OKR - set goals, prioritize and motivate with Objectives and Key Results

OKR (Objectives and Key Results) is a management framework you might have heard of in connection with Google. OKRs facilitate prioritisation, collaboration, alignment, transparency, entrepreneurialism and the acceleration of outcomes in an organisation. Although it´s not entirely new, this leadership model is an innovative management method that fits especially to agile companies and to those who do not support a pure top-down approach. OKRs connect the strategic dimensions of vision, mission and the company´s strategy with the operational level. Main goal is to set clear focus for the next three months across an organisation´s management, throughout departments and employees.

Even employees in agile, growing companies very often miss the clarity towards the bigger picture. Although this seems to be a typical  downside of much bigger „supertanker“ companies. OKRs help to provide the neccessary clarity for employees where their focus is on. With a disciplined goal setting process, the management integrates valuable bottom-up input to decide where to concentrate on for the next 3 months. This way the vision, mission and strategy is being constantly translated into small digestable chunks. Furthermore they decide on ressources across departments and avoid that employees or departments run behind opportunities off target.

OKRs describe a limited set of objectives and key results, in order to set focus for the company and their individual departments in the next three months. Further it defines how the goals can be successfully achieved. Each objective will be specifically described with a defined number of key results in order to identify the value drivers. The objectives (O's) are motivating, challenging and often not fully accomplishable. Whereas key results (KR's) describe a very specific, measurable path, towards the achievement of objectives. They specify how to measure the achievement of objectives and how the results are evaluated. They define the expected value of the planned success.

The model is limited to a maximum of five goals (O´s), with four milestones (KR´s). Limitation is key. The great advantage of this framework is to ensure that the objectives of every level can be broken down (cascaded) to the respective level below. The top company targets deliver the Big Picture.

OKRs as leadership model add value to all kinds of company sizes. Starting from 3+ employees to thousands of employees. Google, Zynga, LinkedIn, Orderbird, mymuesli, posterxxl.de are just a few who still work with OKRs. Depending on size and industry type, there might be some individual tweaks neccessary, but the basic framework stays untouched.

I work as an OKR consultant since 2013 and have implemented OKRs in all different types and sizes of companies. From early stage companies with a team of 5, to fast growing companies with 250+ employees up to multinational Groups with 3000+ employees. Over the years I have developed a slim process to train the methodology, but also to make sure that the connection points towards the daily business routine and the strategic layers are working seamlessly. This reduces the risk significantly to implement such a leadership framework throughout the company. Read more about the options here...

Typical challenges are:

• you have heard of OKRs and need someone to train the basic methodology, so it´s more about transferring KnowHow
• you have heard of OKRs and need someone to train and implement OKRs into your company. The format here would be on-site workshops
• you are interested in OKR-webinars for you and your employees
• you have implemented OKRs already and have the feeling that there is room for improvement, e.g. the quality level of OKRs is pretty diverse
• you are looking for an OKR sparring partner , to help formulate OKR sets and streamline processes and tools
• you are looking for a partner who helps streamlining your individual bonus system and OKRs
• you have the feeling that your vision, mission and strategy needs a rework and think a view from the outside could be helpful

Let´s have a Skype Call or Google Hangout how I can help you. In this area I work on a simple project basis as an OKR-Coach or OKR-consultant. Yes, I also do remote OKR-webinars. 

Just drop me a line and I´ll come back to you: