it was losing popularity as more and more blogging platforms such as Tumblr enter the industry. To improve Blogger’s reputation, Klau created four Key Results:

• Re-establish Blogger’s leadership by speaking to at least 3 industry events
• Coordinate Blogger’s 10th anniversary PR efforts
• Reach out personally to Blogger’s users
• Fix DMCA process and eliminate music blog takedowns

Annual OKRs are more high-level, usually encompassing the quarterly objectives of Google. But these OKRs are not set in stone. They change and evolve as the need arises.

According to Klau, Google also adopts OKRs at managerial and team-levels, even personal levels. This is critical to how they grade their employees and ensure that every single person in the company gets things done and work together to keep the company on track.

By the end of each quarter, everyone working in Google grade their key results. They adopt a 0–1 scale. The goal is not to reach 1 in every Key Result. Otherwise, it will be assumed that the member has created a Key Result that’s too easy. As Klau puts it, the member is ‘sandbagging it’. Employees are aiming for a score of 0.6–0.7.

Another interesting practice within Google is that their OKRs are open to everyone. Not only do they see each other’s OKRs, but also their scores. It might seem a little intimidating, but it helps employees in Google understand what each other is working on.

How Google sets OKRs article describes the way they use it in more depth.

There are other objective and key results examples to help your company set effective goals.

How OKR works and Key Elements of an OKR

By now, you’ve started to have a pretty good grasp of OKRs and how it can benefit your organisation, just as it benefited Google. But the real challenge is setting up your OKRs and brainstorming on the Key Results to achieve your company objectives.

There are just two elements of an OKR:

• Objectives — depending on your role, you start by identifying 3–5 key objectives of your company, team, or even on a personal level. While objectives should be ambitious, they should also be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Time-Bound. If you’re a manager, you should make sure that such objectives are carefully relayed to everyone on your team.
• Key Results — if the “objectives” answer the question “What?”, the “key results” answer the question “How?”. Thus, they have to be quantifiable, achievable, clear, difficult, but not impossible. Most importantly, Key Results, which should be composed of 3–5 points, should be measurable. This is the only way to track your or your team’s progress, understand the hurdles, and develop/improve processes along the way.

You may think that OKR is but a reinstatement of traditional goal-setting practices used by most companies even before. However, the OKR process is different because of two additional aspects:

• Cascading alignment of goals
• Breaking up Objectives into smaller, actionable steps

While not a major element of OKRs, the tactic is also a term that is worth mentioning when we talk about OKRs. Tactics fall under Key Results and basically, inform the “how” part. Note that tactics are different from the tasks. They are strategies used to perform those tasks.

Think of tasks as those you deal with on Trello, Asana or any other project management tool that your company uses. These tasks fall under “tactics” are necessary for such tactics to work. In most cases, you may need a combination of different tactics to achieve the Key Results that will support your objectives.

OKR basics article tells you everything you need to know about OKRs.

How often should you establish your OKR?

The frequency of your goal-setting process is called cadence. Just like Google, you may have annual and quarterly goals within your organisation. OKRs in each department should have the same time constraint to aid with coordination and avoid complexities. Remember, OKR is meant to be a simple process.

Characteristics of Objectives:

• Should specifically answer what you want to achieve within a determined time-frame (e.g. after a year or quarter).
• Serves as the Strategic Theme or the “Burning Imperative” as other companies call it, that overarch what you want to accomplish.
• Should be qualitative because it is supported by a set of actionable steps or key
• Each objective must have 1–5 key results that measure it.

Characteristics of Key Results:

• Refers to the “results” that you seek.
• It should help you measure your progress in achieving your objectives.
• Talks about HOW you will achieve your objectives.
• Must be measurable. Thus, it should include a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) that is quantified through a metric.

In most organisations, Key Results (KRs) are typically seen among team-member levels or the junior-most hierarchy of employees. These people don’t make the goals for themselves (unless personal such as development goals) but are assigned with goals by their managers or direct leaders. They generally own the Key Results.

Everyone above the team members, although they won’t have KRs, will have contributing goals. These are higher-level goals that bear the same attributes as that of KRs which are aligned with the senior goals. For example, almost in every organisation, the CEO owns the top goals of the organisation.

The team leaders or head of each department (say, finance team and recruitment team) also set their junior goals concerning the overall company goals set by the CEO.

There are many OKR benefits but also certainly OKR disadvantages but you can learn how to deal with them and win in creating effective OKRs for your company.

How to Set OKR for Your Team

Step 1: Set the stage.

Reintroduce the concept of OKRs in your team and explain how the KRs are scored and how it affects their performance. Inform them that OKRs are meant to feel ‘uncomfortable’ and it’s perfectly okay to set an ambitious goal and miss it (so long as they are making progress of course). In short, encourage them to move out of their comfort zone.

Step 2: Identify your objectives.

Encourage your team members to participate in the brainstorming process. Note, however, that your team goals should be aligned to the senior goals (company objectives). Try to come up with 3 to 5 aspirational objectives. For example, if your company objective is to improve the business’ reputation and lead the Customer Service Department, your objectives may include increasing CSAT score to 95%, implementing First-Call Resolution, or Shorter Queueing Time.

Step 3: Identify your key results.

Now is the time to list down the measurable outcomes that indicate whether you have achieved your objectives. Remember that you’re not dealing with tasks. You are dealing with results. Here’s an example:

Objective: Increase profit by 10%.

Key Results:

• Launch seasonal campaigns (summer promos, Valentine’s Day, Holiday fares, ) and double the revenue from the past year.
• Take cash discounts on suppliers to save 10% on purchases.
• Outsource fleet distribution to stores to reduce cost by 20%.

One of your KRs may require collaboration with another team. Follow up with them from time to time and make sure that they’re on board.

Step 4: Review and analyse.

You may find yourself revising your objectives or key results as you review your initial list. If you’re 100% confident that you can hit your KRs, that means you’re not being ambitious enough and you’re still on the ‘safe zone’. Try to increase your target up to the level that you find uncomfortable. Furthermore, see to it that your KRs are articulated in such a way that they can be scored on a sliding scale.

Step 5: Ask for feedback.

As with anything, getting feedback is very important, especially for the people who will be involved in the execution. They may have great suggestions to improve your OKRs.

Step 6: Scoring

A critical aspect of measuring Key Results is scoring. You may adopt Google’s sliding scale of between 0 and 1. This quantitative metric tells whether you missed, came close to, or hit your target. Note that the score of .7 on a key result is considered a success more than 1.

And if you’re looking for step by step guide to implement your OKRs, then this article on OKR best practices may help you.

Unique Qualities of OKRs

Companies across various industries continue to adopt the system of OKRs because of its distinctive qualities that transform their organisations.

• Through OKRs, the top company objectives are cascaded to individual, junior-level members more clearly and accurately. This gives everyone a sense of purpose and direction.
• OKRs allow the organisation to focus on everyone’s effort and what’s more important to the success of the business.
• It allows everyone to align their goals with the company goals.
• It easily measures and tracks performance, which motivates employees to do better and contribute to the success of the organisation.
• Frequent assessments and progress check-ins drive better execution.
• OKRs are focused on results and outcomes, not merely on tasks.
• Creating OKRs involve tapping into the collective minds of the group, not just a few select individuals or key
• Greatly helps managers measure performance and progress of their team members, and thus allows for more targeted feedback and coaching OKR approach.
• OKRs allow individual teams to execute effectively.
• It brings transparency to the company as everyone can see what others are working on.
• No doubt, OKRs foster collaboration between members and across teams.

OKR FAQs

What is the difference between KPI and OKR?

KPI goals are typically obtainable and represent the output of a process or project already in place, while OKR goals are somewhat more aggressive and ambitious.

What is OKR methodology?

The goal of the OKR methodology is for every member of the organisation — from the key stakeholders and leaders down to the team members — understand the objectives of the company through a set of defined, specific and measurable actions.

What is an OKR goal?

Objectives and key results (OKR) is a framework for defining and tracking objectives and their outcomes. … OKRs comprise an objective — a clearly defined goal — and one or more key results — specific measures used to track the achievement of that goal.

Who created OKR?

OKR history is long and can be traced back to 1954, when Peter Drucker invented MBO or Management by Objectives. In 1968 Andy Grove co-founded Intel and while CEO at Intel he developed MBO into the model of OKR which we use today. In 1974 John Doerr joined Intel and learned OKR during his time there.

How many Objectives and key results should you have?

As others have already mentioned, 3–5 objectives is usually optimal. And each objective should have 3- 5 KRs as well. But as OKRs represent the most important things you do, you shouldn’t have too many.

What makes a good key result?

The way key results are defined is the soul of the entire OKR philosophy. Key results are essentially measurable indicators of the success of the parent objective. Key results, unequivocally tell you how much of the objective is achieved. … Do note that key results are results & not activities/tasks.

The post about objectives and key results implementation will help you understand how to properly and effectively introduce the Objective and Key Results in your company.

How to properly do an OKR evaluation for your team is also very crucial so that everyone will be kept accountable, high performing and in cadence with the phase of your company.

Summary

Many studies have shown that committing to a goal helps drive performance among employees. More importantly, setting challenging goals motivate them to perform well to achieve those goals.

OKR is a system of goal-setting practices that are meant to help organisations set ambitious goals and achieve them through measurable actions. OKRs are best done annually and quarterly. It is essential to focus on objectives that can be achieved within the given timeframe.

Whether you’re a CEO, an executive, Ops manager, or a direct manager, using the system of OKRs is a proven way to increase your team’s alignment to the company goals, measure performance, provide adequate feedback to your team, and bring out results.

More importantly, setting OKRs gives every leader like you a clear OKR guideline on what to focus on during a given timeframe. By adopting this popular Google strategy, you too can tremendously foster growth and success within your organisation.

Did you like this article?

If you liked this article and you are looking for a way to align everyone in your organization, let’s have a call or simply download our OKR Guide. We also offer OKR consulting and OKR training, but our approach differs from other companies, we believe OKRs should be fully integrated with your product development. If you want you can attend our OKR Webinar.

The original blog post was published on https://okrframework.org/en/. You can access the post here: How Google Sets OKRs: Everything You Need to Know to Grow Like Google

Curious about how Google sets OKRs? Check out all these guidelines so you can start implementing OKR in your company effectively just like Google.

Remember that aligning your entire organization is just a small skill set that you must possess in order to ADAPT your project-centric company toward a product-led company, that´s why the OKRs are an important part of the project to product movement.

If you are an executive leader looking to ADAPT your company to the digital era, check out more about our approach by clicking the link: ADAPT Methodology™.Google owes its success to various factors. One of such is the goal-setting methodology that has played a key role in the company’s rapid success. This framework is known as Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).

OKRs state the “what” goal of the company is or where it is headed. Objectives are with key results under them in order to basically determine whether the organisation has attained its objectives or not.

The key results should not be confused with “tasks” or a “to-do list”. Rather they should be the results of the tasks.

Larry Page of Google used this powerful tool to support his goal of making Google achieve growth by tenfold. It was a highly ambitious goal, but through OKRs, the company was able to progress rapidly and even exceed that goal.

How to Set OKRs Like Google — OKR at Google

Learning how Google sets OKRs will surely help to boost growth, productivity and engagement in your organisation. Check out the tips below.

• Limit Your Objectives

Having too many objectives is not advisable. It will make you spread yourself too thin and hinders the focus of your team.

In Google, each employee ― from the CEO down to the level 1 employees, objectives don’t go above 5 items. There should be a maximum of 4 key results under each objective.

• OKRs Need to Be Measurable

This is very important. In Google, OKRs are graded using the scale of 0–1. However, getting a perfect “1” is not the goal. In fact, if you achieve this score, you are only setting goals that are too easy in order to gain unfair advantage.

You need to go out of your comfort zone. The best score would be 0.6 or 0.7. If the objectives you set make you feel uneasy, you are on the right track.

• OKRs Have to be Visible

OKRs promote accountability and transparency. More importantly, they drive collaboration between teams. At Google, everyone knows what everybody’s OKRs are.

They can access it anytime through a centralised database. Even bottom team members can see what the CEO is working on and vice versa. This way, teams and individual employees will know what help to offer and when.

• 50% of Organisational Objectives Need to Come from Bottom-Up

In Google, managers don’t tell their members what to do. The company believes that fostering employee accountability on their contributions promotes engagement.

Google has a unique and effective hiring process that lets them choose the best people. Being confident in their capabilities, Google believes that employees have different views on what the business needs.

OKR-setting in Google is multi-directional and considers employees’ feedback to be important.

• OKRs Can Be Personal

Your OKRs may not be entirely about the goals of the organisation. Managers encourage employees to set goals for themselves, especially when it comes to team-member levels. It can be adopting a new management habit or pursuing a passion.

• They Should Be Beneficial to Your Employees

There’s no doubt that OKRs bring immense OKR benefits to your company as a whole. However, it should also aid your employees. The okr framework promotes discipline by encouraging people to set ambitious or challenging goals and work hard to attain them.

• Managers Need to Work Closely With Their Members

In Google, managers conduct one-on-one coaching sessions or check-ins with their team members. This is not only to monitor their progress, but also to provide guidance and ensure enlightenment.

These sessions facilitate open discussions about what the team member wants to do and what the company expects from him/her.

• OKRs Are Not Performance Measures

This means that OKRs are not scorecards that can be utilised as the basis for promotion or salary increase.

While OKRs help managers assess how much an employee contributes to the overall goal of the company, they should not be used as a basis for recognition. This promotes even more engagement as employees would feel appreciated for their efforts.

• Proper Cascading of OKRs

OKRs can be cascaded properly by mapping them across organisational teams and structures. As the leader, you should make sure that each of your teams and business units have the competencies and resources necessary to attain their objectives.

In view of the above, you will agree that knowing how Google sets OKRs can be very beneficial to your company. You can keep your employees in line with company goals through the S.M.A.R.T model like Google does.

It is important for managers to provide guidance for team members through coaching and extensive training in order to prepare them for success.

If you would like to understand OKRs and how they can benefit your business, check this OKR guide.

Are you ready to take your organisation to the next level? If you are, then be sure to follow the above practices adopted by Google. For more insights, check out the Google OKR video.

Did you like this article?

If you liked this article and you are looking for a way to align everyone in your organization, let’s have a call or simply download our OKR Guide. We also offer OKR consulting and OKR training, but our approach differs from other companies, we believe OKRs should be fully integrated with your product development. If you want you can attend our OKR Webinar.

The original blog post was published on https://okrframework.org/en. You can access the post here: Objective and Key Results Implementation from Top to Bottom Overview

How to properly and effectively introduce the Objective and Key Results Implementation in your company so everyone is on the same page.

To properly implement Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), it is important to understand how this whole process works.

Remember that aligning your entire organization is just a small skill set that you must possess in order to ADAPT your project-centric company toward a product-led company, that´s why the OKRs are an important part of the project to product movement.

If you are an executive leader looking to ADAPT your company to the digital era, check out more about our approach by clicking the link: ADAPT Methodology™.The diagram below depicts how your organisational vision is connected to every team and individual contributors in your team from the annual down to the quarterly OKRs.

Why Does the Vision of Your Company Matter?

For an organisation to get started on trying to achieve its goals, they should first determine the “Why”.

It is important for every team member to understand the purposes behind the company’s initiatives, processes and actions.

As the leader who has to ensure Objectives and Key Results implementation by setting them, you should begin by thinking about the “end” in mind ― like how you see your company a few years from now.

The way you set your goals should be guided by what your company vision is.

Your company vision must be easily stated in one sentence. It should describe what your organisation aspires to be. It’s basically your company’s ultimate dream ― the end-result of all your efforts.

Company vision statements are often mistaken for company taglines. While a vision statement can sound witty and unforgettable, it is meant for your team and culture, not to sell products.

Therefore, it is not necessary that you create a vision statement that is appealing to everyone. Just make it huge and ambitious.

It might take years for your organisation to achieve such vision, but it is the driving force that will motivate you and your employees to work hard.

How to Define a Company Mission Statement

Part of the steps involved in Objectives and Key Results implementation in your company is the definition of the mission statement. Your mission statement lays out the reason why your company exists.

For example, if an entertainment brand’s vision statement is “to make children happy,” their mission statement will be something like this:

“To be the world’s leading providers of entertainment and information for kids. Using our portfolio of brands to differentiate our content and services, we seek to develop the most creative, innovative and profitable entertainment experiences in the world.”

When creating your company vision and mission statement, consider these tips:

• Determine the things you are really passionate about.
• Envision what you intend to be at the end of the journey.
• Think about your skills, experience, talent and resources and how you can use them to contribute to the world.
• Determine the main economic denominator that is essential for your company. Understand what drives your economic engine.

How to Strategically Plan for Your OKRs

Creating your company vision and mission statement is one thing. Achieving them is another. Using the “Hedgehog Concept”, you can attain your mission statement through the following ways:

• Focusing on what you are passionate about should help you specialise in products or services that you have a drive for. Market research can guide you in identifying industry standards and developing strategies to ensure your products and services are in high demand.
• Focusing on what you do best. You should consider the resources of your company in thinking about this. That includes the skills, knowledge and experience of your employees. You have to know your organisation to determine what it is best at. It gives you an opportunity to establish efficient internal processes and strategies to attain your company vision.
• It is vital that you identify the economic metrics of your success. What level should you have reached in order to say that you achieved success?

Many companies utilise strategic planning systems that allow them to focus on the goals they set under each category.

However, these systems are not made to replace Objectives and Key Results as your goal-setting strategy, but should be considered as instrumental to the implementation of OKRs.

Annual OKRs

In some organisations, annual goals are created through OKRs. They are now divided into quarterly OKRs to allow team members to focus on implementation.

Take note that the key results of your company will show the main metrics that the leadership team supervises and are held accountable for.

Many companies confuse “tasks” with “key results”. These two are not the same. Tasks are activities that employees have to do as part of their roles, while key results are indicators of success.

OKRs do not promote micromanaging of teams. The okr framework helps companies determine what constitutes success and what teams and individuals need to do in order to attain their goals.

The high level key results are assigned either to the leadership team or CEO. The high level KRs can also be assigned to a specific department or team instead.

If Objectives and Key Results are too narrow from the top, by the time they have been cascaded to the team members, individual contributors might end up having a “to-do list” instead of OKRs, and therefore, be less empowered to set their own goals.

Did you like this article?

If you liked this article and you are looking for a way to align everyone in your organization, let’s have a call or simply download our OKR Guide. We also offer OKR consulting and OKR training, but our approach differs from other companies, we believe OKRs should be fully integrated with your product development. If you want you can attend our OKR Webinar.