Every successful business needs all of its employees to work as one single entity, moving in the same direction as each other. To make this possible, OKRs are implemented.
OKRs are modern tools to align business strategy to its core goals. It was the brainchild of Andrew Grove, Intel’s co-founder, but it’s been adopted by all successful business ventures in every industry.
OKR is the abbreviation for ‘Objectives and Key Results. Introduced as a goal-setting methodology, it can track progress on every potential factor and help bind the whole team together with targets they can measure.
It helps them to concentrate and prioritize, makes them more productive at work, and above all, provides complete transparency by holding everybody accountable, whether the success or failure.
In OKRs, the ‘Objectives’ are the goals a business wishes to achieve. These are generally challenging, motivating, and bound by a limited amount of time. And ‘Key Results’ are measurable steps made to fulfill the objectives. They indicate effectiveness and help to analyze if the business is making progress or not as per your expectations.
OKRs are not only important, but they are slowly transforming into an essential part of your company’s success. Here are 10 reasons why they can make a difference:
1. Easy onboarding
OKRs dilute complex and intricate business strategies into something every employee can understand and get behind. It presents them with an end goal and some measurable steps to track their progress. This helps in unity and overall dedication to the common cause. In addition, they help to build the business from the top down.
2. Flexibility
The basic framework of OKRs is unbelievably flexible. It can be used for any kind of business, as it’s not based on any particular industry but acts like an inspiration-filled checklist you need to complete to achieve something huge. Some professional companies can design the OKR with particular targets in mind, like https://www.skillfire.com.au/.
3. Performance and progress tracker
OKRs can be reviewed intermittently. And on those occasions, you’ll know exactly where you lack. So, in a way, it tracks the performance of the employees as well. You can set lower levels of OKRs for smaller teams and/or individuals working in synchronization with the higher levels to pinpoint the performances of every department. And as these can be constantly changed and tweaked, you’ll get to know the progress made instantly.
4. Give and take between teams.
Through OKRs, every team can work to fulfill their own goals with the added advantage of exchanging details and comparing their progress against the main target.
5. Alignment
As OKRs merge and direct everything to one goal, they can automatically align all the underlying business strategies. The ‘why’ in OKR is made up of such strategies. So, once you change the end target, every piece of the puzzle will move accordingly.
6. Prioritization
OKRs are implemented in most businesses on a priority basis, meaning the most care is given to the most needed goal. So, they inherently work with a priority in mind. But the key results are also set according to the company’s priorities, starting from the most basic and ending in the most ambitious ones. This prioritization improves big focus time and helps in making decisions in the crunch moments.
7. Resource management
OKRs can make managing resources in a business much easier. It effectively and efficiently assigns resources where they’re most needed to complete the goal/s. And you can easily inspect and change those allotments based on the need of the hour or a new target.
8. Accountability
As OKRs apply to one and all, employees can be held accountable for every decision, every success, and every failure. You can track their progress and then reward them for completion or pose questions to them for any particular action.
9. Continuity
When you start analyzing the progress made against the business goals through OKR, it becomes a part of the company culture. This cycle of continuous betterment and upgrading the goals to a greater extent will gradually affect all the others in the company as well.
10. Risk management
OKRs inspire thinking and solving problems on the go. They can help you find opportunities, but they can also help identify pertinent risks if you start thinking about the obstacles to completing your business goals.
CONCLUSION
OKRs inspire businesses and their employees to strive for more. They not only provide clarity of thought, but they also strengthen willpower and give belief in everybody around you. And this unity among employees helps in selfless contributions and constant progress.