Learnings from implementing OKR's
At Itsavirus we use the Objective Key Results (OKR’s) framework to prioritize and focus. Moreover, it helps us a lot with defining what not to do. In this article I will share some of my leanings from the past years. Please note, I definitely do not consider myself an expert in this field. I still have a lot to learn and improve on. Nevertheless. I had have some experiences that I think can be valuable for others who aim to use OKR's.
Too much, too fast
The fact that the concept of OKR's is simple does not imply that OKR's are easy to implement. One of the most common mistakes I have seen (I made this mistake as well) is to try to fully implement OKR's straight away. Teams get together enthusiastically, define their objectives and key results and get to work.
However, after the days and weeks progress, there is a realisation that defining the OKR's alone is not enough. The challenge is not just to set objectives, but to consistently work towards achieving these objectives. It’s the same reason why people have difficulty with losing weight. You can set goals and write down plans, but without a proper strategy for execution, nothing will happen. Achieving your objectives means you need to have great execution power and a predictable flow of information trough your company. If you want to use OKR's to improve your execution strength, you already need to have the basics in place. Otherwise you will fail.
When setting up our team in Asia, I used a step-by-step approach to implement OKR's. You could even claim, I used OKR's to implement OKR's. Some highlights of our approach:
- - During our first quarter, it was just the management team using a simple set of company related OKR's. The goal was to make sure the MT is getting used to working with OKR's. During our weekly Management meeting, we start with checking our OKR's and see if we are still on track.
- - In our second quarter, we still only had company OKR's, but we shared them with the team and we announced that we would start working with personal OKR's. We shared some learning materials and did a presentations.
- - In our third quarter we introduced personal OKR's. We assigned an OKR promoter and we improved on our Key Results by making them more SMART. Etc etc..
A red flag
In the past years I have learned (the hard way) that the failure to implement OKR's might also mean something is seriously wrong in your company / team. When I was managing a team that had a very hard time achieving any results, I used to think that we had a hard time implementing OKR's, because of the nature of OKR's. I thought: "clearly we all have been working very hard and achieved many other things".
However, looking back, I now know that I should have taken this much more serious. When a team lacks the ability of achieving the objectives it sets for itself, it's not just the framework. It also points at; poor execution power, a management team that has to deal with distracting events (raising capital), developers that work without any clear direction, etc etc. Using OKR's therefore, is also a framework to detect other, fundamentally wrong elements in an organisation.
Focus is great, but you need to get creative as well
