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5 Best Practices to Track OKR Results
Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is a goal-setting framework that helps successfully set and achieve goals. This strategy helps increase employee engagement and maximise profits. Large and small businesses use it since it ensures the health and overall longevity of the organisation.
How would your organisations know they are on the right track towards achieving the set objectives? How will they measure their progress?
OKR tracking is regularly reviewing and reassessing your OKRs to ensure you’re doing the right things at the right time. During monthly or quarterly check-ins, OKR tracking helps reevaluate the steps taken.
In this blog, let’s take a look at what OKRs are, how to track them, and what are the benefits of monitoring OKRs.
What are OKRs?
OKR (Objectives and Key Results) is an action-oriented execution framework used by modern-day organisations to set achievable targets and track measurable key results. It aids in improving the overall effectiveness of a business. They have been successfully adopted by companies like Intel, Google, Adobe, and so on.
In 1968, Andy Grove, the father of OKRs, designed the OKR framework based on the MBO model while working at Intel. Since then, many national and multinational companies have used the framework.
The OKR system aligns and engages everyone in an organisation with the larger company objectives. By bringing in focus on the aim, it ensures that transparency and motivation are maintained within the company culture throughout an entire OKR cycle. Success stories of using the OKR framework come from properly tracking it and revising it to make necessary changes.
What are the Benefits of OKR Tracking?
OKR tracking helps ensure the achievement of goals and track the progress towards goals. It is done with monthly or quarterly check-ins. Some of the benefits of OKR tracking include the following:
- Quick Rectification: OKR tracking can help look for goals across the organisation and give insight into which departments/employees are falling behind. This will enable leaders to quickly adapt and rectify to avoid the problem of forgetting the OKR.
- Holds Team Member Accountable: Since OKR tracking allows for close monitoring of teams, their goals and objectives are closely monitored. They can be assessed and given feedback or recognition based on their performance.
- Improves Communication and Performance: Since OKRs are shared with the team during the tracking process, there is improved communication among the team members. Progress updates are shared regularly to drive performance over time.
How to Track OKRs?
We recommend these 5 best practices to track your OKRs effectively.
- Assign Responsibility: To ensure that the OKR is seen through and remembered in the middle, assigning Champions (team leaders) and Ambassadors (Managers) is crucial. The Champion will encourage everyone’s participation while the Ambassador removes obstacles and ensures everyone stays focused.
- Outline Qualitative Objectives and Quantitative Key Results: The language used when setting the OKR framework is important to describe what the organisation wants to achieve properly. The ‘O’ stands for Objectives, which describes a goal’s ‘what’ aspect. It outlines the qualities you want to achieve. The ‘KR’ stands for Key Results, which are measurable outcomes of the ‘how’ aspect of the said goal. This is written in quantitative and measurable language to attain the Objective.
- Track Results Regularly with a Fixed Schedule: Reviewing real-time results of day-to-day improvement can ensure high levels of regular progress. OKR tracking can be set up daily, weekly, or bi-weekly to discuss during tracking meetings.
- Ensure Total Transparency of OKRs: Good OKRs provide clarity of purpose. Share OKRs with employees to know they are being observed. This will ensure everyone stays on top of the qualitative objective(s) within the OKR framework. Thus, everyone is working towards the same goals.
- Use OKR Scoring to Assign Priority to Each Key Result: Key Results vary based on their quantitative nature. For instance, achieving a key result of 100 customers is easier than maintaining a 20% employee retention rate. Hence, OKR scoring on a scale of 0 to 1.0, with an average value between 0.6 and 0.7, can help track progress better.
Finally, sharing the key findings from your OKR tracking process with the entire team is important. Everyone must feel heard and seen during the OKR tracking process. However, it is important to note that the OKR tracking system should not be fully used to motivate your team’s performance and hold them responsible if they fall behind.
Instead, use the insights from the tracking process to help your teams side-by-side to focus on achieving high and low-level objectives.
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