elevate business performance with okrs · elevate business performance with okrs today, many high...

ELEVATE BUSINESSPERFORMANCE WITH OKRs

Elevate Business Performance with OKRs Workboard2

Elevate Business Performance With OKRsToday, many high velocity organizations use Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to move forward faster. OKRs are a powerful method of driving real clarity, a higher sense of purpose, and aligning near-term actions to desired near-term business outcomes. While leaders want the organization to be more agile and accountable, they often lack an agile model for driving clarity, accountability and transparency – OKRs are an ideal solution.

Companies like Google, Credit Karma, IBM, VMWare, TeraRecon and others achieve fast, great results with OKRs, using apps like Workboard to operationalize this agile management methodology. OKRs provide qualitative statements on what a team or organization is trying to achieve, quantify outcomes with metrics, drive the plan of action to achieve results, and incorporate self reflection on those results.

OBJECTIVE

— what you aspire to achieve.

KEY RESULT

— what success looks like.

ACTIONS

— what needs to be done.

INSIGHT

OKRs are a powerful communication vehicle that can dramatically improve leader and organization effectiveness. Jeff Sorensen, President at global medical imaging market leader TeraRecon, notes that clear communication of business goals is essential to operating at high speed.

“If you want to drive transformation and grow fast, communication is everything.”Jeff Sorensen, President of TeraRecon


Jeff uses Workboard OKRs to communicate what he wants the business to accomplish each quarter and to ensure alignment and progression on those outcomes across the organization.

OKRs enable leaders to communicate more completely and effectively. For leaders that traditionally manage by strategic themes, defining key results helps translate those themes into material outcomes people can focus on. For leaders that manage by metrics, objectives provide purpose and convey intent that inspire people to reach for great results. Matriculating OKRs through the organization localizes the mission and metrics to each team, so they can engage wholly on relevant, real and reachable results. For leaders that manage through quarterly business reviews (QBRs), OKRs are a results accelerator that shifts effort from descriptive reporting and read outs on prior quarter outcomes to prescriptive definition and alignment on current quarter outcomes.

“Other apps help you set goals. With Workboard, we live our goals.”

Jeff SorensonPresident and CEO, TeraRecon


As a Management Methodology, OKRs Are Fast and Effective

Organizations use OKRs to:

Bring radical clarity at the beginning of each quarter to the specific goals and quantifiable results the organization wants to achieve; the up-front energy and effort to define desired outcomes greatly improves actual outcomes.

Identify the best possible results the organization and each team can achieve, then focus and align effort on those results vs all other activities that deliver lesser results

Gain continuous visibility into progression and risks to key results, enabling organizations to address risks early and replace tedious operating status meetings when managed in an active OKR app like Workboard.

Create an agile system of ownership and accountability based on connected objectives, laddered results and transparency that is particularly attractive to Millennials; everyone understands what they own and how it creates value.

Drive operational excellence and progressively elevate business performance. While some leaders establish operational excellence OKRs, the process itself fosters excellence by focusing effort on best possible outcomes, driving a high achievement cadence and institutionalizing retrospectives that capture learnings with each cycle.

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How Do OKRs Work?OKRs work best when they cascade down and coalesce back up. Typically, the process starts with an executive who defines 3-5 objectives for the organization, each with 4-6 key results. Each of the exec’s direct reports will then develop 3-5 of their own objectives with 4-6 key results that ladder up to the exec’s, and so on through the organization. A well-run process will not only cascade down, but will identify alignment gaps and operating elements that should be addressed or reflected higher in the organization’s OKRs.

Once OKRs are established, teams develop action plans aligned with their KRs. These identify the work needed and ensure the focus on key results over the quarter. Teams and organizations achieve better results with weekly OKR-centered conversations. As any sales person can attest, 12 weeks will fly by – defocusing for just 3 weeks wastes 25% of the time a team has to achieve the great results.

Establish and align objectives and key results for next 100 days

• Workshop on OKRs with exec and directs

• OKR workshops for team leaders and their directs

• All OKRs and related workstreams in app during workshops > ready to roll

Focus efforts on executives to achieve objectives and key results

• Action plan in place for KRs

• Leaders actively manage by their OKRs, have took + transparency

• Managers and team members use app to stay aligned and focused

Assess outcomes, reset OKRs and improve operational discipline

• Anticipate and assess results – Right objectives? Right results? Right focus?

• Do next quarter OKRs

• Retrospectives within teams identify best practices, reinforce results-focus and excellence


OKRs aren’t an end to themselves, they’re a tool for actively driving business results. Setting them is the beginning, not the end of the process – they’re only as good as your execution and focus. Leaders must still drive accountability; the methodology and the Workboard app increase leader effectiveness by giving people clarity on the results they’re accountable for and providing real time facts to facilitate accountability and accelerate decisions and actions.

At the end of the quarter, a retrospective that looks candidly and clinically at outcomes is the key to excellence. Assess whether you had the right objectives, set the right key results and had the right focus. Rather than lay blame, take ownership of what was learned and reset for the next quarter.

What Do The Best Teams Set For Their OKRs?Agile, high velocity teams set a high bar for both their results and their learning rate. There is a high sense of ownership and accountability is pervasive across the organization. When leaders in this type of organization set objectives for operational excellence, each and every downline team develops – and genuinely owns – authentic local OKRs that epitomize excellence for their function.

GOALS

FACTS

Run sales Salesforce

Run engineering Agile development

Run the business PowerPoint, Excel, email Workboard


Sample Business Leader OKRs

Be the definitive market innovation leader

Strategically expand our market reach and revenue

OBJECTIVE KEY RESULTS TEAM: WORKSTREAM MEETINGS

OBJECTIVE KEY RESULTS TEAM: WORKSTREAM MEETINGS

12 beta customers on K2

8 evangelist interviews in tier 1 media

K2 launch goes according to plan

100 new validated opportunities for K2 in pipeline

Deliver Wombat capability with $1m higher ROI than competitors

Engage with 10 new viable distribution partners

$18m in WW product revenue

$6m in WW services revenue

$2m in Wombat product revenue

$3m in revenue from unassisted purchases

$5m in pipeline from partner-sourced deals

Business Development: Partner sourcing

Sales

eCommerce: Conversion optimization

Business Development: Partner enablement

Field Engagement

Sales, Dev: Beta implementations

Marketing: Launch PR runup Lighthouse customers eStaff: Launch plan

Product management, Product marketing: Wombat roadmap

ROI analysis

Sales enablement

Beta account review (monthly)

Launch plan stand up (weekly)

Pipeline reviews (bi-weekly)

Wombat roadmap review

Monthly partner sourcing review

Sales review (bi-weekly)

eComm review (weekly)

Partner pipeline review (bi-weekly)


What Goes Wrong With OKRs?

OKRs aren’t a fit for every organization and team, and there are many flavors and implementations. And even in organizations where they’re a good fit, it’s a learning process. The leadership team and employees need to build new muscle – like all new things, OKR implementation takes time, effort and commitment and it won’t be perfect in the first quarter. Having said that, there are 5 pitfalls you can avoid:

1. Set and forget. Although people adopt OKRs because they want to more aggressively drive to better results, some set and forget their OKRs at the start of each quarter – and don’t actively drive toward those OKRs week to week. The process takes time but produces no value for the organization (and may make for a negative end to the quarter when the team sees how much was forgotten and unachieved).

2. Check the box. Similar to set-and-forget, some teams focus on getting OKRs “done” rather than defining great results to drive with. Everyone has OKRs but no one cares.

3. No validation. OKRs should be a clean handshake between team leads and team members and between team leads and upline executives to ensure the whole is not only the sum of the parts, but has the potential to be greater than the sum. Once validated, teams should be able to confidently execute on their OKRs knowing they’re creating huge value that will be recognized by the organization. Finding a disconnect mid or end of quarter wastes both time and good will.

4. Confusing actions with results of actions. While executives—particularly finance and sales executives—naturally think in terms of metrics and results, front line teams and those in other functions may not have experience defining results and outcomes of their work. Quantifying results isn’t a natural exercise, and it often requires facilitation the first and second quarter – you may need the equivalent of a yoga teacher. Once the organization has the experience to define and drive results, it will do amazing things.

5. Burying OKRs. You and your OKRs need to be present to win. If no one can see their OKRs and can’t find them among hundreds of google docs, they’re not focused on them. More importantly, to actively drive toward OKRs, you’ll need to see progress on them weekly or at least monthly to drive decisions, mitigate risk and achieve the best possible results in the quarter. In large organizations, seeing the OKR ladder, dependencies and progress across teams is crucial to success. Results-driven companies like IBM, VMWare, Credit Karma, TeraRecon, and others use Workboard to actively lead with their OKRs.


What Tools Do Organizations Use For OKRs?

With its app and OKR development services, Workboard makes it easy to define and align OKRs, then focus actions and execution on achieving the best results. Vince DiMascio, CIO at BAL Global, turned to Workboard as he kicked off the year with a new

strategy. He reports,“Workboard helped us translate my strategy into fully aligned OKRs across the organization in a week; we’re executing beautifully against them thanks to the Workboard app.”

The Workboard app makes it easy to set OKRs, define and align action plans to achieve key results, and proactively manage to results. Smart meeting agendas make OKRs and at-risk actions primary topics of group and 1on1 meetings, keeping everyone’s eyes on the prize. For TeraRecon’s Sorenson, Workboard’s ability to tie objectives and key results to actions and execution is key. “There are apps that help you set goals, but with Workboard we live our goals,” says Sorenson. “It’s the place everyone goes to see their goals and mine, to see what’s important now, and what they need to be working on.” It’s how he runs the business for results; even travelling more than half the year to global clients and offices in the US, Europe and Japan, he can confidently manage objectives and execution with Workboard’s Web and mobile goal dashboards.


Path Forward: Operational Excellence

Leadership Intent

Goal Clarity

Candid Introspection

Metric Discipline

Focused Execution

Clarify, align and execute on goals!

Go to workboard.com to set up a call today.

Learn more about how OKRs help companies like Google, Credit Karma, IBM and others achieve fast, great results.

Move your organization closer to operational excellence with this structured, yet agile, management model. Not only will you have a vehicle for translating vision into execution — your organization will have the method and tools to measure outcomes, focus execution, and learn quickly. It’s the fastest path to excellence.


Sample Function OKRs

MARKETINGMake it dirt simple and totally enjoyable to buy our products and services online

• Every product can be added to a cart in a single click• Expand ecommerce to German, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Chinese• Online order volume increases 10% in Q3 Enable and empower the sales team to open, win and close more deals

• Deliver 4 new tools so we have effective collateral for every stage of the sales cycle • 6 fresh case studies added to web site• Deliver new leads with $13m in pipeline value this quarter Align our Web presence with our position as the industry innovator and leader

• Increase website traffic by 30%• New branding implemented consistently across website and social properties• Increase ebook and whitepaper downloads by 50%• Implement 4 video clip testimonials on site from industry lighthouse customers

SALESMake our number with the right mix of products and services

• $11m in US bookings for Geronimo product line• $1.5m in US bookings for Colombo product line• $3m in Wombat pipeline stage 2 or later • 20 Wombat committed pilots in lighthouse accounts• $9m in EMEA bookings for Geronimo product line• $2m in EMEA bookings for Colombo product line• Every rep closes at least $750k in the quarter


HREnable and empower the sales team to open, win and close more deals

• 1k candidates for open positions in the pipeline• Reduce days to first phone interview from 23 to 7• Reduce days from phone to in person interview from 18 to 7• Reduce days from selection to offer from 12 to 4

CEO or GMBe the definitive market innovation leader

• 12 beta customers on K2• 8 evangelist interviews in tier 1 media• K2 launch goes according to plan • 100 new validated opportunities for K2 in pipeline

DEVELOPMENTWe have product market fit with Wombat release

• 100% of POCs are successful in customer perspective• 5 customers have done simple integrations to their environment• Dev managers have at least 5 conversations with each POC customer• Customers can complete 3 core transactions within first hour

Be awesome engineers that are super productive as a team

• Code reviews average 10 minutes• Every large code change checked is accompanied by a code review meeting with 2 reviewers• 70% of stories can be understood by non engineers and 100% of stories can be understood

by all engineers• All stories for K2vnext release are defined by July 15


ITMove the business into the 21st century and make employees’ lives easier

• Touch projection available in 9 Los Angeles conference rooms • Shorten hardware and software procurement time from 30 to 7 days• 100% wifi coverage in every office – no dead conference rooms• Complete migration of help desk to new cloud provider

Increase our agility and ability to invest in the business by moving apps to the cloud

• Close 3 data centers• Migrate 12 apps to the cloud • Reduce data migration time to 14 days• Reduce storage and infra costs $4.5m

“Workboard helped us translate my strategy into fully aligned OKRs across the organization in a week; we’re executing beautifully against them thanks to the Workboard app.”Vince DiMascioCIO, BAL Global

Raise Your Business Velocity

Workboard Inc. provides business performance automation to help leaders achieve greater results this quarter than the last. Its next-generation mobile and web app helps business leaders and their teams clarify, align, and execute on goals and Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). Workboard is an agile management tool that increases organization velocity and results. Visit www.workboard.com to learn more.

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