🥅OKRs

Purpose

OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results, both of which are the driving factors that keep the team aligned with the goals. Understanding how short-term tasks help the long-term goal is how you achieve results for the company.

Team Objectives are inspirational goals aligned with the overarching company direction. They should give the team purpose, a sense of urgency, and focus to pursue within a quarter.

Key Results are the measurable outcomes (keyword outcomes!) that represent a valuable change in the business — indicating how close to reaching the objective you are.

These two are what are generally considered goals. For us, we’ll be using them for better direction each quarter. Every three months the team should come together for an OKR meeting and decide what should be prioritized for the time period.

Projects can be the initiatives that ensure the outputs are done. This can further be broken down into Tasks, which are quick and easier to do. These together can produce deliverables or tangible results from the measures done during the quarter.

See: Pitch for deliverables

Figure 1. Objectives and Key Results Heirarchy Chart

If you think about it this way, you can see Objectives and Key Results as the goals for the quarter, getting more specific respectively, and projects and tasks as the initiatives done to achieve these goals.

In SmartSuite, we see this breakdown according to the tabs up the top in Grow & Improve.

Figure 2. OKRs as broken down in tabs in SmartSuite

Every quarter, the core team and the interns come up with new OKRs, so that every three months, the company meets up together to realign the goals.

See this video on Objectives and Key Results for reference: https://youtu.be/1nEyzZnSsTg

Procedure

In summary, outcomes are the goals you want to achieve with your business, and output is the result of concrete activities or initiatives you undertake to make progress toward achieving those goals.

Step 1. Convene with the team for the quarterly OKR meeting

Every quarter, the team and the interns must come up with new OKRs, so that every three months we are aligned with the company goals again.

Step 2. Log the new Objectives and Key Results in Grow & Improve

After the OKRs are finalized, you can now input these into the SmartSuite database.

Step 3. Connect the Key Results with their corresponding Objective

Thankfully we can easily see how our Tasks will be connected to each other and to their Projects and Key Results with the Linked Record Feature (also see #What is a Linked Record?)

Figure 3. Using a Linked Record to connect an Objective with a Key Result

Step 4. Pitch a Project

Before you add a Project to the Key Results, firstly pitch to the rest of the team how it aligns with the rest of the goals and how we’ll be able to start this initiative. Remember that resources will be used to see this Project through, so plan prudently. A Project must be finished within 2 weeks, the same time as a sprint (but more of that later!)

Step 5. Break the Project down into Tasks

Once the Project is approved by the rest of the team, you can then break it down into doable Tasks. These can be achieved in as quick as a minute to 4 hours. They are also flexible to implement, especially when it comes to assignments. Delegate these Tasks according to which department would be involved, or if it can be done by an intern, give them the necessary instructions.

Step 6. Make a Task

#How to Write a Task

Step 7. Update the Records

Think of SmartSuite as a database for your Tasks—or, treat it like your notes app. Putting in your Tasks and Projects will help keep track of your progress, which we’ll look back on later at the end of the quarter. This way, you can see how much you’ve achieved in the past few months!