Last updated on 22nd May 2024
Goals are the key to success for any business, but it can be difficult to find the time and the right methods for creating effective goals.
This is where OKRs come in. OKRs are a popular goal-setting system that can help you clarify, simplify, and actualise your organisation’s objectives.
In this blog post, we’ll explain what OKRs are and give you some OKR examples to get you started.
What are OKRs?
The acronym stands for Objectives and Key Results, and it’s a system that helps you set tangible goals for how you want your business to grow.
The objective is simply what needs to be achieved and the key results are how you get there.
OKRs can help you track progress and identify areas of improvement, and by setting them, it holds you accountable.
Like with any goal setting, setting achievable yet challenging goals is the key to success with OKRs.
Benefits of OKRs
There are so many benefits in using OKRs, here are just some:
1. OKRs give teams clarity about what needs to be done.
When your team is clear on what they need to do, they (and the business) are more likely to achieve your goals. A massive 83% of businesses who use them say they have a positive impact.
2. They help measure progress.
Not all of your goals will have a clear answer, such as data and figures. With OKRs you can measure progress on all types of goals, and in turn measure success.
3. OKRs improve efficiency and accountability.
According to Datalligence.ai, over 80% of the employees don’t understand what the organisation is trying to accomplish. But implementing OKRs can help provide this information for your whole team.
4. They foster collaboration and alignment.
Teams that use OKRs generally rate their collaboration as more successful. This is for a number of reasons such as, better communication, more feedback given and clearer goals.
5. OKRs aid decision making.
OKRs are a great way to make sure your employees have all of the information that they need. So, when it comes to making decisions, it should be easier for them, as they have everything laid out in front of them.
6. They give everyone a sense of ownership, because success is shared among all team members.
OKRs allow your team to feel as though they are all contributing to the success of the business- because they will be!
How to write OKRs
Before you set OKRs, you need to define:
1. Where do I want to go?
2. What are the results that I need to achieve in order to get there?
3. What do I need to do to achieve those results?
To put that into context, let’s imagine we are writing an OKR about ‘customer satisfaction’.
So the answers to those questions could be:
- I want my company to have the best customer satisfaction in the industry.
- I need great reviews and fantastic satisfaction scores.
- I need to make sure all of the team are reaching out to customers and that customers are supported.
Then you need to define your objective, this could be:
Objective: Increase customer satisfaction by 20%
This is a good place to start, and gives you something to aim for. Then your key result needs to be an action that will help you work towards this:
Key Result: Reach 25 customer check-ins per day
This provides a specific goal that can be tracked daily.
If followed, the result should be an increase in customer satisfaction!
OKR Examples
1. Yes, that’s right, you can set an OKR, about setting OKRs! In fact, it’s a really good place to start and sets the tone for the rest of your goals. You’ll see here that perfection is not the goal, with an attainment goal of 70%. This is a great way of making sure you don’t get discouraged if you can’t do it all.
2. OKRs don’t have to just be about making profit etc, they can be more internal goals. This OKR about creating an awesome company culture will not only help create a great place to work, it could help you achieve your other OKRs!
3. Recruitment is a great place to use OKR goal setting. In this example, it’s being used to hit a goal of how many people to speak to etc, but it can also be used to set goals against the type of people you want to recruit.
4. Your OKRs don’t have to be stuffy! ‘Fast as lightning support’ is a great way to get employees excited about the goal. And then in the key results section, the more specific parts of the goal are clear.
5. Sometimes perfection is the goal. As seen here in this example about a compliance audit. In this case a 100% target is appropriate.
6. Figures sometimes do need to make an appearance, so in this OKR we see a numerical goal to aim for.
7. OKRs are all about growth, so this goal is perfect. With numbers to aim for attainable actions.
Conclusion
When hearing the term OKR, you’d be forgiven for thinking that sounds really complicated, but truthfully, it’s quite simple to get started with OKRs.
Then, once you have defined yours, the outcome can only be positive! What have you got to lose?
If you need help with choosing goals for your OKRs check out our article 16 Professional Goals & HOW to Achieve Them.
