Ultimately, that outcome, the assignment of value by a party (or multiple parties) external to the organization is the reason for being of the organization. Call it “The Ultimate Outcome.”
There is one thing that organizations of any type should master if they want to leverage the OKR superpowers – writing great OKRs. Why so? Because the quality of your OKRs can affect the achievement of your goals in the long run.
In the “A tale of two kings” series, we aim to provide thought-provoking insights into goal setting and compare OKRs to alternative methods. In the first part, we’re going to explore what OKRs and 4DX are and how are they different from each other.
Originally developed at Intel and now used by companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook, OKRs have a proven track record of getting results for large-scale enterprises.
It’s easy to associate OKRs with large companies rather than startups and small businesses. But, as industry guru John Doerr says in Measure What Matters: “At smaller start-ups, where people absolutely need to be pulling in the same direction, OKRs are a survival tool.”
If you’ve made the decision to implement OKRs in your organization, this article is for you. Maybe OKRs are new to you or perhaps you’ve tried implementing the methodology in your organization before with lackluster results. Either way, you want your team to succeed. Here are some tips to help your team adopt OKRs successfully.
When just starting with OKRs, many organizations decide to start with Google Sheets or Excel templates. But the reality is that good OKR software helps you along the whole journey.
OKRs are simple, but not easy. The main problem people have when defining their OKRs is switching from an output (what I need to do) to an outcome (what I need to achieve) mindset. This is particularly true in functions such as software development, where releasing features [on time] and fixing bugs has traditionally been the only way to drive and measure performance.
Gtmhub helps companies align teams around what matters most. Most often, our customers use Objective and Key Results (OKRs) to define what needs to be achieved, and how to measure progress. But OKRs are means to an end.
The world welcomed more Unicorns recently. A Unicorn is a privately owned company with a valuation in excess of $1B. Most of them have one thing in common. A not so secret ingredient.
Having spent most of my professional life leading Human Resources teams with global investment banks, consultancies and technology companies – and many smaller, fast-growth tech SMEs around the world – I’ve honestly struggled to end every day with my head held high.
Recent top headlines on CNBC: “Dow falls more than 150 points after US unveils new tariffs on Chinese goods”, “European markets lower on trade war concerns (FTSE -1.08%, DAX -1.47%, CAC -1.30%)”, “How Trump’s NATO summit and Putin meeting could shape the future of the West”, “Facebook faces UK fine of around $660,000 after data scandal found to be illegal”
Did you ever wonder how Google (aka Alphabet, but I’ll use Google throughout) became one of the most successful companies in the world? As a user of Google (probably) and perhaps as an investor (hopefully), or maybe just as a fascinated bystander, you recognise Google as a great product.
Why engage Gtmhub? From my 1st day at Gtmhub, my personal objective has been to prove that it is possible to combine professional performance with personal happiness. For a long time, employees everywhere have sacrificed personal health, and happiness in favour of professional performance. This is no longer a requirement.
The hyper-condensed explanation of OKRs. What is OKRs? OKRs or Objectives & Key Results is a goal setting and management methodology for businesses and organizations. Who uses OKRs? OKRs were invented at Intel and later made popular at Google. Today, numerous organizations use OKRs: Accenture, Amazon, Box, Deloitte, Dropbox, Facebook, Gap, GE, Juniper Networks, LinkedIn, Microsoft, etc.
According the WHO, obesity has tripled since 1975. 39% of people aged 18 or over are overweight or obese. These are global numbers; in the US, UK, China, and other places, the numbers are much higher. On the other hand, it is well known that weight loss and improved fitness are attainable by eating better, and exercising more.
A lot of organizations say that they have a problem with always being late with setting their OKRs. For example, it's January 15th and they still haven't set the OKRs. What typically follows is the sense of failure, guilt, and frustration. Why are organizations late with OKRs? In my experience, the most common reason, why a team or company would be late with OKRs, is that they want them to be “perfect”.
I’ve just had a conversation with a fellow agile enthusiast and a question popped up. Namely, is “Increase new sales by 50%” a good objective? The theory or best practices say that objective should be qualitative (no numbers), and key results should be quantitative (numbers). I also happen to think that in practice this works best, and here is 5 reasons why.
As I am writing this post in Berlin, at the SAP.io by Techstars AI focused accelerator, there are dozens of people around me working very diligently to make you unemployed. If you are working in customer support, the brilliant team from Finland is hard at work to make you obsolete.
Bottom Line: To be successful with OKRs, ask three questions: What do we want to achieve? How are we going to measure success? What are we going to do to make progress?
Increase revenue.This is by far the most popular Objective on our trial accounts. And, can you blame people. Yes, to make the world better place is a nice goal. But, it's so much easier to make the world a better place when one is a billionaire.
Based on hundreds of conversations we had with prospects, customers and businesses using OKRs – we have isolated one, very much offline, practice that sets apart those that succeed with Objectives and Key Results and those that abandon them: regular retrospective meeting.
OKRs are all the rage among the startups these days. There is a lot of resources on what OKRs are and how to use them. While OKRs, as a concept, seem pretty straightforward – introducing them in an organization can be tricky.
Mark Zuckerberg has just announced that, after ten years, Facebook is changing its mission statement. The old mission statement “Make the world more open and connected.” has been changed to Bring the world closer together.
OKRs are getting more popular by the day. We can see this both in the number of companies that contact us to help them adopt OKRs, as well as in the exploding number of tools that help companies drive performance through OKRs. We often hear people suggesting companies to start “simple” with post-it notes or spreadsheets.