Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are gaining momentum during this time of adversity to help organizations rebound and recapture the market place. Many organizations, which are stuck to the old school goal setting methods, find it difficult to adopt OKRs as they are not positive about risk-taking.

“If you risk nothing, then you risk everything.” – Geetha Davis

Objectives and Key Results is a strategy that has taken Google from nowhere to everywhere today. If the global leader had not put their trust in OKR and risked, they would not have reached any target. The secret lies in implementing OKR in a way that suits your company or business. The objectives and key results cannot be copied from any organization as the challenges vary from one company to the other.

If you are a company with no goal-setting process or a different goal management methodology that does not yield good results, this 8 steps action plan is for you.

If you are a beginner with OKR, one objective at a time

As decision-makers, when you set objectives for your company, begin with one objective as you are just starting with it. You have to analyze whether the framework works for your company or not. If it does, create an action plan to seamlessly implement them in your organization. Do not commit the mistake of creating more than one objective in the initial stage, you may become flustered with too many objectives and key results and you may also forget a few OKRs leading to a disastrous experiment. One clear objective may reveal the capabilities of your team members and their engagement level to plan further.

An objective should be set keeping the company’s mission and core values in mind. You can also create an OKR for implementing OKR in your organization.

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Objective: Implement OKR in all business units and teams before the end of September.

Key Results:

1. Persuade all three business units and 20 departments to implement OKR in their teams before July 31^st.
2. Identify the best affordable OKR software in the market and implement it before August 30^th.
3. Create an objective for the organization taking the inputs of all employees before September 10^th.

Make Your Employees Believe in What you Believe

Bringing a change in an organization is not an easy task. There will be many employees against it as they do not want to experience discomfort trying to adopt a new method. To convince those employees, you should have a detailed report on why the change is required and how will it impact the productivity and the revenue of the company. For example, you should tell your employees that the revenue has gone down by 20% compared to last year and so we are going to try implementing this new framework to bring up the sales and accelerate the development. Data has more listeners than wordy speeches.

Here is another secret: Convince your employees by listing the names of reputed companies like Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, which are successful because of OKRs. And also make a promise to your employees that you will help them whenever there are concerns regarding OKRs.

How to Choose Your Key Results

Even when you become an expert in setting OKRs, creating only three objectives for your company is advisable. You can set stretch goals, but be certain that they are not too aspirational. Aspirational goals cannot be achieved and consequently, the employees develop a defensive attitude. Objectives are where you want to go, and key results measure your progress toward your objective.

Key results should always have deadlines to keep the workforce motivated and committed. Do not expect your team to always be on 1, in a rating scale 0 to 1, in achieving the key results. If your team achieves 1, then the key results are perhaps not so challenging. If they get 0.2, then the team is not trying enough. 0.7 indicates that individuals tried hard. The important point is, key results are not outputs, but outcomes. Everyday tasks are not key results. The areas that are impacted due to these tasks are key results.

Arrange Frequent Meetings to Check Progress

When the OKRs are set, in the beginning stage, the employees may not be clear. So, frequent meetings are required to address the concerns of employees and to provide the right guidance and direction. Even after becoming used to OKRs, it is always recommended to have frequent meetings to discuss the progress so that there are lower chances of failure. Conducting one on one meetings can help to identify the gap in an individual’s performance and provide them the right training programs to improve.

Autonomy and Accountability Fuel Innovation and Increase Productivity

Do not tell your employees how to work. Employees always love freedom and autonomy. When you let the employees decide how to achieve the key result, there will be more innovation and quality in the work. Giving autonomy makes employees creative because not everyone thinks alike. Holding them accountable for their work makes them committed to their work.

“Autonomy is especially likely to lead to better productivity when the work is complex or requires more creativity”

 – Marylène Gagné

Leverage Technology to Track and Monitor Progress

OKRs can be done on an excel sheet or a board but how effective will that be? You cannot record your previous OKRs and you have to write down or type the progress of each individual, which is monotonous unproductive work. Instead, you can leverage technology where you can track the progress of every employee and spend your valuable time on other productive works. The records can also be used for future reference.

Do not give up on OKRs if you fail the first time. Give it a try at least thrice before looking for other strategies. John Doerr has become OKR’s evangelist knowing its power.