Pull up a chair: Koan now supports Collaborative OKRs
When we launched Koan, we promised managers a new way to foster transparent, constructive conversations with their teams. Fast-forward to 2019: our simple, focused reflections now offer more than 1,000 teams a weekly opportunity to build visibility and open dialog. We’ve heard awesome stories about Koan’s transformative impact on companies both large and small — but we’re only getting started.
Our mission — to help every team realize their purpose — is much more than weekly dialog. Transparency matters, of course, but so too do the vision and focus needed to drive great results.
Today, we’re excited to announce the next major step for Koan: Collaborative OKRs.
You’ve likely encountered Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) before. They’re the simple and powerful goal-setting framework that heavyweights like Google and The Gates Foundation use to drive amazing results. Instead of pushing goals from the top down, OKRs encourage individual teams to self-organize around an organization’s objectives — a flexible, lightweight alternative to traditional goal-setting processes that still allows leaders to communicate strategy and marshal the resources needed to deliver.
Unfortunately, even lightweight processes can still in a sea of spreadsheets and email threads. With objectives in one place, key results in another, and conversations scattered across many different forums, it’s all too easy to lose sight of what really matters — or forget to update status as it changes.
That’s where Koan comes in. Collaborative OKRs integrate seamlessly into your existing weekly reflection, making them easy to update and track. Then, we’ve worked hard to balance qualitative confidence and quantitative metrics, to connect objectives to the company’s mission, vision and strategy, and to keep your goals central to your work.
Superpowers for Super teams
The venture capitalist and OKR guru John Doerr writes about four “superpowers” of OKRs:
- “Focus and commit to priorities”: setting OKRs forces the conversation of what’s most important and makes it easier to let go of all the things that aren’t.
- “Align and connect for teamwork”: committing to transparent OKRs across the entire organization means everyone knows the priorities and can self-organize to achieve the goals.
- “Track for accountability”: regularly and transparently measuring progress uncovers problems earlier and drives the team to win.
- “Stretch for amazing”: setting and then achieving or failing at hard OKRs will let you accomplish more than you ever thought possible.
With Collaborative OKRs, we’re delighted to bring those superpowers to Koan. Check them out and let us know what you think!
About Koan
Koan drives transparency, boosts engagement, and helps leaders at every level achieve amazing results. Share your mission and vision, deliver strategic OKRs, and discover more purposeful work at www.koan.co.
