Simple habit to effectively achieve your OKRs

Most of the time, it is difficult for companies to easily progress toward the achievement of their OKRs. It is easy to forget to make progress on your OKRs due to many urgent things that might happen everyday. However, implementing OKRs is all about adapting a method and culture.

One simple habit that can help you effectively manage your OKRs is the “weekly check-ins process’’. This consists in setting, working on, and reviewing weekly priorities.

First step: set your weekly priorities

Depending on how your team works, you could conduct a meeting at the beginning of every week to set your individual and collective ‘’weekly priorities’’. Your weekly priorities are things you are planing to do in order to affect your OKRs. Just list the things that must happen or you are not going to achieve your goals. Life always gives you plenty to do. The secret is to not forget the things that matter.

The effective way to define your priorities is by writing three big things and a couple of medium things you will do in the week.

The two big priorities are things you must do. For example, ‘’build the new marketing web site’’. A bad big priority might be, ‘’ write the first article on the product’’.

Meduim priorities, are things that are not very important to do in the week but nice to be achieved. An example is ‘’ write the marketing plan’’.

This allows you to know exactly what you have to do every week with the purpose of progressing toward the implementation of your OKRs.

Second step: work on your weekly priorities

Start executing your big priorities on Monday and work along your calendar schedule. Until it is complete try to focus only on a first big priority. If you get interrupted and can’t prevent it, focus on a new big priority and then do your best to return to your current task asap.

If you have to reschedule then do it and make sure that you keep your big priorities to the front. The most important thing is to get all big priorities done within the week. Then advance to your meduim priorities.

The result of this weekly planning and executing around your priorities is simply that you will make significant progress in your OKRs. You will make good progress in the week and huge progress over a quarter that way.

Third step: review your weekly priorities ‘’plan end of week meetings’’.

Reviewing your weekly priorities ensure focus and prevent “set and forget”. Plan fridays meeting to continuously assess progress and share wins, get feedback, share failures, examine issues, and discuss blockers together. Also take advantage from this meeting to up date the progress of your OKRs. So each Friday, have a conversation with your team. If you want to drive motivation further, note your team’s successes and try to point out individual contributions from team members that made a difference in each and every success. Providing beer, wine, cake, or whatever is appropriate to your team on a Friday to make them feel cared for and implement your weekly prioritized tasks for the success of your OKRs.

Common mistakes

• Don’t use Mondays meetings as a status report

Discuss only things you are going to work on in the week so as to affect your OKRs. Be sure your team understood and agreed that the priorities set could help succeed the defined OKRs.

• Don’t talk tough on Friday

We’re tough on ourselves and each other all week. Let’s crack a beer and toast what we did accomplish. Especially if we aren’t going to hit all our Key Results, let’s be proud of what setting big goals did let us accomplish.

Implementing your most important goal in life or in company shows how organized you are. It might be difficult for the first time, to you to set OKRs and accomplished it at a considerable percentage. But when you set a weekly check ins, there is no way you got a good result.

When people find it difficult to implement, it’s often because they set OKRs at the beginning of the quarter, and even if they define their weekly priorities, they rarely work on it. No matter how many other things are on your plate make sure you and your team are always making progress toward the desire of achieving goals.

This article was originally published at https://www.happierco.com/blog/okrs-simple-habit/