Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is a collaborative goal-setting methodology used by teams and individuals to set ambitious and challenging goals with measurable results. It is a framework that helps organizations align individual performance with overall objectives in a measurable way. OKRs are the way to track progress, create alignment, and encourage participation around measurable goals. Key outcomes are measurable outcomes that represent valuable business change, indicating how close you are to achieving the goal.
Key results are a set of metrics that measure your progress toward the goal. For each objective, you should have a set of 2 to 5 key outcomes. We recommend starting with an OKR workshop where all key stakeholders responsible for company strategy first ask and then gather employee input on what they think should be top priorities. Everyone on the team knows exactly how their key results contribute to the company's goal, making it easy for that key outcome to stay in mind during the OKR quarter.
An OKR consists of a goal, which tells you where to go, and several key outcomes, which are the results you need to achieve to achieve your goal. However, an important difference is that OKR objectives must be very aggressive, and 100% completion of key results is not as important as moving towards completion. Progress on Key Results should be monitored and discussed weekly to ensure better prioritization of initiatives and continuous alignment within a team. Google often uses OKRs to try to set ambitious goals and track progress. Individual and team OKRs express what tactics teams and individuals will implement and what results they will need to achieve to help the organization achieve its long-term objectives.
While the company's key results cover broad metrics, the group's key results should measure more granular progress, such as sales of a specific product. Weekdone is your solution for generating status reports, aligning team OKRs with company level objectives, and viewing your weekly and quarterly progress. Decoupling OKRs in this way can make goals more attainable and reduce stress levels for employees who find certain metric objectives difficult to achieve. When a workplace uses OKR, employees are encouraged to set very high goals and should document progress toward successful completion of key results with backup data. OKRs cultivate alignment by allowing teams to link their team's OKRs to the company's goal and be responsible for driving company objectives independently. This framework of objectives and key results did not appear suddenly, and other goal management techniques, such as MBO, SMART goals, and KPI, had been used before.
