OKRs — Intro

OKR is an abbreviation for Objective & Key Result.

It’s a goal-setting framework that drives businesses to focus, align and engage on their long / short term goals. It also helps in bringing up transparency in vision, continuous track of progress and efficient feedback.

What are OKRS

An OKR framework consists of two parts

Objectives

Which defines a goal to be achieved

An objective is simply what goal needs to be achieved in the future. It’s a strategic plan of action. It can be thought of like a blueprint of a building.

Example: Increase $100K monthly recurring revenue by end of Q2

Characteristics of objectives are

• Directionality
• Clear vision
• Concrete
• Inspiring

Key Results

Which measures the progress towards a particular objective Note: Every Objective can have 3–5 key results

A key result is a quantitative statement that measures the progress of an objective. Key results are how we achieve an objective.

Example: Bring in 10 new enterprise accounts with a minimum of 10,000 paid users

Characteristics of Key results are

• Specific and time-bound
• Aggressive yet realistic
• Measurable
• Verifiable
• Precise

History of OKR

• In the year 1968, Andy Grove, the “Father of OKRs”, introduced the approach to Intel during his tenure.
• In 1974 John Doerr joined Intel and learned OKR during his time there
• OKRs were used in Google for the first time.
• Since becoming popular at Google, OKRs have found favor with several other similar tech start-up organizations including LinkedIn, Twitter, Netflix, Facebook and Uber

Why OKRs?

One might really wonder why anybody has to use the OKR framework. Successful companies like Netflix, Amazon, Dell, Dropbox, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter have all started using the OKR framework in their organizations. They rely on OKRs as a way to motivate and aspire their teams to reach goals.

Organizations are using OKRs because the simplicity of the process is great and benefits are even better. This framework is designed to maintain the transparency of setting up goals and objectives.OKRs don’t take much time to set up and they’re easy to use.

Focus

OKRs helps to dedicate your focus to prioritize employee time and resources better, leading to higher productivity.

Alignment

When teams create OKRs they review them with their boss, providing an opportunity to ensure everyone is on the same page. This boosts understanding and engagement.

Accountability

Teams receive a clear direction and are free to choose how to achieve their OKRs. They become responsible for their objectives, with clear success criteria.

Transparency

Enables teams to understand the goals and priorities of the organization as well as how each individual can contribute.

Agility

Shorter goal cycles enable quick adjustments and better adaptation to change, increasing innovation and reducing risks.

Commitment

OKRs that all have agreed will be achieved, and resources will be adjusted to ensure that they are delivered. Tracking these commitments is done transparently.

How OKRs work?

Still many of us wonder whether OKR works for their company or not? Our answer to this is ‘It’s already a globally proven concept. So it’s more likely to work for your company too if properly implemented!

Before you start using OKR it’s important to have a clear understanding of the business objective.

Keep your OKRs simple and unambiguous

Make sure to clearly define your business objective. It should be simple, unambiguous, understood by everyone from a team.

Share your objectives

It is important to let your team members know about your objectives. This will enable them to have a clear idea about what your goals are and how they can contribute

Measurable KRs

Make sure that your key results are always precise and measurable so that you can know if they have been achieved or not

The success of OKRs depends on how you write them so always make your OKRs simple, precise and measurable.