You've set out on a new project. You're excited, if not a little nervous. The project has the potential to reap enormous benefits for you and your team. It's a chance for you to showcase your skills. You know the end goal, but how do you get there?
The next step is setting measurable results to capture your project's success. These are key objectives that capture your project’s forward momentum. We call these guardrails OKRs.
OKRs, or objectives and key results, are measurable and actionable steps necessary to reach your goal. An OKR framework is a step-by-step process that keeps your project on track. Think of your OKRs as stepping stones to orient tasks around.
Let's take a closer look at OKRs and how to use them to maximize your productivity.
What are OKRs?
OKRs are time-bound benchmarks that move you closer to achieving your larger goals. Take the main objective and break it down into smaller, more actionable steps. Now you have OKRs.
In short, OKRs are a goal-setting framework. It's a way for teams and individuals to stay organized as they work toward ambitious goals. The OKR framework is flexible—intended to be a template to outline and manage your key objectives.
Here are some OKR examples:
- Drive revenue growth
- Increase customer retention and growth
- Build brand awareness among customers
- Improve employee engagement
- Boost traffic to your company's blog
- Raise the number of product activations or sign-ups
Most large companies have company-wide OKRs that the entire organization can rally behind. Teams break down these OKRs into smaller tasks that many individual contributors work toward.
OKRs aren't reserved for large companies, though. They can be helpful for individuals seeking concrete strategies to hit their goals. Whether you're an individual who's contributing to team OKRs or you work for yourself, the OKR framework is a helpful method to increase productivity.
A brief history of OKRs
Humans have always been goal-oriented. We’ve always worked with OKRs in one form or another. We want to innovate, experiment, and set goals and objectives that guide us closer to achieving great success.
Today's iteration of OKRs is a repurposed method of measuring goals. Andy Grove, the CEO of Intel in the 1970s, took an earlier approach to goal setting and altered it to include "key results." He taught this goal-setting method to John Doerr, who ran with it. Doerr iterated Grove’s version to create a system of goal-setting designed to help keep teams and individuals productive. Both he and Grove set out to orient everyone around a shared goal, so each individual can see how their work is contributing to the bigger objective. Since then, OKRs have spread across industries and teams to become the basis for goal setting.
Only 26% of employees feel they have a clear understanding of how their work contributes to their company's core objectives. OKRs remove any communication barriers between upper management and team members. This means everyone sees how their hard work is making an impact. When individual contributors see the impact of their work, they become more engaged. Sharing OKRs creates transparency which is the crux of growth.
Here's a quick tip: consider how your individual OKRs connect to your company's OKRs. If you work for yourself, think about how your everyday work links to your big-picture OKRs. Working from this mindset sets you up for excellent time management through prioritized tasks and overall success.
OKRs vs. KPIs
OKRs and KPIs are two acronyms associated with goalkeeping and productivity, but they focus on different aspects of a project.
KPIs, or key performance indicators, are metrics designed to measure the success of an initiative. KPIs have a role in any campaign where you'd want to capture the results via predefined metrics.
For example, your marketing team is running a campaign to use gated content to get more customers to sign up for free product trials. An OKR for this project is to increase the number of product activations in a set amount of time. Drill down into this OKR for the smaller OKRs that serve as benchmarks. The KPI is the number of activations—the metric you'll use to determine the success of your campaign.
KPIs help prove the success of your OKRs. KPIs help track progress toward OKRs.
It's the concrete data that backs up your claim that the gated content was successful in hitting its goals. KPIs and OKRs work hand-in-hand to help you knock your goals out of the park.
To recap, OKRs are the goals you want to achieve, and KPIs are the metric you use to measure those goals.
How to effectively write OKRs
The OKR framework is one of the most straightforward ways to work toward goals. It's a great time management technique to keep you focused on the work that will actually make an impact. OKRs succinctly capture every step you take toward achieving your goals and the final result.
The most successful OKRs align with core values or mission statements so that you can draw a direct line from the individual OKRs to larger goals.
When creating your OKRs, ask yourself the following questions:
- What are your objectives?
- How do your OKRs align with the bigger picture?
- What tools can help you measure your success?
- What is your mission?
- What are the key results?
- How will you track your progress?
Once you have OKRs dialed in, the next step is to determine the KPIs you'll use to measure the success of those goals.
Here's what you should keep in mind when writing your OKRs.
Set realistic OKRs and stick to them
Be ambitious but realistic. After all, what good are goals if you can't stick to them? It's excellent to set stretch goals—aspirational objectives that shoot for the moon. But do so while recognizing what you can reasonably accomplish. Use them as north stars with concrete steps to reach them instead of hard-and-fast rules. The best OKRs are the ones that respond to industry trends and company goals—goals that are iterated upon to ensure their relevance.
Maybe this looks like granting yourself a buffer—if you land within a defined window of your ambitious goals, you can still consider it a success. For example, let’s say your goal is to double the monthly customer discovery calls. If you hit 80% of this goal, consider it a success.
Choose the right tools
Technology is your best friend when writing and tracking OKRs. The best tools help you stay productive and track your progress. They make it easy to document your tasks to help you reach your OKRs. In turn, this improves time management and boosts productivity. A good tool will help you set realistic and intentional goals for your workday that move you closer to achieving the big OKRs.
Break down your goals into a specific plan
OKRs need an actionable plan to achieve them. Without a plan, you'll find yourself staring at ambitious goals in the face and overwhelmed by not knowing what to do next.
How you use OKRs should revolve around the following questions:
- What changes are happening or might happen in your industry?
- Are there any personal career changes you're hoping to make?
- What is the growth trajectory of your goal?
- What are potential interruptions that could prevent you from hitting your goals?
Setting OKRs is a balance of ambition and realism. You need a complete picture of what you're working with to make smart goals.
As you're creating OKRs, think about the actionable steps to hitting those goals. Consider stakeholders, company or personal growth, potential roadblocks, and more.
Great goals are nothing without the stepping stones to achieve them.
Decide on KPIs to measure your progress
You can only expect to hit your goals if you have a way to measure your progress. There are a lot of metrics you can use, so make sure to choose the right one for you. The success you report at the end of a campaign needs to be measurable. KPIs are the most straightforward and indisputable way to showcase success.
Set your metrics from day one. Set a system to measure those metrics. Establish a cadence for checking in to see where they stand so you can iterate as needed.
Reward yourself as you hit your benchmarks
Everyone enjoys a little reward here and there. It's essential when you're working toward ambitious goals. The payoff for achieving that goal might be far away. Give yourself and your team opportunities for little wins by setting benchmarks.
Benchmarks create space for a check-in. They measure progress and recognize all the great work you're doing. The OKR process revolves around these quantitative steps. Pat yourself on the back. They're encouraging and exciting. Use them to show off how far the project is progressing. This way, you'll keep everyone engaged and invested in the outcome.
Achieve your OKRs with Sunsama
OKRs are a precise goal management strategy that helps you measure what matters. Find a balance between setting ambitious OKRs and being realistic. That’s the best way to achieve healthy productivity and work toward long-term goals. With the right tools under your belt, you can document the daily progression of your OKRs and reach your goals sooner.
The ideal OKR tools to maximize your OKR strategy focus on productive time management. This way, you can check off all your tasks in record time.
This is where Sunsama comes in. Use Sunsama’s guided daily planner as the ultimate time management tool to organize a productive day.
Sunsama is the time management tool that makes planning a prioritized day intuitive and realistic. It focuses on supporting its users to build a productive day that they can actually accomplish. You are encouraged to plan a day that works for you, reducing the mental strain that comes from organizing a schedule, setting you up for deep work and ultimate time management.
Image Description: Integrate Sunsama with the other tools in your tech stack to reduce context switching and help you stay focused on your big goals. (Sunsama Integrations)
Sunsama helps you establish healthy OKRs by:
- Encouraging realistic goals for your workday
- Prioritizing daily tasks
- Removing distractions so you can achieve deep work
- Planning a work day that include breaks as well as deep work
- Recording progress so you can report on OKR milestones
For instance, Sunsama’s Daily Planner helps you plan a realistic day based on your task list. By providing a visual representation of your day, you can easily see what you need to do, when you need to do it, and how long it will take.
For those who want extra support carrying out their to-do list, Focus Mode allows you to hyperfocus on your top priorities for the day. By eliminating distractions and providing a clear focus, you can work in a less stressful environment.
And if you're already using other project management tools like Trello or Asana, Sunsama's Drag-and-Drop feature comes in handy. With this feature, you can easily see your tasks in other tools from within Sunsama, and then drag them over to the day's calendar for easy scheduling and adjusting. This reduces context switching and helps you stay focused on your tasks.
Overall, Sunsama is a powerful productivity tool that can help you stay organized, improve your focus, and achieve measurable goals. Try Sunsama for free today to build a realistic schedule for sustainable productivity.
