3 Reasons to Use OKRs at Your Business

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) can help you create and implement new initiatives

OKRs or Objectives and Key Results are basically like a game plan for achieving specific business initiatives. The Objective is what you want to achieve; the Key Results are how you plan to do it. The Objective is usually qualitative, while the Key Results are quantitative and measurable. Each Objective usually has 4 to 5 Key Results associated with it.

How are OKRs different from KPIs?

OKRs are sometimes confused with KPIs or Key Performance Indicators. OKRs are different from KPIs in many ways. First of all, KPIs measure performance on key business objectives using a specific metric that will vary by KPI. OKRs are used to implement initiatives that may or may not be related to a key business objective. OKRs are all measured on a scale of 0 to 1.0. Secondly, KPIs are all about achievement. OKRs are not necessarily even meant to be achievable; they are meant to challenge your business and help it grow. According to Google (a leader in the use of OKRs), the idea grade for an OKR is 60 to 70 percent. When a company consistently aces their OKRs, it means they aren’t thinking big enough when creating them.

Example OKR

A retail store recently opened an online storefront which has not received as much traffic as they expected. In order to improve the situation, they adopt the following OKR:

Objective: Create better ecommerce marketing

Key Results:

• Run 5 campaigns on social media
• Boost website visitors 300 percent
• Secure one endorsement from an influencer
• Secure one endorsement from an influencer

3 Reasons to Use OKRs

1. OKRs push teams out of their comfort zones. Because there is no pressure to be 100 percent successful with all the Key Results, employees are freed to set more ambitious goals and achieve more than they thought possible.

2. OKRs allow big-picture communication. OKRs enable management to create big-picture goals and then allow individual departments and teams to work towards achieving them without micromanagement.

3. OKRs can solve problems. Once you’ve identified a problem area at your business—either a shortcoming or an opportunity for growth—OKRs can help you address it.

Using OKRs at Your Business

Creating OKRs is just part of the process. You also need to measure success on Key Results, which may require analytics in many cases. MyFieldAudits provides a user-friendly, cost-effective tool that anyone can use to measure, track, and report on any metric that may be needed. To learn more about MyFieldAudits, contact us at info@MyFieldAudits.com.