ABOUT OKR
OKR consists of individual elements, which in themselves and in their interaction are very important for success.
In addition to the objectives and key results, the OKR cycle also includes the individual events: OKR Planning, Drafting Phase, (Alignment) OKR Weekly, OKR Review and OKR Retrospective.
The OKR cycle is accompanied by the only artifact of the framework, the OKR List. This contains the collected OKRs of the teams or the entire company and thus forms an essential component for transparency and alignment.
Furthermore, the entire framework is accompanied by the role of the OKR Master. The OKR Master is an expert, mentor, coach, facilitator, connector, process guardian and change agent. Thus, the OK Master always has a holistic view of the OKR framework and of each OKR implementation.
Objectives
Objectives are memorable, qualitative descriptions of what you want to achieve. They should be short, inspiring and engaging. An objective is a target image of the transformation of the customer world from the perspective of a team that is trying to move forward in the desired direction. It is visionary and motivating and achievable within the given period of time (3-4 months). Objectives are therefore orientation and direction. The following criteria for formulation help:
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Vision-oriented
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Activating
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Positive
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Understandable for everyone
Examples of objectives:
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The new social media campaign is going viral.
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New members have a great onboarding experience.
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Customers love our online shop.
Key Results
Key Results are a set of metrics that display and measure progress toward the objective. For each objective you have as many key results as are necessary to achieve it safely. However, you should focus on as few as possible. A key result does not represent a performance. The Key Result is a measurable hypothesis of a desired outcome (behavioral change in the customer world that positively impacts the business) and thus indicates whether or not an Objective has been achieved.
The following criteria apply to the formulation:
Outcome oriented
Accepted by the team
Continuously measurable
Ambitious but realistic
Examples of key results:
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The hashtag #xyz is used at least 3000 times on social media.
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60% of customers recommend the online shop with the promo feature.
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The average shopping cart per customer has increased from 20 to 40.
OKR Master
The OKR Master is essential for the successful introduction and support (mentoring) of OKR. The OKR Master takes on various central roles:
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Process owner: The OKR master leads the process and determines the framework conditions.
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Expert and mentor: The OKR Master is the advisory authority for all matters relating to OKR.
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Change agent: The introduction of OKR is a change process. The OKR Master therefore involves all important stakeholders, especially the management level.
Myths
Perhaps the biggest myth is that good goals should have a goal achievement of 60-70%. This statement originally comes from the Google video “How Google sets goals”, which ultimately made OKR famous. The background is that the video reports on a culture of goal stretching at Google. Therefore, one should refrain from the idea of stretch goals and expect that goals will be achieved 100% if they have been agreed upon.
It is also a myth that objectives and key results can be separated in the form that, for example, the management level develops the objectives and then the teams are expected to find the respective key results. Not only does this not work, it inevitably leads to underperformance and demotivation.
Finally, a final myth is that Key Results should be ToDos (or activities or outputs). But that is exactly the difference between OKR and every other goal approach. Key results should always contain outcomes. Outcomes are changes in customer behavior that have a positive impact on the business. The focus must therefore be on the customer.