Five Ways to Make OKRs Work For Your Org

It’s no secret that committing to a goal can help improve employee performance and satisfaction at work. Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are a deceptively simple framework for doing just that: writing strong, short-term goals for individuals, teams, and organizations. Created by Andy Grove at Intel and then introduced to a broader audience - including wildly successful organizations like Netflix and Google - by John Doerr, author of Measure What Matters, OKRs outline your highest priorities for the coming 30 - 90 days.

OKRs are meant to be inspiring to employees and to implement meaningful change and improvement for your organization.

Let’s Break It Down

Objectives: What

OKRs start with an “O". What do you want to go after in the short-term? Is it going to be inspiring and matter to the employees responsible for making it happen? Is it audacious, meaning it’s not representing the status quo, but also something that could be feasibly completed in a (relatively limited) set amount of time?

Key Results: How

Key results have to be a means to supporting the previously identified objective. KRs must be specific and time-bound so they are easy to measure and verify (more on that later.) Best practice is to identify just a few KRs to help you meet your O.

Ready to Get Started?

If you’ve decided the time is ripe at your organization to get clearer on goal setting and you’re ready to enact dramatic change at your company, we’ve got some simple steps that will help you transition to this way of thinking about goals.

Here’s How

1) Use the Right Tools

Goal setting with Objectives and Key Results doesn’t have to be complicated. If you are an individual who is looking to give OKRs a try, or if your organization is smaller, there are phenomenal free resources that can help. Given that they were built on the philosophy of OKRs, Google has your back with simple, free tools. Get the Google Doc template or the Google Sheet template.

Bigger organization? Some of our favorite paid OKR software include Lattice - which offer unique pricing options and a free trial, and Asana - which integrates with tools you’re probably already using, like G-suite or Slack.

2) Ensure Alignment with Company Mission

This may sound simple, but quality OKRs need to represent more than just company progress. They need to be aligned to what your company ultimately believes in terms of its values and why you exist in the world. To be effective, OKRs represent common mindsets that are public on purpose so that everyone can focus on what matters most. Remember: Your mission is big. Your OKR is smaller, and in service of it.

3) Separate Compensation from OKRs

We know - this seems crazy. Setting OKRs seems like a smart way to measure performance, but if OKRs are directly tied to compensation, it’s easy to fall into the perverse incentive trap, whereby people can become overly focused on the goal to the detriment of the company as a whole (A simple example: an organization who wants more clicks, but purposefully makes a confusing website so that more clicks are required to navigate it.)

In addition, studies show that people are happier and more productive in the long-term when their compensation and worth come from intrinsic motivation like commitment to a goal that feels worthy, versus external motivation, like compensation.

4) Grade Accurately

The simplest way to grade on an OKR is a “yes,” we hit this, or a “no,” we did not. But most organizations prefer to use a slightly more advanced scoring system on a 0 to 1 scale. Visually, it looks like this:

Image Credit: WhatMatters.com

Using this system, each KR is measured as a percentage score - for example: You planned to approach 25 recruits for a hard-to-fill position you’re recruiting for (with an objective of hiring a great fit for that position.) After your agreed upon target (let’s say 60 days), you had approached 20 candidates; 25/20 is .8, a strong score, if not a perfect one. In this system, you would continue calculating in this way to gain an average score for your KRs toward your objective.

Your overall goal is to hit .7 (70%) or higher on each OKR, each cycle.

5) Commit, But Remember to Stretch

Commonly we talk about committed OKRs, those that are expected to be achieved at 70%+ by the company, team, or person responsible for them. However, aspirational OKRs, or stretch goals, are sometimes used to forge new paths. This is fine, and even great, as long as there is careful communication to stakeholders when the team is going after a “moonshot.” Aspirational OKRs usually take longer and may need to be revised during the process.

OKR Overwhelm?

Objectives and Key Results only work if you implement them correctly. Let Agile Talent Consulting help you refocus your organization on what matters most and give you the tools to do so over and over again.