Avoid the pitfalls of OKR formulation

Having a clear, effective OKR, based on the results of an agreed goal, can propel the team toward great goals and keep the organization focused on the most important priorities. A poorly written OKR can lead to strategy confusion, destroy internal metrics, and cause teams to focus on maintaining the status quo rather than breaking it.

When developing an OKR, try to avoid these pitfalls:

Miscommunication of OKR extension goals

Setting an extension goal requires careful communication within the team providing the goal as well as with other teams involved in the extension goal. If your project relies on another team’s goals, make sure you understand their goal-setting philosophy. If they are using stretch goals, you should expect them to deliver around 70% of OKR.

Here I can share an example of my own experience: during the implementation of OKR in our company, my department was responsible for the key results of the launch of an official website content page. However, due to the lack of smooth communication in the formulation process of OKR, r&d resources were not scheduled (r&d was also busy with its OWN OKR), which ultimately led to the failure to advance this key result and further out of control.

Business as usual OKR

OKR is often based on what the team thinks it can achieve without changing anything they are currently doing, rather than what the team or its customers really want. To test this, you can use the stack method, which ranks the team’s current work and newly requested projects according to the value and effort required. If OKRs contain anything other than maximum effort, then they are just like okRs as usual. Drop low-priority work and reallocate resources to the top-level OKR.

Some goals, such as “ensure customer satisfaction exceeds XX %”, will remain the same from quarter to quarter, which is certain if the goal is always high priority. But key outcomes should be developed to drive the team to continue to innovate and become more efficient.

As a result, goal setting tends to be unambitious. OKR, on the other hand, is seen as a management [revolution], which is certainly unbreakable, and getting employees to deny what they are doing is probably harder to accept than “working to fail”. OKR’s principles and implementation process are not complicated, but there is a lot of management thought involved. Neither OKR nor amoeba nor any other solution can save a company from management problems if its managers don’t have the courage to change. The implementation of OKR requires a strong determination.

sandbags

A team that is able to meet OKR’s requirements without having to fight for resources may have either been hoarding resources, not putting enough pressure on the team, or both.

Low value goals

Goals should have a clear business value, otherwise there is no need to invest resources to achieve them. Low value goals are those that, even if achieved, do not bring significant improvement to the organization. Simply ask, “Is there a case where the goal is 100% achieved in some way without providing any organizational value?” If so, modify the goal to be something worthwhile.

Insufficient key outcomes of the target

Unexpected OKR failures can occur if the key results for a particular goal do not represent all the results needed to fully achieve that goal. This can result in resource needs not being met and goals not being met as planned.

Develop team OKR

While the approach to creating an OKR will vary, it is best to set the company’s goals first, which will help teams and individuals set goals based on achieving the company’s larger goals. At the same time, ensure that personal and team goals align with company goals. The next issue is at what level to implement OKR, be it divisions, departments, or teams.

For team-level goals, we need to understand that the organization’s goals do not need to be reflected in the team’s goals. Perhaps a team’s goals need only focus on one organizational goal. However, each team goal must be related to at least one organizational goal.

One way to set team goals is to convene a meeting of all team leaders to set goals. At Google, team leaders outline a set of priorities for the coming quarter in the context of the company’s goals. When setting priorities, the organization’s goals need to be clearly defined and the following considerations constantly checked:

Are the team’s priorities aligned with an organizational goal?

Do the team’s priorities contribute to effective progress toward organizational goals?

Are there other important things that are being left behind?

Are there more than three priorities?

Note that OKR is not a check item. It should never be used as a list of the department’s main activities for the quarter. If a team treats OKR like an overt ToDoList, it can lead to too specific and prescriptive a description of the goals and lose the means to indicate the team’s goals. OKR should be used to define the situation the team wants to achieve, and let the team figure out how to achieve it.

conclusion

In the process of project-based management, a clear goal is conducive to the formation of a high degree of consensus among the team and the maximization of the collaboration effect. At the same time, it is also the most important condition to ensure the efficient and controllable advancement of a project. The OKR execution process is also the execution process of each project in the enterprise. OKR indicates the most critical business indicators for the enterprise, but how these key business indicators are accomplished or achieved depends on the OKR execution. CORNERSTONE offers functional modules including task/requirements/test management, iteration planning, defect tracking, report statistics, team collaboration, wikis, shared files, and calendars, which are free for teams of less than 20 people. CORNERSTONE is free to sign up with one click.