Metrics

Introduction

Why measure? Why do organizations need a parameter so they can know if they can achieve what they are planning? Why these are so important?

Organizations (ideally) are founded to achieve a big change in the world. The founder has a dream, and he/she thinks that that dream is possible, so he/she put hands on it.

And how will they know which is the best way to get what they are pursuing? How they are going to know if they are going on the right way or if they need to make changes at the root? (Or even if that idea is not going anywhere). The answer is Setting objectives.

Before I got in touch with OKR I learned other ways to set and measure objectives, like SMART practice (the one suggested in the PMBok Guide). This is another way to set clear and inspiring objectives for everyone.

And another way, like the Balanced Score Card method, and I find it helpful, because it is not only set up de OKRs, but it takes us to set the OKRs as if we were telling a story (eg. if we have a strategic objective that is related to the income, we have to set up an intern objective with their OKRs that lead us to that growth, and then, what changes we have to make with the clients so we can have that increment of sales, and then, all the objectives take us to that increase of income).

OKR

If we want to change to set a real collaboration environment, with leaders who lead (by example) the new way of integration, commitment, listening, and innovation culture. We should set that into OKR, like this:

Objective: Change bossing culture to leading and inspiring by example culture, KR1: 80% of leaders get trained with human training tools, KR2: 60% of leaders apply those practices, KR3: 100% of the leaders set an OKR that is related with the culture change, KR4: 90% of the objectives be set by the teams themselves (not by the bosses), KR5: 100% of the awards will be for teams (not for individuals).

An organizational culture change is different for each organization, but the use of these practices and tools should be congruent with the whole system, so the strategy for that change has to be planned like a custom-made suit with value delivery in the short, medium, and long term, according to each organization's requirements and opportunity areas discoveries, and culture.

Thinking about using these practices means that you will impact a lot of areas (like Talent Management)?and organizational rhythm, so it should have a strategy.

When you find out an organizational issue about communication, collaboration, integration, goal achievement, low productivity, etcetera; the common mistake is to focus on only ONE thing, do ONE workshop, ONE training, focus on a partial solution for a system problem, and doing that 99% of times failed.

How many times after one "motivation talk" all employees (or a huge percentage of them) came out extra motivated, with all the impetus for doing things differently, but the next day they realize that the system remains the same,?and?so, do the old habits return?

That is where setting objectives is the answer!

Management 3.0 suggests a simple way to set up objectives, with OKR.

What is an OKR?

Metrics are a fundamental aspect of organizational systems. If people do not have a clear vision of where to go, how can they move, get motivated, be focused, and so on??

OKR is not only setting objectives. It is set up metrics related to every strategic initiative that is possible to achieve, but that also invites all members of teams to do more, to give an extra, to achieve things that, maybe, they never thought they could ever do.

This practice consists of, first of all, setting strategic objectives that has relevance to all the positions in the organization. If the organization has no strategic objectives all the people in the organization will not have a clear vision about where they are going as a team. Then, I recommend that each person set up their objectives ("by cascade"), because if objectives are set by the boss (like they were set up on the old way of working, the traditional one) the commitment to achieve that objective will disappear; if people and teams set their objectives, they know they sum to the completion of the strategic objectives, they feel like part of something bigger than they are, and they will commit to that objectives (most of all because they set them own objectives).?

The objectives must have some particularities like they have to have enough information to motivate people to achieve them, they have to be clear and, of course, achievable. The main point is that when you see your objective you say "yes, I will go for it!", you feel motivated, you have a clear path on where you are going, and the teams and organization are going too.

Step by step

1. What do you want to achieve? (The what), e.g. Open the restaurant.
2. How do we are going to measure success? (The Key Result), e.g. KR1: 50 commensals, KR2: 80% good recommendations on social media, KR3: less than 5 minutes waiting for the commensals.
3. What do we have to do to achieve that? (The tasks), e.g. trained the hosts, the waitress, the chefs, set procedures for every process, set a responsible for each task, set a communication plan and a RACI matrix, etcetera.

Once each one of the team members set up their objectives, it is time to set the metric (key result), that is no other thing that sets (with a number or percentage) how are we are going to know that the objective is done (or not).

I recommend that objectives should be set by the collaborators (as a matter of fact, ideally there have to have 3 kinds of OKR: Individual objectives, team objectives, and organizational objectives, all different, all aligned with the organizational purpose).

Why this practice?

This time I decided to use this practice because it is a simple way to set what everybody is going to be responsible for and to contribute to the organization, and at this moment was for teamwork that I led: a group of women who want to contribute to making a social change, and we all together were setting up our objectives. The particularly about this case was that the funds must be full-field and then we will have the resources to complete the rest of our objectives.

How did I use this practice?

We set up a previous meeting to set the vision and values, and then, we have the information we needed to set up the objectives by row (or theme).

With this clarity, we could set up our OKRs.

And what objectives were: e.g. get funds for the training, then, train parents (the initiative was about training kids and parents about leading skills), then train the kids. And how we are going to measure the success of that, e.g.:

1. Hire the staff, KR1: Finalize the writing of the 3 job descriptions, KR2:?Publish the vacancies on at least 2 social media, KR3:?Define the hiring process including at least 2 Management 3.0 practices (e.g. personal maps and STAR Behavioral Interview Questions).
2. Social media, KR1: Define the content planning for the next 3 months, KR2: Increase the Instagram and Facebook audience by 300%, KR3: Finalize the social media manual with at least ground rules and image rules.

In other meetings, each multidisciplinary team set up the activities that need to be done to achieve that objective, (in this particular thing we used Kanban, so we all can see in a very simple way the advances of each team). And, finally, we integrated all the outcomes of the multidisciplinary teams.

The activities and objectives must be aligned with the outcomes of other team works.

Lessons Learned

Setting OKR is a great and simple practice, but, believe it or not, not all organizations set them.

I have implemented this practice so many times and I realized that people appreciate having clarity in their jobs, and with teams.

I recommend in these uncertain times that the objectives (and OKRs) were set up by trimesters, not by years.

I like to use this practice. It is very simple, and everyone knows exactly what they (as an individual) and teams will contribute to achieving the vision and?the organization itself.