What the deal with OKR management?
Peter Drucker’s well-known remark, "What gets measured gets managed," underscores the significance of metrics and the crucial role of measurement in effective management. While there are many goal frameworks to measure performance, one of the most popular and effective methods is using Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). When managed right on a good OKR software, it can keep teams focused on goals that truly matter, and guide your company smoothly towards its overall strategic objectives.
However, they’re often misunderstood, misused, or poorly executed, which can derail your strategic efforts. We've surveyed over a hundred team leaders and high performing individuals to find out how they go about managing their OKRs. In this article, we highlight five common mistakes and pitfalls to avoid when implementing your OKRs.
1. Not using an OKR software
It's extremely tempting to start of using spreadsheets as a simple free OKR tool to track and manage your organization's OKRs. That's perfectly fine if you're a small startup of say less than 10 people. However once you scale upwards with more employees and teams with different functions and targets, spreadsheets actually become counter-productive. They lack features that allow you to automate calculation and reports and very often, the spreadsheet balloons to a big sea of mess.
A proper OKR software that is inexpensive (typically changing on a per user basis), allows your teams to not only focus on goals that make an impact, but allows managers to easily get a birds-eye view on how the business is performing.
2. OKRs are disconnected from the company's objectives
A major pitfall is when OKRs don’t align with your organisation's overall goals. Your team’s objectives should naturally fit into the broader company vision. When there’s a disconnect, teams (and individuals) end up working in silos, leading to misunderstandings, confusion and frustration with team members working towards goals that don’t really contribute to the organisation’s success.
'To avoid this, before every OKR cycle (typically a quarter), the CEO and senior leaders should sit down and determine what the larger company goals are, and subsequently how team and individual goals fit into the bigger picture. A good questions for managers is to constantly ask, "why are we doing this?". This alignment gives your team a sense of purpose and drives them to work towards shared larger objectives.
3. Not getting buy-in before rolling out your OKR management system
One critical mistake is not getting buy-in from all stakeholders before implementing OKRs or deploying an OKR planning tool within your organization. Like it or not, employees generally resist change. They prefer enjoying the status quo without having to deviate from the good ol' ways of doing things. If managers or employees don’t see the value of OKRs or implementing a new goal management software (or even feel excluded from the process), their interest and engagement will drop. You do not want to start off something important on the wrong foot.
To avoid this, the CEO and senior leaders absolutely need collective buy-in. Managers should then communicate these changes downstream to individual teams, highlighting the importance of this important shift.
Organise workshops or meetings to introduce the OKR framework company wide and elaborate how a goal tracker can help keep everyone productive and aligned to strategic goals. Encourage open discussions to gather feedback and address any concerns. This collaborative approach fosters a sense of ownership and accountability, so everyone (or at least the majority) stays committed to making the best of this organizational move.
4. Setting unimportant to unrealistic OKRs
Ok now that you've reviewed the best OKR tools and gotten your organization sold on the new OKR management system of things, it's time to actually get to work. What could possible go wrong?
Well the first thing that usually horribly wrong is teams and individuals rushing off to create their OKRs that really don't make sense to the business. They either hunker down and forget point #2 altogether (be it out of bad communication from managers or pure laziness), or they get so overly ambitious and set OKRs that are just unachievable. For avoidance of doubt, OKRs should generally be "lofty" and "ambitious" goals, but there is a fine line between that and plain unrealistic.
Setting unrealistic OKRs can be detrimental to team morale. While aiming high is great, goals need to be realistic and based on your team’s actual capabilities and resources. If the objectives feel impossible, team members might become disengaged, which can lead to lower productivity.
In short, keep circling back to point #2 to avoid spending time on goals that are unimportant and have no material impact to the business; and ensure that set targets that are ambitious but within reach. You are unlikely to get it right the first time but that's normal. Learn and improve your OKR management system quarter by quarter.
5. Failing to review and update your OKR software
Lastly, one of the most significant mistakes is not reviewing and adjusting your OKRs regularly. The business landscape is always changing, and your objectives need to adapt with it. If you don’t assess them periodically, you risk chasing outdated goals that no longer benefit your organisation.
This is why OKRs are best measured on a quarterly basis. It's long enough for projects and tasks to be meaningfully carried out, but short enough to pivot should anything go against the plan. Within the quarter, managers (or even individual employees) should be conducting weekly reviews and updating progress on the OKR software to avoid any last minute surprises.
At the end of the quarter, celebrate milestones, discuss where things went wrong, and make adjustments where needed. Regular evaluations keep your team aligned and motivated, working towards relevant and meaningful objectives.
Final thoughts...
Deploying an OKR management software can not only transform how your team manages goals, but avoid common pitfalls. Maintaining clarity and alignment, securing buy-in, and regularly reviewing progress are all essential to unlocking the full potential of your goal-setting framework. Steer clear of these 5 mistakes to create a more productive and engaged people asset.
If you're ready to take your OKR management system to the next level, discover how Happy5 can help you execute your strategy and drive growth with our popular employee performance management software.
Visit Happy5 today to learn more and schedule a demo to see how Happy5 can level up your organization!
