The power of OKR is NOT the framework

Too many people focus on the framework, the rules. And who likes rules?

‍OKR is two different things: 

1. It’s a way to formulate an ambition that you have.
2. It’s a framework for managing goals.

Ignore the framework. The framework is a set of rules, best practices, that will help you manage goals successfully across an organization.

You should be pragmatic about how you apply these rules. Use the ones that you believe will actually help you, ignore everything else.

For example:

• Some cultures don’t like stretch goals — goals that you’re almost never able to achieve. No problem. There’s really no need to have crazy ambitious Key Results when it doesn’t fit your organization.
• Others find quarterly goals too frequent (think of schools or non profits). Fine, use a trimester, bi-annual, or annual cadence for your OKRs.

The power of OKR is NOT the framework. It’s the approach to formulating an ambition that you have.

That ambition could be anything — an improvement that you wish to implement, a problem that you need to fix, or an innovation that you hope to realize.

The problem is that most people are very output oriented. You’ll primarily hear your co-workers talk about all the things that they need to do, the projects that they’re working on. But, for businesses, the truth is that it’s not what you do that matters, it’s the results that you achieve. Not many will care about that new website that you launched, if that website isn’t performing better than the previous one. 

OKRs force you to shift your attention to the desired outcomes of what you do. It’s just a layer on top of your projects that keeps track of the results — the outcomes — that you’re hoping to achieve.

It’s really simple:

• Your projects and tasks translate to Initiatives.
• The Key Results are the results (outcomes) that you’re hoping to achieve.
• The Objective is a short statement that captures the ambition that you have.

Here’s a simple example:

• "I'm going to the gym twice a week." → Initiative
  • "Ok great. Why?"
• "I want to lose weight."
  • "How much?"
• "Hmm… I want to lose like 10kg." → Key Result
  • "Why is that important to you?"
• "I want to be healthy again." → Objective
  
  

You’ll have a lot more clarity now.

In businesses, where many people work together, such clarity is critical. It ensures that what people work on is actually relevant.

If you have no ambitions for your company, you won’t have any projects, and you don’t need OKRs. But if you do have all sorts of projects going on, then tracking the desired outcomes for these projects is crucial.

If you don’t like the labels ‘Objective’ and ‘Key Result’, then use whatever labels you prefer. In Perdoo, you’ll soon be able to customize the terminology.