Introduction to OKR

Have you heard of managers “How are we doing on our OKRs” lately? Or thought of introducing a new performance system to enable more alignment, feedback and team performance? Regardless of what will make you read the rest of this intro to OKRs, I hope you find it useful, and that it helps you define and achieve your goals.

Unlike traditional methods, OKRs combine qualitative objectives with quantitative results as below:

🎯 Objectives: Qualitative descriptions of what you ASPIRE to achieve.
🔑 Key Results: Quantitative measures that indicate progress towards the objectives.

🚫 OKRs are used for checking progress towards what we want to achieve. It is NOT an employee’s individual performance and should NOT be used this way.

🛠️ How to set objectives?

- They need to be ambitious and inspirational.
- They shouldn’t have any metric on it.
- You certainly shouldn’t have EVERYTHING you want in your objectives, but the ones where you say – nothing else happens / matters if THAT doesn’t happen.

🛠️ How to write key results?

- They are specific, time-bound, and measurable, providing a clear benchmark for success.
- They measure OUTCOMES, not tasks.
- If it can lead to undesired behaviours, check once again to see if that is the right way of setting your KRs.
- Try to keep KRs for each objectives at 3 – focusing is key.

The essence of OKRs lies in their future focus (not looking at past performance), transparency (organisation wide), and alignment (outcome rather than task). They are not just about setting goals but more importantly about establishing a rhythm for execution of company strategy.