What is OKRs? and How it will help you to achieve your mission & goals
Objective and key results in a nutshell
We all have this tendency to focus on the work as it comes along. This is not a good strategy for doing good work and achieving your goals. When people set the right goals for the right reasons, they most likely to achieve their goals.
However, if one just goes forward without any direction or goal in mind, eventually lose all interest in the way and fall flat. Because we don’t know what we are aiming for.
We always have goals that we want to accomplish. OKR helps to generate action towards those goals. Basically, OKR turns our big goals into small achievable milestones. So either we want to launch a new product or turn a new idea into reality.
Organizations always want to improve performance. However, most of the organization follows a top-down approach that eventually stuck in what goal to set next rather than working to achieve those goals. The OKRs framework is a very effective management framework to achieve those goals.
OKRs give us purpose and answers “what next thing to do” to achieve that goal. It is a tool used by multiple companies such as adobe, google, Twitter, Linkedin, and Netflix to see toward a common goal.
The History of OKR
The OKR is developed by the president of intel Andy Grove in the 1970s. however, this is taken further by John Doerr, who is also worked in intel with andy Grove. John Doerr later introduced this concept to the founders of google in the 1990s, which made it quite popular in silicon valley among the tech industry.
What is OKRs?
OKR stands for Objectives and key results. It is one of the most popular goal management frameworks that help individuals and companies to achieve their mission and goals. OKR allows groups of people to work towards a common goal to get the desired results.
OKR framework consists of an objective and multiple key results.
Objectives define what needs to be done. And key results the things we need to do to get there.OKR helps us in determining the execution strategy to get the outcome-based approach of the work.
In Example increase sales from 10% to 20%, reduce customer waiting time by 10 minutes. As we move ahead with each key result, objective progress is also moving forward with each milestone achieved.
What is an objective?
Objectives (focuses on WHAT)- The goal we want to accomplish in the future or the end goal.
Objectives are short and define where you want to go. Companies usually have 3–5 five high-level objectives in every quarter. The goal must be challenging and ambitious enough when you will do it in a proper way, you will be able to find out that you have reached your goal.
What are Key results?
Key Results ( focuses on HOW)- The roadmap on how to accomplish your objectives.
Key Results composed of the below
- Some measurable steps to achieve the objective.
- It will have metric and target values.
- It will measure your progress towards that objectives.
- Imagine Losing 15 kg of weight in 3 months will have key results of losing 5 kg every month.
What are initiatives?
- Things that help to achieve the key results.
- Losing 15 kg in 3 months is objective.
- Reducing 5kg of weight every month is your key result.
- And what needs to be done to reduce 5 kg in a month(ex. going to the gym, eating healthy, cardio, etc.) are the initiatives.
Qualities of objective
Aligned- Good objectives are aligned to the overall goal of the individual or the company.
High impact- When achieved it should be a huge effect on the objective.
Time-bound- It should be bound by time and also allows to review what was and working and what's not. So you can change course in due time.
Qualities of key results
High impact-It should reflect a big change in achieving a goal. 80% goal success will be noticed by your organization on completion of the goals are challenging enough.
Specific- It should be clearly specified and it clearly defined scope.
Within influence- Achieving 10000 views on a youtube video you can’t control but can influence it by uploading quality videos.
“If it does not have a number, it is not a Key Result.”
Examples of OKRs
Objective- Develop a fast car.
Key Results - Reduce overall weight by 10%.
Objective-Make website more responsive
Key Results— reduce page load speed by 2 sec.
Conclusion
There are many management tools, OKR might not be giving the expected result on the first try. With time and adoption by the people, it will surely drive success in the organization.
