In this blog, Director of Business Agility Jean Henson shares her experience and tips for using OKRs to manage your agile transformation strategy.
Many companies experience a "tipping point" in the form of a specific event or series of events, which act as a catalyst for their transformation. Whether these events are based on customer demands, competition, geopolitical changes, technological advancement, or a combination, good leadership will recognize the need for transformation and prioritize this for the organization.
Managing a strategic transformation is complex and challenging because of the culture and mindset changes needed to get everyone on board and working together. Using Objective Key Results (OKRs) goal-setting framework can help make your strategic transformation more manageable and ensure your organization moves in the right direction. OKRs help align everyone in the organization to focus on what matters most, the strategic goals, and provide a measurable way to track progress and ensure clear accountability.
From my experience as an IT leader and a business agility consultant, using OKRs is a useful framework for managing transformation strategy. One example of how using OKRs helped a company transform is when I worked at a medium-sized company that reached their tipping point when they realized their “highs and lows” were tightly linked with their main partner. Leadership determined in order to consistently meet their financial goals, they needed to diversify their offerings. This company was successful in their ability to transform from a “one trick pony” to a company that was able to diversify their offerings and weather those “ups and downs” of the original partner.
Seven steps to transformation success
There are seven steps you can follow to leverage OKRs in managing your agile transformation strategy.
1. Define your overall strategy
The first step in using OKRs to manage your transformation is to define your strategy. Don’t confuse Strategy with Tactics. Your strategy is your North Star. It is directional and reflects what you want to do, not how you will do it. When you create OKRs without a strategic goal, how do you know you are doing the right thing?
Our successful company defined their strategy as “Improve our fiscal strength”. It was their hypothesis about what they wanted to achieve, not the specific steps in how they would actually improve their fiscal strength.
2. Break down your strategy into objectives
Once you have defined your overall strategy, define your strategic objectives. These should be defined by the senior leader accountable for the delivery of the objective and its associated key results. Each subsequent level should then break it down into smaller, more manageable objectives with key results that can be measured.
Objectives, ideally are defined to focus efforts, align teams, and help you track progress towards a common vision. They should be specific, measurable, time-bound, and align with your strategy.
Using our example company, their main objective looked something like this:
Diversify our offerings so our revenue stream is not aligned with a single product line.
3. Identify key results for each objective
For each objective, identify key results that will help you achieve it. Key results are specific, measurable outcomes that are tied to an objective, and they are used to track progress towards that objective. Key results help to ensure that objectives are being met and provide a way to measure success.
Here are the key results our example company used to track their success.
Key Result 1: Become partners with an additional three partners to diversify our revenue streams.
Key Result 2: Increase sales with additional partners to $2.5M.
Key Result 3: Increase certifications to meet new Partner Program Requirements.
Key Result 4: Ensure every quote includes implementation services.
Warning: Beware of vanity metrics that make you “look good” but don’t actually measure progress towards reaching your goals.
Top tip: If you can’t measure them, they are not OKRs.
4. Assign ownership
It is important to assign ownership of each OKR to a specific individual or team. This will ensure accountability and that the OKRs are implemented and tracked effectively.
5. Communicate and align
Communicate your OKRs to your entire organization, make them visible at all times and ensure they align with the overall strategy. This will help to ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals and that there is a shared understanding of what success looks like. Transparency is key to ensuring you have buy-in from everyone at all levels.
The example company was fantastic in communicating and aligning their organization. The leadership team conducted monthly calls to communicate how the company performed against their KPIs and strategy, and also on the progress of their OKRs. Everyone knew what the strategy and goals were for the company and how they, individually, contributed to the overall success.
6. Regularly track progress
Regularly tracking progress on your OKRs is crucial to ensuring that you are making progress towards your objectives. This can be done through regular check-ins and progress reports, and any gaps or challenges can be identified and addressed in a timely manner. Some people use spreadsheets to track their progress. However, this manual task can be cumbersome and time-consuming. You may want to consider specialized software which allows you to quickly and easily track progress and show alignment.
7. Continuously evaluate
By continuously evaluating your OKRs, you are better able to identify if and when progress has been made in achieving your objectives. By taking time between measurement cycles to reflect on your OKRs, you are able to identify if there were things beyond your control that may have affected your ability to reach your goals.You may notice that the OKRs you created were easily achieved and didn’t push you to reach your goal. You may also realize the Key Results you selected didn’t really measure progress the way you thought. Use the data and insights collected during this evaluation/reflection time to make necessary adjustments to your strategy and OKRs.
OKRs provide a more data-driven approach, making it easier for you to make strategic, data-driven decisions and measure their impact. Using OKRs to manage your transformation strategy is a surefire way to ensure your organization is moving in the same direction and one which allows you to easily track the progress towards achieving your goals.
If you’d like to learn more about using OKRs as your agile goal-setting method to transform your organization, check out the OKR resources we created with our colleagues at Adaptavist. Alternatively, get in touch.
Many companies experience a "tipping point" in the form of a specific event or series of events, which act as a catalyst for their transformation. Whether these events are based on customer demands, competition, geopolitical changes, technological advancement, or a combination, good leadership will recognize the need for transformation and prioritize this for the organization.
Managing a strategic transformation is complex and challenging because of the culture and mindset changes needed to get everyone on board and working together. Using Objective Key Results (OKRs) goal-setting framework can help make your strategic transformation more manageable and ensure your organization moves in the right direction. OKRs help align everyone in the organization to focus on what matters most, the strategic goals, and provide a measurable way to track progress and ensure clear accountability.
From my experience as an IT leader and a business agility consultant, using OKRs is a useful framework for managing transformation strategy. One example of how using OKRs helped a company transform is when I worked at a medium-sized company that reached their tipping point when they realized their “highs and lows” were tightly linked with their main partner. Leadership determined in order to consistently meet their financial goals, they needed to diversify their offerings. This company was successful in their ability to transform from a “one trick pony” to a company that was able to diversify their offerings and weather those “ups and downs” of the original partner.
Seven steps to transformation success
There are seven steps you can follow to leverage OKRs in managing your agile transformation strategy.
1. Define your overall strategy
The first step in using OKRs to manage your transformation is to define your strategy. Don’t confuse Strategy with Tactics. Your strategy is your North Star. It is directional and reflects what you want to do, not how you will do it. When you create OKRs without a strategic goal, how do you know you are doing the right thing?
Our successful company defined their strategy as “Improve our fiscal strength”. It was their hypothesis about what they wanted to achieve, not the specific steps in how they would actually improve their fiscal strength.
2. Break down your strategy into objectives
Once you have defined your overall strategy, define your strategic objectives. These should be defined by the senior leader accountable for the delivery of the objective and its associated key results. Each subsequent level should then break it down into smaller, more manageable objectives with key results that can be measured.
Objectives, ideally are defined to focus efforts, align teams, and help you track progress towards a common vision. They should be specific, measurable, time-bound, and align with your strategy.
Using our example company, their main objective looked something like this:
Diversify our offerings so our revenue stream is not aligned with a single product line.
3. Identify key results for each objective
For each objective, identify key results that will help you achieve it. Key results are specific, measurable outcomes that are tied to an objective, and they are used to track progress towards that objective. Key results help to ensure that objectives are being met and provide a way to measure success.
Here are the key results our example company used to track their success.
Key Result 1: Become partners with an additional three partners to diversify our revenue streams.
Key Result 2: Increase sales with additional partners to $2.5M.
Key Result 3: Increase certifications to meet new Partner Program Requirements.
Key Result 4: Ensure every quote includes implementation services.
Warning: Beware of vanity metrics that make you “look good” but don’t actually measure progress towards reaching your goals.
Top tip: If you can’t measure them, they are not OKRs.
4. Assign ownership
It is important to assign ownership of each OKR to a specific individual or team. This will ensure accountability and that the OKRs are implemented and tracked effectively.
5. Communicate and align
Communicate your OKRs to your entire organization, make them visible at all times and ensure they align with the overall strategy. This will help to ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals and that there is a shared understanding of what success looks like. Transparency is key to ensuring you have buy-in from everyone at all levels.
The example company was fantastic in communicating and aligning their organization. The leadership team conducted monthly calls to communicate how the company performed against their KPIs and strategy, and also on the progress of their OKRs. Everyone knew what the strategy and goals were for the company and how they, individually, contributed to the overall success.
6. Regularly track progress
Regularly tracking progress on your OKRs is crucial to ensuring that you are making progress towards your objectives. This can be done through regular check-ins and progress reports, and any gaps or challenges can be identified and addressed in a timely manner. Some people use spreadsheets to track their progress. However, this manual task can be cumbersome and time-consuming. You may want to consider specialized software which allows you to quickly and easily track progress and show alignment.
7. Continuously evaluate
By continuously evaluating your OKRs, you are better able to identify if and when progress has been made in achieving your objectives. By taking time between measurement cycles to reflect on your OKRs, you are able to identify if there were things beyond your control that may have affected your ability to reach your goals.You may notice that the OKRs you created were easily achieved and didn’t push you to reach your goal. You may also realize the Key Results you selected didn’t really measure progress the way you thought. Use the data and insights collected during this evaluation/reflection time to make necessary adjustments to your strategy and OKRs.
OKRs provide a more data-driven approach, making it easier for you to make strategic, data-driven decisions and measure their impact. Using OKRs to manage your transformation strategy is a surefire way to ensure your organization is moving in the same direction and one which allows you to easily track the progress towards achieving your goals.
If you’d like to learn more about using OKRs as your agile goal-setting method to transform your organization, check out the OKR resources we created with our colleagues at Adaptavist. Alternatively, get in touch.
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