Unlock Your Team’s Full Potential with OKRs!
One of the most challenging aspects of the job of an engineering leader is ensuring that our team executes on the strategy we define. We need more than a great plan; we must ensure we deliver the results our stakeholders expect. OKRs are a way to execute on our strategy effectively.
What is strategy execution?
Before we dive into how to use OKRs for strategy execution, let’s briefly discuss what strategy execution is. Strategy execution involves translating high-level strategic goals into specific actions and results that can be measured and tracked. The objective of strategy execution is to ensure that the organization is focused and aligned on achieving its strategic goals.
What are OKRs?
OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are a goal-setting framework that John Doerr popularized in his book “Measure What Matters.” OKRs are a simple and powerful way to define and track goals, align teams around them, and ensure everyone is working towards the same objectives.
The basic idea behind OKRs is to set specific objectives you want to achieve, along with key results that will measure progress towards that objective. An easy way to remember what OKRs are is to think about this statement: “I will [Objective] as measured by [a set of Key Results].”
Why use OKRs for strategy execution?
OKRs are a great way to measure, focus, and align your team with your org or company strategy. Setting clear and specific objectives ensures that your team works towards the same goals. The key results you define will help you track progress toward those objectives and ensure that you progress correctly.
OKRs are particularly useful because they can have a quarterly cadence for execution and an annual cadence for long-term goals. This allows you to track OKRs incrementally and grade them as you go along. Setting OKRs every quarter ensures that you progress steadily toward your long-term goals.
How to use OKRs for strategy execution
Once you have set your objectives and key results, you need to track your progress toward them regularly. You should review your progress at least once a month. At the end of the quarter, you should grade your OKRs to see how well you did.
OKRs can be committed (you are confident that you can achieve them), aspirational (moonshots), or learning-oriented (to experiment and learn). You should use all three types of OKRs to ensure that you are pushing yourself to achieve your goals while giving yourself room to experiment and learn.
Example of OKRs for strategy execution
Let’s say that your company has a strategic objective to reduce the number of customer-facing bugs.
The relative Objective could be: “Improve the velocity at which bugs are addressed.”
Here are some example key results that you could use:
KR1. Reach 100% of bugs fixed within SLA for a particular page by the end of the quarter.
KR2. Decrease the number of incoming bugs by 25% by the end of the quarter.
KR3. Improve the time to resolution for high-priority bugs by 50% by the end of the quarter.
Setting these key results provides your team with clear and specific goals to work towards.
Strategy execution is how we execute our vision for the future. OKRs are an essential tool that can help us execute better — they allow us to focus on what matters most while still being able to adapt as necessary.