Teams and organizations can achieve their goals by using the collaborative framework of OKRs, which stands for Objectives, Key Results, and Results. The OKR framework was created to work across teams and produce a standard that the entire business can use.
Organization size, culture, and OKR maturity will all have an impact on what it takes to make OKRs effective. However, all organizations should be proficient at writing great OKRs if they want to take advantage of the superpowers of OKRs. Why? Because the effectiveness of your OKRs may have an impact on your long-term goal achievement.
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What Makes A Good Okr?
Now that you are familiar with the format of an OKR, let’s get into the specifics of what makes a good OKR from a bad one. You may have noticed that each key result in our example culture OKR is measurable, distinct, and time-bound.
Some essential qualities of effective OKRs include the following:
Challenging
There is no time or place for lowered expectations when writing effective OKRs. No risk and no reward should apply to the OKRs.
Stretch goals are often necessary for teams to create OKRs that are effective. These are goals that are slightly beyond what you and your team think you’re capable of accomplishing. But don’t stress over getting to 100%. When it comes to OKRs, we’ll discuss what success looks like.
Measurable
Being measurable is the foundation of a good OKR. If your OKRs aren’t distinctly measurable, it will be challenging to determine your success. How will you know if your OKRs were successful if you don’t know if you’ve been successful? Or where to go next?
You must monitor your progress toward the goal. Make sure there is a quantitative way to measure success, whether it be a score like eNPS, the number of support tickets for a product, or the number of customer interviews conducted.
Consistently Reviewed
It will be very challenging to achieve your OKRs if no one remembers them.
The most critical part of writing OKRs isn’t how you write them. It’s how you use them. Regularly reviewing OKRs will ensure that they remain important and that your team is aware of your progress. Making an OKR review part of weekly stand-up meetings or 1:1s is our advice.
Clear
This isn’t the time to get fancy; every OKR you set must be simple enough for your team to comprehend. Clear, concise, and easily readable OKRs are required. The goal must be clear, and the key findings must demonstrate what you’re tracking and how you’re tracking it without the need for further explanation.
Common Mistakes When Writing Okrs
It is inevitable that you will encounter obstacles while working toward your OKRs, but there are some errors you can try to avoid. The most significant is having so many competing priorities that no one on your team can see a clear path forward.
As the team is creating OKRs, what questions should you ask them?
- Are there too many OKRs? Too few?
- In place of results, do they represent tasks?
- Are the goals achievable?
- Do they have enough ambition?
- Do we possess the tools required to complete the task?
7 Steps To Write Great Okrs
The process of developing OKRs should be cooperative and team-based. To make sure you’re ready to write OKRs with your team, here is a step-by-step guide.
Have The Goal Conversation
Ask your team, “What are the three most important things for us to accomplish in the next three months?” when you sit down with them.” Then, inquire as to why it is crucial, and then inquire once more.
Leaders can get their teams to explain in-depth reasons for why they are attempting to accomplish particular goals by asking why repeatedly. You’re likely to come up with better active statements than you would otherwise, and you’ll gain more commitment if your team understands the “why” on a deeper level as a whole.
Prepare Draft Goals And Share With The Team
To start the conversation, publish a draft of the objectives in advance and then solicit feedback from your team. At times, reviewing work in progress is much harder than staring at a blank page.
Instead of asking, “Do you have any questions or comments during this sharing exercise?” consider asking your team, “please suggest one or more variations that would improve this objective.” Permit your team to contribute freely and to have their opinions taken into account when creating the OKRs.
Write An Okr Objective Statement
Your objectives are the destination you’re heading toward — so they should be established before your key results and initiatives. Despite the temptation, it’s often best to start with the objective because it serves as a guide for the important outcomes. One sentence describing your objective and a brief summary should be included.
Develop Key Results
The main outcomes determine how the goal is being approached. Your key results are the road map if the objective is the final destination.
You can choose how you’ll gauge your progress by defining key results. Keep in mind that they should be pertinent to your goal and simple to quantify.
Debate Key Result Ideas Collectively
Use a virtual whiteboard or a set of sticky notes to record the key outcomes for each objective. As you search for the ideal level of difficulty to challenge the team, have each team member make notes, then take turns discussing and sharing their metrics.
Track Them Consistently
The majority of organizations begin using OKRs with the best of intentions. They work together in teams to come up with ideas. They filled in attractive templates with their OKRs. Sadly, after that, they simply forget to keep them after putting them on a shared drive.
When you monitor and evaluate OKRs, they are effective. Look for ways to integrate OKR reviews into your workflow. This could involve going over individual OKRs during 1:1 meetings, team OKRs during weekly team meetings, or organizational OKRs during quarterly town hall meetings.
celebrate 70%
We discussed the need to make it challenging when discussing what makes a good OKR.
The most inspiring OKRs are just out of reach; they are created to motivate your team. but not be so impossible as to demoralize them. Between the two, there is a thin line. Even if you don’t achieve all of the key results, it’s still important to recognize your successes.
Setting goals can be awkward because they need to be ambitious. If not, reevaluate; you might be lowering the standard.
How To Write Key Results
You must establish quantitative key results in order to gauge your progress toward your goal. When defining key results, be sure to use a very specific metric and a numerical value. It is simple to communicate progress towards achieving your goal in a meaningful way when key results are defined using metrics with numbers.
Once more, we advise against stating more than three to five key results for each objective, but the precise number will depend on your company. The good news is that you can change your statements at a later time. However, it will take some time and repetition for you to develop a rhythm for defining your objectives and key results.
How To Write Objectives
Objectives should naturally be motivating, simple to remember, and high quality. Your intentions, aspirations, and ambitions should all be expressed in your objectives. Consider whether the objective arouses emotion when writing it. When the team sees the goal, you want them to say, “Yeah, I want to help get that done.””
Most often, monthly or quarterly objectives are stated. We advise limiting the number of objectives each team has to one to three per quarter, but the precise number will depend on your organization’s needs. You want to avoid a situation where you have so many priorities that you are actually lacking in priorities. In order for it to be understood by everyone, it should also be brief, direct, and concise.