Tracking of OKRs – Why Does It Matter And How To Do It?

The most formidable part of any business goal-establishing is adhering to what you’ve set to attain and keeping trace of it. As per a survey done by Staples National Business, over 80% of the business leaders feel that they fail to keep a track of their organizational objectives. Owing to these alarming statistics alone, it is safe to suggest that these two things are highly dependent on each other – tracking and accomplishment. 

Tracking of OKRs
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To set your organizational goals and keep a regular check on its progress you need to understand two things. You need to have absolute clarity around what needs to be tracked and how to measure it. This is where the okr management framework comes into the picture. Being more than just a mere goal-setting approach, it enables organizations to understand where they lag behind and where they need to improve. Being in consistent touch through OKR check-ins draws your focus on the high-impact objectives. 

..But what are OKRs? Well, OKR (Objective and Key Results) is a methodology used for facilitating organizational development and consistent workforce improvement. Objectives refer to certain objectives that your business and your teams aspire to attain. These objectives are supported by specified metrics(KRs) for measuring the team’s progress toward attaining established objectives.

Why should you consistently track your OKRs?

Tracking the progress of the OKRs weekly is crucial to reap the full benefits of the OKR program. Teams have their check-ins each week where they share the progress made on objectives. During these check-ins, your company should also discuss the upcoming strategies to keep the needle moving forward. 

Boost engagement and motivation: Seeing evidence of their contribution to the main objectives keeps everyone motivated. You will have a highly engaged workforce that shares the same vision as you. 

Fetch data: When you embrace OKR software, your organization gets access to multiple insights. These reports support your decision-making by providing you with the relevant data to make better decisions. 

Monitor the progress: Tracking the OKRs allows everyone to know where each team stands. Having this weekly provides you with the room to modify strategies without starting from scratch again. 

Best practices for tracking your organization’s OKRs

Regularly tracking your OKRs is vital if you want to drive your business towards better results. So, let us look at the best practices for doing so:

1. Have qualitative Os and quantitative KRs

Always remember that the objectives are meant to be qualitative. It should be precise and brief such as the “launch the new model of LED TVs”. On the contrary, the Key Results have to be quantitative. These should be structured in a measurable manner so that it helps to attain the objectives.

2. Determine what to measure in the KRs

Prevent adding vagueness while determining the Key Results for your organizational objectives. You and all your teams must be clear on what is being measured in the respective objective. One can measure the number of leads gained from social media, the number of people who attended the seminar, and such more.

3. Use Initiatives for driving OKRs

Initiatives refer to certain projects or larger ideas that can help in driving the OKRs ahead. Although one cannot measure the success of these initiatives in figures, their impact can be noticed in attaining OKRs. These initiatives can be fixing the time to call the prospects, writing a newsletter, or enhancing the usability of your organization’s website. 

4. Aligned objectives, key results, and initiatives

If you want your organization to gain all the benefits of using OKRs, then ensure alignment of OKRs and initiatives. When you are determining the OKRs of your teams, double-check for everything to connect and build off of each other. Not having an alignment will make the OKR approach very complicated. 

5. Update the OKR progress

You have to ensure that everyone is updating their OKR progress on regular basis. Your teams should have regular check-ins to analyze their current performance and distance from attaining objectives. These check-ins also serve as a great time to set up new priorities for the upcoming period of time. It fosters a culture of ownership and responsibility as well. 

6. Review at the end of the quarter

Make sure to conduct the company-wide review after the end of each quarter. Use this review to recognize the improvement made, highlight the aspect of enhancements and analyze how OKRs impacted the execution. These end reviews foster accountability, thereby promoting a result-driven culture.

To ensure that your organization embraces the OKR approach, it is crucial to have a robust okr tool. For more concerns and insights related to OKRs, reach out to us today

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Gaurav Sabharwal

CEO of JOP

Gaurav is the CEO of JOP (Joy of Performing), an OKR and high-performance enabling platform. With almost two decades of experience in building businesses, he knows what it takes to enable high performance within a team and engage them in the business. He supports organizations globally by becoming their growth partner and helping them build high-performing teams by tackling issues like lack of focus, unclear goals, unaligned teams, lack of funding, no continuous improvement framework, etc. He is a Certified OKR Coach and loves to share helpful resources and address common organizational challenges to help drive team performance. Read More

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