OKR Template: Why should business professionals use it?

OKR Template

If you have a business that aims to improve itself, it's better to set goals to reach higher points. Aiming high will make employees discover their real potential. This means the business itself can go further. To organize goals and objectives that have been set and track their progress, OKR templates are used commonly.

For detailed information about how to set goals and what is OKR you can visit our blog!

 

What is an OKR template?

An OKR template is a spreadsheet that helps to visualize your company’s target and summarizes its achievements by percentage.

 

Where you can find an OKR template?

Templates allow you to create workbooks that you need and a great way to save time.  You can build an OKR template on your own or in order to save time you can download the basic OKR template which we arranged basic excel spreadsheet and a word report document for our clients. To build your own OKR template as an excel spreadsheet:

• Make your objectives SMART

                    S- Specific

                    M- Measurable

                    A- Achievable

                    R- Realistic

                    T- Time bound

• Make your key results

                     -Measurable

                     -Limited to 3 to 5 per objective

                     -Challenging yet achievable

                     -Specific, not a list of tasks

                     -Assigned to individual team members

 

After these considerations are done, open an empty excel worksheet and do the following steps:

         -Specify first column as “team member”.

         -Next specify following columns as “personal objective”, “start value”, “final value”, “objective fulfillment”, respectively. 

 

When you finish naming columns we are ready to name lines:

        -Write name of your team member-1 under the “team member” column.

        -Write objectives of team member-1 under the “personal objective” column. You can write more than 1 personal objective one under the other.

        -Write your start value under the “start value” column. If you do not have any put 0.

        -As you complete the objectives you will make changes on the “final value” to see where you are.

        -Write an excel formula under the “objective fulfillment” column to see the results as a percentage. It will calculate the percentage of the progress as you enter data on this template.

Congrats! You have created your own OKR template!

 

Why you should use an OKR template? 

“If you don’t know where to go, it doesn't matter where you are.”  -Peter Drucker 

Professionals have been using several methods to set goals and manage their process. For instance, you can use a paper and a pen to write down your objectives and key results and this method may sound like the easiest. But, what if you have a large number of employees and your employees also have a lot of objectives? 

Then, you may think to use an excel worksheet in order to shorten time that will be spent for arranging OKR template. OKR template can also be used as a dashboard for keeping track of each of your team member’s OKRs. Therefore, you can still use paper and printer to print company’s OKR, post them to walls to make the walls speak and encourage to achieve key results.

In conclusion, you should use OKR template for:

• Keep track for your department’s objective in one place,
• Monitor the progress of each key result for each team member,
• View actual progress at a glance,
• See the total average progress versus desired progress in one single spreadsheet.

However, using an OKR template is still not a best way to save time. Above all, saving time is not only criteria that professionals are looking for. Thus, here is a list of benefits of using OKR software;

•    You will save your company’s resources: time, money, memory,  and even employees.
•    Online, you don’t need to copy, send or carry folders.
•    Transparent, everybody on the company can see objectives and progress.

To understand the importance of using the software version of an OKR template, let’s dig in the subject with following essential questions:

What is OKR?

Objective and Key Results, in brief OKR, is a methodology used for defining and tracking objectives and their outcomes. It can be said that its history began with Peter Drucker, who invented Management by Objectives or shortly MBO, and Andy Grove, who developed MBO into the model of OKR.

What is OKR methodology?

As mentioned earlier, OKR is a goal setting framework which is used to describe goals and measure progress before a due date. The aim of OKR is to bond teams and team members around the measurable and quantitative achievements by making them reach towards the right goals at the same time.

OKR generates a transparent working area which means every member can see what the goals of their company are and what are their roles in reaching those goals. This helps companies to understand whether everyone is moving in the same direction or not.

Management professionals set goals with OKR in order to push team members to leave their comfort zone, leading to enhancing the team’s cross-functionality. This helps get real results much faster and much easier.

What is the difference between KPI and OKR?

The KPI is basically an abbreviation of Key Performance Indicator. KPIs are defined as performance metrics that evaluate the success of an organization or of an activity.

One of the key differences between KPIs and OKRs is the intention behind the goal setting. KPI goals are typically obtainable and represent the output of a process or project already in place, while OKR goals are more ambitious and aggressive. However, while OKR goals are bold, they shouldn’t be unreachable. The idea behind this strategy is that by setting aggressive OKRs, you can push your team and yourself to perform much better and achieve more.

KPI is basically aiming to hit the dart board when you have practice or knowledge of that certain activity. On the other hand, OKR is aiming to hit only the center of dart board when you are new at that sport.

Why do we need to use OKR?

Peter Drucker, known as “Father of Management” was a management leader and business strategist who contributed significantly to the foundation of managing a modern business corporation. In one of his books he stated that “If you don’t know where to go, it doesn't matter where you are”. This sentence summarizes that if you want to arrive at success, you should know which way will take you there. As you set goals you put a target on the top point of the ladder and make your key results the steps on that ladder. Hence, you can check how many steps you need to climb to reach your objective.

Businesses like Google, LinkedIn, Zynga use this methodology since Peter Drucker invented Management by Objectives and Intel converted MBO into a model called OKR. So, its effectiveness has been proven a thousanth time. In addition to these methods you can also use OKR software, like Corvisio OKR, which saves more time than an excel OKR template.