What are OKRs?

More and more organizations accelerate growth and process optimization. Yes, I know, it is inspired by Google. OKRs is a holistic method to cope with goals and performance at all levels of an organization that keeps your organization aligned. As a side effect, for me that’s the actual value, OKRs reveal your organizations weaknesses relentlessly and are a stimulant for innovation, employee development. OKRs help to turn your strategy into results and at the same time encourages creativity and freedom of employees and teams. Combining all that I’m not too shy to say it is bringing cultural change to your organization. And by the way, OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results.

What is an Objective ?

An Objective is a desirable future state put in words. It expresses what you actually want to achieve. At the very best case Objectives inspire people, but at a minimum they are be meaningful, specific, somehow actionable.

What is a Key Result ?

Key Results measures how to achieve an Objective put in words. The more ambitious and ambitious, the more effective are Key Results. Most of all, they are measurable, verifiable and achievable in a certain time. It must be very clear what scale or measure to use, what is the measuring unit, what is the baseline and what is the target. Their shouldn’t be any doubt about whether you achieve progress or not.

That was short and crisp but plan another post to describe how OKRs are applied in the field. In case you can’t wait for it, I strongly recommend reading Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs by John Doerr.