OKRs: An Introduction

At InCrys, one of our strategic goals is to reach Operational Excellence.?This implies building cross-functional teams, balancing efficiency and effectiveness, and keeping growth at the forefront of operations.?

Successful operations require trust and a degree of autonomy, not micromanagement.?OKRs enable teams to focus more on outcomes rather than outputs.?When each member's “how” and “why” are clearly understood from the bottom-up, from the operational to the strategic level, the team becomes more autonomous and focused on driving alignment and taking pressure off.?

The idea behind OKRs is rather simple, and that’s also why they?work so well:?OKRs help us better understand?and achieve their objectives by clearly defining and then measuring concrete, specific outcomes.?It’s the simplicity of OKRs that makes them interesting right away.?But what keeps them in place is the results?they bring.?

OKRs help us to focus on business outcomes rather than just intermediate features or output.?Teams are focused on the “how” to deliver the “what” that managers or senior leaders define.?In a fully realized OKR regime, every team has its own set of OKRs (let’s call it an OKR backlog) for delivering them.?Here are three reasons they’re not as easy as you might think:

Focus

• Powerful OKRs are ones that people can remember.?
• Keeping them memorable means having fewer; we can only remember a couple of items.?
• This implies you have to say no to some good ideas (for the time being, at least):?Great OKRs call for ruthless prioritization.

Alignment ?

• It may seem obvious, but the team has to be on board with what to focus on.?
• Rowing together, we accomplish more. Pulling together at the same time, we can harness the full power of our team. When not aligned, our strength diminishes, stopping us from succeeding.?
• Achieving alignment implies making time for discussions—live conversations, not via a chat or email.?
• Having challenging conversations is hard, and not having the right context can easily be avoided, which ultimately leads to failure.
• Excellent OKRs necessitate pointed discussion.

Measurability

• Most of us are accustomed to seeing our work as the items we like to check off our to-do list.?
• However, OKRs ask us to think about the impact we anticipate our goals will have.
• To better use the power of OKRs, we must not necessarily associate task completion alone with goal achievement.?
• Sometimes the most important achievements are very hard to measure.?
• Exceptional OKRs challenge you to measure what matters.?

OKRs are composed of two parts: an inspiring part combined with measurable key results that generate performance and achievement.?Along with simplicity comes a need to build focus, alignment, and measurability.?Writing the first set of OKRs may not be as easy as we might think, but with practice and patience, we’ll get there.