Benefits of OKRs

The benefits of OKRs are many and varied. Here I highlight the tip five that make my list when I’m introducing the practice to my clients.

OKRs Drive a Collaborative, Accountable Culture

Driving cultural change has to rank as the most valuable aspect of OKRs in my book. If you haven’t already, take a look at my article on the OKR Review Process. I refer to this process as a “ritual” rather than a meeting precisely because the goal of this event is to drive culture.

The culture that emerges from OKR implementation and practice is one of trust, collaboration, and accountability. Everyone has the understanding that the others have their back, and yet that they absolutely must pull their own weight. Truly, every individual does better.

OKRs Make Strategy Tangible and Do-able

It’s a joke in consulting circles that annual plans and strategic plans live in binders on bookshelves – or these days, in Word docs on hard drives… never to see the light of day. So common is the challenge of translating from vision to execution that the default expectation is it’s just not happening.

The OKR format solves that. The Objectives calibrate the direction, and the Key Results identify the work to be done. This powerful combination make it easy to cross the chasm from vision to execution by reframing vision in terms of actionable work.

OKRs Make it Easier to Achieve Results

The OKR process makes it easier to achieve results in at least two ways. First, the process we just discussed above of reframing vision in terms of actionable work makes the work more achievable. The follow-on step is to further break the Key Results down into action items. This process is easy to complete and encourages action and follow-through.

Second, for a great number of small-to-medium businesses, the act of implementing OKRs raises their overall professionalism. By implementing OKRs and implementing the OKR review process, the result is increased performance throughout the business as a whole.

 

OKRs Drive Transformative Change

Driving transformative change is the whole point of OKRs. When crafting Objectives, we’re not focused on our everyday work. We’re focused instead on identifying those things that will cause the business to grow, stretch, and improve here and now. Or, as I like to say in my version of SMART goal setting, we’re going for REACH goals.

In short, when Objectives are achieved, the business should be in a strategically more advantageous position than before. A key advantage of OKRs is that they allow us to accomplish both our day-to-day work as well as the work of transformative change at the same time by orchestrating the work together.

OKRs Themselves are Easy to Implement

Objectives and Key Results are surprisingly easy to implement. Particularly if you’ve already done any sort of strategic planning pre-work in order to generate solid ideas for your Objectives, OKRs tend to flow naturally.

In particular, by the point it’s time to plan out Key Results, most teams are comfortable and have found their stride. The process of mapping Key Results makes teams feel like they’ve “come home.” It inspires confidence that the process has resulted in something worthwhile and supremely do-able.

Bringing it All Together

The process of implementing OKRs is easy to learn and easy to train. Hopefully, these five points have helped illustrate that the benefits far outpace any associated effort or cost to implementing. The sooner you start, the sooner your business can experience the transformative power.

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