The OKR platform is used to embrace organizational goals and allow each employee to see how they contribute to them. So, it is very important that everyone understands the company objectives and determines their own ones accordingly.
With the help of OKR platform, you can ensure that the goals are clear and transparent. It makes it much easier for everyone to be aware of the progress on the way to achieving goals and to take action towards it! But what about start-up companies? Can they be a part of the game? Let’s have a look first at what benefits can OKR software provide.
Improved focus and alignment: OKR software helps startups to clearly define their goals and objectives, and align them with the company’s overall vision and strategy. This can help employees to understand their roles and responsibilities, and ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals.
Enhanced transparency and accountability: OKR software provides a central platform for sharing goals, objectives, and progress, which can help to promote transparency and accountability within the organization. This can help to build trust and collaboration among team members, and ensure that everyone is working towards the same objectives.
Better decision-making: OKR software can help startups to track their progress against their goals and objectives, and provide real-time data and insights to support decision-making. This can help leaders to identify areas of success and areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions to drive the company forward.
Increased engagement and motivation: OKR software can help to engage and motivate employees by providing a clear framework for setting and tracking goals, and recognizing and rewarding achievement. This can help to create a culture of high performance, collaboration, and continuous improvement within the organization.
Improved agility and adaptability: OKR software can help startups to be more agile and adaptable, by enabling them to quickly adjust their goals and priorities in response to changes in the market or business environment. This can help them to stay ahead of the competition and seize new opportunities as they arise.
For having a more objective perspective on how beneficial OKRs can be for small busiensses, we brought together opinions of several different experts in the area. Draw your own conclusions!
Ben Lamorte
Author of “The OKRs Field Book”, OKRs.com Founder and Coach
“If your team is small enough, say <10 people, I advise that you simply have an OKRs workshop with the full team to accomplish steps 1 and 2 below in a couple hours.
Step 1: Introduce OKRs terminology and purpose
Start by introducing the OKRs process to your team and presenting 1 or 2 actual objectives and key results at the company level.
Resources:
Watch the first 30 minutes of the Google OKRs video
Step 2: Draft OKRs
It’s critical that each “team” such as sales, marketing, product, have a week to draft OKRs. If your team needs private coaching to help create OKRs, you can find coaches in the LinkedIn Group: Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)
Step 3: Finalize OKRs
Have each team present OKRs privately to the CEO for review and feedback to ensure the OKRs are aligned with the company vision. Assuming you’re a fairly small start-up, take the time to have each present and explain their OKRs to the full team for feedback. Be sure to clap after each one.
Step 4: Execute on your OKRs!
By the way, one of my mentors, told me that you should spend 50% of your time setting goals and 50% executing. It may not be quite 50-50, but I’ve never ran into anyone, especially in a start-up, who spent too much time defining clear, measurable goals.”
Omid Akhavan
OKR Coach
“Well, no company “should” use OKRs (whether it’s a startup or not) but they “could” use OKRs if it would add value for them. That is, any company that wants to use OKRs should first ask itself: “Why do we want to use OKRs? How can it help and add value for us? Are we ready to implement them? Can we commit to running them properly” Based on answers to these questions, companies can decide if it makes sense for them to use OKRs or not.
OKRs are a great match for startups mainly because of their agile nature and simplicity. In fact, many of the first OKRs adopters were startups ranging from 10–20 people up to thousands of employees.”
Hannes Albrecht
Founder of How-to-OKR.com and OKR specialist4y
“Startups are usually clear in terms of their visionary statement and their strategy (usually). Resources are super scarce and the amount of opportunities are endless. With OKRs you can make sure to use your available resources for the things which matter most. It is an investment into structure and processes. The costs to implement OKRs as an early stage startup is minimal, the framework grows with you and will become part of your DNA.”
Ben Gordon
CEO at Cambridge Capital
“How about John Doerr, the Chairman at venture capital legend Kleiner Perkins? Or Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of the second-most-valuable company in the world, Google? These leaders learned a system from Andy Grove, arguably the most important leader in the history of Silicon Valley. As CEO of Intel, Grove implemented a style of management based on objectives and key results. He formalized this system into something called OKRs. And when a young engineer named John Doerr came to work at Intel, he decided to apply that system in his next ventures.
In my company, at Cambridge Capital, we’ve looked for ways to create more accountability and alignment around our goals. OKRs are one tool for doing so. With that spirit in mind, I’m sharing with you a presentation that summarizes how OKRs work, and how we use them. See OKRS: Objectives and Key Results, by Benjamin Gordon.”
*All the expert opinions are found on Quora.com.
