Frequently Asked Questions About OKR (Everything is Answered!)

New approaches bring a lot of new questions with them, right? In this article we will try to answer all of the OKR questions that you might have in your mind. Let's get on with it!

What are good OKRs?

Well, OKRs have two different components which are objectives and key results. Good OKR Examples  mean, clear objectives and specific, measurable and achievable key results bound by a time-frame. What do I mean by clear objectives is that it should be easy to understand by the employees so that they can engage in it. The key results should be specific and measurable since they are the milestones that show our progress. Moreover, they should be achievable, and especially achievable in a time-frame.

What is the OKR model?

OKR is basically a model to track the progress of your company. You should define objectives and relevant key results of your company. Afterwards, with weekly checkins you will know where you were and where you are now. You may easily start implementing the OKR model to your company by creating your own simple OKR Template.

How do you measure OKRs?

There are basically two types of key results:

  • Numeric key results
  • Logical key results

Numeric key results can be measured as a percentage in a scale from 0 to 100. Logical key results are basically either 1 or 0.

Frequently Asked Questions About OKR

How many OKRs should you have?

The better question is how many company level OKRs should you have? Since OKRs can be set for teams, departments or individuals it can go up to hundreds of OKRs.. However, in the company level quarterly OKRs , you should have 3 to 5 Objectives and related key results.

What companies use OKRs?

OKRs is a framework that gains more popularity day by day. The companies below are the some of some of the companies that implemented the framework successfully.

  • Amazon
  • Dell
  • Delloitte
  • Dropbox
  • Facebook
  • GE
  • Google
  • GoPro
  • Intel
  • LG
  • Microsoft
  • Netfix
  • Samsung
  • Siemens
  • Spotify
  • Uber
  • Yahoo

If you want to check it out, we also analyzed how Google is using OKR methodology .

What is an example of an OKR?

Here you can find an OKR example for a logistics company:

Objective: Expand company’s trading volume

1st Key Result: Add 10 new trucks to the fleet

2nd Key Result: Interview 20 experienced drivers

3rd Key Result: Sign new contracts with at least 2 shipping companies

Who invented OKR?

Andy Grove is known as the "Father of the OKRs".

 

What is the purpose of OKRs?

The definition of “OKRs” is “Objectives and Key Results.” It is a collaborative goal-setting tool used by teams and individuals to set challenging, ambitious goals with measurable results. OKRs are how you track progress, create alignment, and encourage engagement around measurable goals.

What is OKR Framework?

Objectives and key results (OKR) is a goal-setting framework that helps organizations define goals — or objectives — and then track the outcome. The framework is designed to help organizations establish far-reaching goals in days instead of months. OKR has been around since the 1970s.

How OKR Software Helps to Measure What Matters?

Firstly, it should be known that OKR Software has some important features:

  • Automatic prompts and updates
  • Sophisticated Analytics
  • Reporting tools
  • Real-time alerts
  • Most importantly, navigate a single dashboard to set, track, manage, and score on your OKRs.

 Measuring What Matters

Focus and Commit to Priorities

“What is the most important thing we can do for the next three months that can truly make a difference?” Initially, focus on this question, and notice your priorities. Thus, place a statement that can truly make a difference.
OKR leads develop a set of carefully curated initial goals, definitely. Therefore, to help the dissemination of these OKRs, we utilize “Goal Alignment Diagrams”. In this way, these diagrams provide the organization’s top priorities cascade to departments and teams.

Align and Connect for Teamwork

In addition, to achieve to measure what matters, OKR Software provides visibility for level to level screening of other’s OKRs. After that, it ensures a line of sight for everyone to see department, team, and individual goals. In this transparency, enabled by OKR Software drives higher employee engagement and accountability throughout the organization.

Track for Accountability

Properly, check-ins are one of the necessities in an OKR implementation. Therefore, OKR Software provides automated prompts to encourage employees to complete their regularly scheduled check-ins to monitor progress.OKR Software prepares Engagement Reports to provide OKR leads with information relative to check-in compliance.Instead, management can track progress via standart and customized reports, such as Monday Morning Report. Somehow, this report allows to monitor weekly progress.

Stretch for Amazing

Additionally, Google employs two types of OKR goals: Committed and Aspirational. Committed goals should be realized at 100% achievement, 100% of time. However, aspirational, or stretch goals have very different expectations. These stretch goals tend to be big picture, have higher risk involved, and require the focus and commitment of the entire organization. Furthermore, stretch goals energize motivate the workforce, and can produce amazing results, even if they do not achieve a perfect 1.0 rating.

How do you set personal OKRs?

OKRs take big lofty goals, segment them into objectives, and then tie each of those objectives to actionable Key Results. The Objective is the point on the horizon that you want to get to, and the Key Results are the measures that confirm to you that you're making progress.

OKR Success

What percentage of completion makes an OKR success?

%70 to %80 is the sweet spot. If you are constantly reaching %100 on your OKRs, it shows your goals are not challenging enough.

How to use OKR?

Learn and tell people what OKR methodology is.

The first thing before implementing OKR to your business is to make sure that everyone knows what OKR is.

Choose an OKR Tool.

You need to select a OKR tool to deal with OKRs. It can be a simple spreadsheet or a dedicated software like Corvisio OKR Software.

Organize your OKRs.

In each level, you should define not more than 5 objectives and with a maximum 5 key results for each objective. Keep the number of objectives and key results low.

Set a long-term company OKR.

Company OKRs are the destination that the company wants to achieve. Remember, other levels OKRs will depend on Company OKRs.

Set Team OKR

Each team should set their own OKRs. Remember team OKRs should be on the same way as company OKRs.

Set individual OKR

Personal OKR define what a team member is working on. By the end of the OKR period, he/she can show what progress was made. To define individual objectives, the person involved discusses with his/her manager to really know what is expected.

Edit and improve your OKR

The last part of the OKR setup for the period is the review cycle. When individual objectives are defined, you can now finalize team objectives by improving them according to team members’ objectives. The top company objectives can also be modified to fit all teams OKR

Evaluation

At the end of a period, you must evaluate your OKR in order to measure your accomplishment. We define success as a grade between 60 and 70%. If you achieve less than that, it is not a sign of failure. Maybe your objective were too high. At the same way, if you achieve 100% of your objectives, they were not ambitious enough.

What is the main difference between goals and OKRs?

There are not obvious differences between goal and objective at first glance. Differences are small but vital.For example, let’s choose a goal, and express it by a sentence like “Increase company’s revenue to $2M.” It can be seen simply, goal contains both action and target: increasing and $2M. However, for a company, there are so many components. And, if someone wants to take company where the goal stands, it is not effective to say that our goal is increasing revenue to $2M. That defines only the aim; but what steps should company take, and how these steps should be implemented?

When we look at this perception, we see that we should divide goal into the pieces. We call one piece as objective. Objective is the point where we would like to achieve. We may determine an objective like increasing our company’s revenue”.

Then, the other piece contains steps that we should take. Some key results that approaches us to main Objective, such as “making $2M revenue”.

Thanks to OKR methodology, a company’s goal can be analyzed. This ensures convenience of implementing in the real world. Otherwise, there is no way for solving problem in complicated world; without analyzing.

 

Well, I guess we have talked about the most frequently asked OKR questions. Using Corvisio's OKR Software would help you implement the process and keep your company on track!