OKR Planning: Strategies, Processes, and Tools for Success

Introduction To OKR Planning

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is a strong goal setting framework that is used to define, track and monitor the outcomes and the progress made towards it. It consists of two parts,  Objectives which are high-level goals that an individual, team, or organization aims to achieve and Key Results which are specific, measurable outcomes that track progress toward the objective.

OKRs ensure proper cascading of company goals to the teams and sets the tone for them to prioritize work accordingly. OKRs promotes a high degree of transparency by setting where the company is heading towards and also brings accountability within teams and individuals.

Understanding OKR Planning

1. What is OKR Planning?

OKR planning is the process of understanding the company’s goals and deriving/defining the objectives and its key results which will take us towards that goal. This is the first session which happens during OKR implementation and it repeats for every cycle continuously. Below are a few border level agenda for an OKR planning session:

1. Defining the OKR step by step process and getting consensus
2. Deriving the OKRs at various levels
3. Understanding and setting contextual review process and setting up the ceremonies

2. Key Components of OKR Planning

Key components of OKR planning include:

1. Defining the objective statements according to the business goals. This is the “What” part of it
2. Deriving key measurable outcomes which will indicate the progress made towards the goals. This is the “How” part of it
3. Get consensus from the teams, and stakeholders on priorities
4. Define the review process and cadence and get started

3. The Role of an OKR Planner

OKR planner is a SME who understands the concepts of OKR framework, do’s and don’ts, best practices, and key attributes.  OKR planner helps the teams and organizations in:

1. Help management and teams define clear goals
2. Facilitate and ensure alignment within the stakeholders
3. Define contextual review process
4. Facilitate monitoring with best tools and practices
5. Understand the pattern and give feedback to improve

The OKR Planning Process

1. OKR Annual Planning

OKR annual planning refers to the process of organization setting its high level objectives for the fiscal or calendar year and deriving the key results which are measurable. Below are a few pillars or area of focus of annual OKR planning:

1. Understand the trend of precious year’s performance
2. What are the areas of growth for the company?
3. Defining the objectives based on growth opportunities
4. Derive the measurable key results
5. Get consensus from the team

2. OKR Setting Process

Here is a typical step by step OKR guide in a OKR setting process:

• Step1 – Get consensus on the company objectives amongst the management and leaders
• Step2 – Derive team level objectives which roll up to the higher level objectives
• Step3 – Teams to plan their execution
• Step4 – Add all the OKRs to the tool which you are using
• Step5 – Share the roadmap of execution with appropriate teams
• Step6 – Setup cadence of OKR review for teams and the company level

3. OKR Process Flow

OKR process flow starts with drafting the company level objectives and key results followed by team specific Objectives and key results. Once the execution of OKR by the teams has started, the progress is tracked in set cadence.

Cadence duration can vary based on the level of OKR, for teams, they can meet every week or monthly to review the progress made. While at an organization level, Quarterly OKR review is best suited. Also during the mid cycle reviews, teams can also make adjustments based on feedback or priorities.

At the end of the cycle, the outcomes are assessed and all the improvement points and learnings are noted to be implemented in the next cycle

4. OKR Implementation Guide

OKR implementation, like any other initiative, requires a shift in the way organizations look at success. Below is a sample OKR guide for implementation.

• The first phase in the implementation is always about ensuring the fitment of OKR in the company.
  • There needs to be enough awareness of the framework itself
  • Leadership buy in
  • Why are we even going with OKR?
• Second step is the implementation of OKR, OKR implementation guide should starts from
  • Deriving the OKRs
  • Setting up review cadence
  • Tracking and monitoring OKRs
  • Till continuously improving the OKR process.
• Final phase of OKR based planning is to ensure it becomes a company culture, once there is awareness and the process is implemented, it is now to either cross pollinate and do frequent retrospections to continuously improve

Developing an OKR Strategy

OKR Strategy involves the journey of how we are bringing in the framework within the organization. Mainly revolves around the process of  fitment, awareness, as is assessment and the implementation. Let’s understand this in detail.

1. OKR Strategy Development

OKR Strategy development is the process of coming up with the plan of action on implementing OKR within the organization. Some of the key aspects to think about while developing OKR strategies are:

1. Why are we implementing OKRs?
2. What is the current state?
3. What is the state we are looking for?
4. Who all needs to be trained?
5. What tools will we be using?
6. What will our OKR process be?
7. What will our review cadence be?

2. OKR Product Roadmap

OKR roadmap is one artifact where you can visualize both what you want to achieve and how you are planning to get it done. It combines both the OKRs and the initiatives/features which you will have to implement to get it done and targeted milestones and priorities. Here are a few benefits of having a OKR product roadmap or OKR Roadmap:

1. It is the single source of truth for everyone in the organization
2. Helps in planning and prioritizing the work
3. Set target based approach which helps in measuring
4. Progress is easily visualized

3. Strategic OKR Planning

Strategic OKR planning helps the companies in focussing on the most important goals which they want to achieve. Organizational strategies generally tend to be long term which also makes OKR tied to those goals to be long term. While the OKR planning steps remain the same at even the business level, the starting point however is from identifying the long term vision and mission in the OKR strategic planning.

Tools and Techniques for Effective OKR Planning

While we understand what an OKR is and how we plan and derive them, it is also important to understand where and how we can manage and monitor them. Let’s understand more about tools where OKRs can be monitored effectively.

1. OKR Planner Tools

OKR tools help teams and organizations to manage and monitor their objectives. OKR planner tools provide various benefits like,  adding Objectives and Key results, real time tracking, collaboration over the OKRs, providing insights on the OKRs and so on. Here are some of the mostly used OKR planner tools:

1. ClickUp
2. Weekdone
3. Jira by Atlassian
4. Asana
5. Workboard
6. Businessmap
7. Lattice
8. Profitco

2. OKR Techniques

Defining and deriving OKRs can be challenging especially in the situations where the goals are vague, over ambitious targets, or even when there is not proper direction from the business. Here are a few techniques which can help teams in deriving better and efficient OKRs:

• Strategic Hypothesis Tree – To dissect complex goals
• The kernel of good strategy – Derive actionable goals from vision
• North star metric technique – To get clarity on how a metric should guide the teams
• Wardley maps – To understand the competition and derive strategies and actionable Objectives

Creating An OKR Action Plan

Setting objectives and key results and getting consensus on the set target is one thing but another vital part of OKR is the plan of getting it done.It signifies the “How” part of it and gives transparency on owners, milestones, dependencies and other key factors.

1. OKR Action Plan Development

OKR action plan provides structure and clarity along various aspects making it easy for the organization and teams to achieve the goals. Some key factors to consider while creating an OKR action plan are:

1. Roadmap Steps involved achieving the objectives
2. Initiatives derived in priority order
3. Dependencies within or between teams
4. Owners of objectives
5. Key Milestones
6. Potential risks and blockers
7. When and what resources are needed

2. OKR and Roadmap Integration

Once the OKRs are defined, one main part of preparing an action plan is to prepare / integrate it into a Portfolio/product/release roadmaps. OKRs give the direction to teams and portfolios to prioritize their respective work and resources. OKRs influences prepare roadmaps at various level, to mention some:

1. Portfolio level – Roadmap of products and services
2. Program Level – Releases and initiatives
3. Product level – Roadmap of features
4. Team level – Radmap of tasks and stories

3. Monitoring and Adapting the OKR Action Plan

Execution of any plan requires monitoring to ensure pivoting happens in the right direction continuously. OKRs have a lot of facets which can be monitored during execution, here are a few key things which needs continuous monitoring:

1. Progress made towards key objectives
2. Blockers for future Objectives
3. Any risks for active OKRs
4. Gaps in execution

Advanced OKR Strategies

1. OKR Based Planning

OKRs can be set at 3 levels, company level, team/group level  and individual level. While they serve as a direction for the teams to prioritize work and sets the tone, they can directly influence planning at various levels. Let’s understand this in detail:

1. OKRs at portfolio level can directly influence the initiatives/projects, products and services they want to work on for any particular cadence
2. Programs can seek help of OKRs to plan their releases, resources and milestones
3. OKRs serve as a direction for product teams to prioritize and work on features
4. Teams also can make use OKRs to plan their sprint goals, tasks and prioritize work

2. OKR Strategies for Different Industries

OKR is a simple yet powerful framework. While the structure remains same for any domain or industry, they can be tailored to fit to achieve specific goals. Below are a few objective examples for different industries:

1. Healthcare – Improve outpatient satisfaction
2. Ecommerce – Make delivery operations smooth
3. Professional Services – Decrease year on year customer churn
4. Retail – Increase online sales revenue

3. The Future of OKR Planning

OKR framework was first started by Google and has gained traction in the industry for its efficiency. As the industry is moving towards VUCA world, OKR framework is gaining more traction and the reasons include:

1. Shift towards shortened feedback loop
2. Significance of data driven decision making
3. Use cases of AI integration for faster pivoting
4. Employee alignment and feedback with real time decision making
5. Creating accountability within the teams

Common Challenges and Solutions in OKR Planning

While OKR framework can be understood easily, there are multiple challenges teams and organizations can face and the main one is around deriving ambitious yet achievable goals. Some of the common pitfalls include:

1. Struggle to convert vision into objectives
2. Greed to set a lot of OKRs
3. No clarity on key metrics
4. Unstable and flexible OKR process
5. Not aligning teams to company level OKRs

1. Addressing Common Pitfalls in OKR Planning

Below are a few common pitfalls in OKR derivation and how we can solve them:

1. Vague and generic objectives – Use simple english statement which gives the sense of what we are trying to achieve
2. Too many OKRs – Define around 2-4 OKRs which has the highest impact
3. Defining tasks as Key Results – Ensure key results which are measurable and have a metric associated with it
4. Over ambitious and un realistic OKRs – Consider the system, capacity and resources available while
5. Unstable Process – Set a cadence to review the progress, take continuous feedback and improve
6. Confusion in accountability – Set clear owners for OKRs

2. Ensuring Alignment in the OKR Process

Alignment is a key aspect to make any initiative efficient. Teams and the stakeholders need to be aligned in various areas for the OKRs to be defined and achieved. Below are a few suggestions to get alignment within your orgs:

1. Set the foundation for OKRs with company’s vision and long term goals
2. Involve leader at company level and derive team level OKRs
3. Derive shared OKRs which involves multiple teams across BUs and domains
4. Assign clear ownership to the OKRs
5. Review team level and company level OKRs in the same meeting
6. Use an OKR tool to promote transparency

3. Overcoming Resistance to OKR Implementation

Resistance for any initiative comes because of a lot of reasons, some of the common reasons are, baggage from previous failure, comfort zone, political reasons, etc. Here are a few tips to overcome resistance in OKR implementation:

1. Clearly communicate the “Why are we doing this?” part
2. Ensure there is awareness of what the framework is and it’s benefits
3. Ensure full support from the leaders
4. Pilot with a few teams and create a success story
5. Scale it to multiple levels and teams with the success
6. Collect feedback regularly and pivot in the right direction

How To Conduct an OKR Planning Meeting?

As practitioners, below are a sample stepwise approach to conduct OKR planning meeting which we follow as an OKR Consulting Company:

1. Preparation Before the OKR Planning Meeting

First step in conducting an OKR meeting is to ensure we have all the data and resources to start. Below are a few pointers on what needs to be taken care:

1. Invites to be sent to necessary participants
2. Agenda to be clear and in the invite
3. Meeting rooms and audio and infrastructure to be ready
4. Stationery must be available

2. OKR Planning Meeting Introduction

Set the tone of the meeting with a good welcome note and clarify the agenda once again to the audience. Explain the flow of how the session will be conducted, key participants and meeting guidelines and session schedule to align everyone.

3. Reflect on Previous OKRs

Below are a few aspects of how to reflect on previous OKRs:

1. What is our achievement in the previous cycle?
2. Update on Key metrics and the current state
3. Learnings from previous cycle
4. Changes to be made in the current cycle

4. Setting New OKRs

Start the new cycle of OKR planning by first understanding the broader business needs from the leaders and align everyone with the strategy. Define a 1 liner objective statement which defines the direction. Derive Key Results which are measurable for all the objectives and get consensus from all the participants. And then assign the owners of the OKRs.

5. Align and Cascade OKRs

Once the company level OKRs are derived and the owners are identified, set up group/team level OKR planning, set expectations to the teams and repeat the same exercise with the team members. This should give a hierarchy of which team OKRs belong to which company level Key result.

6. Plan for Execution and Monitoring

Derive a clear action plan to achieve the objective. Clearly define all the steps , initiatives and tasks needed to be done in order to achieve the result. Identify the dependencies, milestones and map out the risks in getting it done. Set the priority to the OKRs so that the teams can plan their work cadences accordingly.

7. Wrap-Up and Next Steps

Once the company, teams and individual OKRs are set, and the action items are derived, it is time to conclude the planning session. To ensure that everyone is aligned, summarize the OKRs, update the tools, communicate the review cycles, send the invites and set expectations on how the tools must be used and what changes in process are we implementing in this cycle.

8. Post-Meeting Follow-Up

Share the highlights of the OKR Planning meeting, Update the tools with the derived OKRs, share a note of appreciation to all the participants. Call out any action item and the owners to set the right expectations. Confirm if there were any action items to the owners as a reminder.

Conduct Monthly, Quarterly and Annual Meetings

One vital part of the OKR framework is the cadence based review of the progress made against an objective. This ensures that we are in the right direction, understand if there are any potential risks/dependencies and helps in smooth execution of the cycle.

1. Monthly OKR Meeting

This is the most frequent OKR meeting. These meetings usually are at team / department levels. Timeboxing of these reviews need to be less eg: 30 mins,  as the frequency is high. Some of the questions that could be asked are:

1. If we are on track?
2. What is the progress made against the OKR?
3. Any blockers faced the teams?
4. Any potential risks?
5. What do we want to achieve till the next cycle

2. Quarterly OKR Meeting

A quarterly OKR meeting is a scheduled discussion on the progress made against OKRs. These generally involve discussion on progress of the achievement,  areas of improvement, change in priority from business, risks and gaps if there are any, milestones and provides an opportunity to also review the leading and lagging indicators. These quarterly meetings ensure a frequent feedback loop is taken care of.

3. Annual OKR Meeting

Some goals / objectives are at the business level, when the goals and objectives are huge, organizations go with annual OKR meetings, some of the benefits include reduced overheads in conducting the meeting, ensures teams do not rush and get burn out, and provides an opportunity to set ambitious goals.

Conclusion

OKRs set the tone and the direction for the teams and individuals in an organization. Effective OKR planning is vital to promote alignment, focus and measurable progress in organizations. This blog will help you in understanding what is an OKR? How to frame OKRs? What is OKR planning meaning? What should be the OKR planning process? How frequent and what should be the review cadences and other related topics.

However, there are always contextual differences when it comes to practical implementation of OKRs in your organization.OKR process is not prescriptive, as while we understand the OKR framework and the review cycles, the process of execution, recipe to conduct an OKR planning   may be contextual to your environment. You can reach out and seek support from Benzne OKR consulting company while you are kick starting or taking your OKR implementation strategy to the next level.

At a broader level, what is vital is to start somewhere and pursue small wins, cross pollinate the success story, frequently check for gaps and process improvements and implement them to ensure your OKR planning is the best suited for your organizational context.

With this our blog on “OKR Planning: Strategies, Processes, and Tools for Success” comes to an end and we sincerely hope that this helped. Please write to us at “Consult@benzne.com” for any feedback or queries.

Frequently Asked Questions  About OKR Planning:-

1. What is the ideal number of OKRs to set for a team or individual?

Ideal number of OKRs for a team or individual is 3-5. This is to ensure there is enough focus to get goals achieved and avoid confusion and burn out.

2. How often should OKRs be reviewed and updated?

Ideal recommendation is to at least review the OKRs quarterly to avoid any surprises at the end of the year. However, a lot of teams do monthly reviews to reduce the feedback loop.

3. Can OKRs be applied to non-profit or educational organizations?

Yes, OKRs, can be applied to non profit or education organizations. Non-profits can set objectives for fund raising, community engagement etc while educational organizations can set OKRs for faculty , student engagement, improving the curriculum etc

4. How do OKRs differ from other goal-setting frameworks like KPIs or SMART goals?

OKRs are ambitious objectives with measurable key results, while KPIs are the metrics used to validate the success of an activity or organization. SMART is a technique which is used to set smaller and granular goals.

5. What should I do if my team consistently fails to achieve their OKRs?

The first thing that should be considered if this is pattern is to conduct a retrospection and understand the gap and try to fix it. Here are a few questions which can be asked during the retrospection by the OKR strategist and the team:

• Were the OKRs vague?
• Were they not clear?
• Were they too unrealistic?
• Did we not solve the dependency earlier?
• Were we not able to foresee risk?

6. How can I ensure that OKRs are both ambitious and achievable?

Two very important aspects of OKR setting is to have an understanding of your team capacity and also to get clarity on what the leaders want. Your team’s historical data, performance in the past can give you an idea of what can be achieved without compromising on being ambitious. One simple trick is to have stretch goals.

7. What role does leadership play in the success of OKR planning and implementation?

Leadership plays an important role in OKR planning and implementation. They are responsible to set proper goals and vision, prioritizing the highest impact OKRs, to empower the teams, approving/providing resources and funding etc.