How to Create OKRs from Scratch: A Definitive Guide for Owners and Managers

First and foremost, what are OKRs? They stand for “Objectives and Key Results” and they’re  used as a way to set company-wide goals. Objectives describe where you want your company to be in the future; these could look like “expanding our customer base worldwide” or “increasing product quality.” OKRs are what you reach for, the result you want to achieve. Key Results, on the other hand, are specific metrics by which success will be measured against your OKR.

For example, increasing product quality might have an OKR of “Ensuring that no more than three defective pieces are manufactured per 10000 pieces”. OKRs are public within the company. This means that everyone knows what everyone else is working on, and it builds trust between team members.

How can you start using OKRs if you don’t have any previous experience with them?

The first step is to define your OKRS. You need a list of Objectives for where you want your company/team to be in the future (“expanding our customer base worldwide” or “increasing product quality”). Then you should define a series of Key Results for achieving those objectives. Each OKR should have both Objective and Key Results. For example, the OKRs could be “Expand our customer base worldwide by 5% within three months” and “Increase sales revenue by $2,000 every month.”

Once you’ve defined your OKRs, it’s time to share them with others on your team. Your OKRs should serve as guidelines for all of your employees. Everyone needs to know what everyone else is working on because this helps build trust between co-workers and boosts productivity.

In order for OKRs to work efficiently, you have to track your progress towards OKRs regularly and revise them when necessary. This means having team meetings where progress is discussed and any problems with reaching objectives are addressed. “If something changes in your environment (positively or negatively), you need to adjust your OKR accordingly.”

At this point, OKRs should be working for you and your team. OKR software such as Huminos can help you set OKRs for teams or individuals, track progress towards OKRs, share OKRs with others, and even automatically create reminders of OKRs.

Now, let’s take a look at some OKR examples:

Setting OKRS for an individual:

An example of an OKR for a business consultant would be “Achieve sales of $1 million within 3 months.” The overall objective here is to increase sales but your key results must define it with numbers that should track your overall progress. The key results could be certain activities quantified in a fashion to achieve the overall objectives such as making x number of phone calls and achieving y number of sales qualified leads.

You will have a better understanding if you look at the example below.

Setting OKRS for a team:

An example of OKRs for a sales team might include the following objectives and key results: 

Objective: Increase sales by 30% within three months

key results:

• Key result #1: Reach out to 30 potential new clients every week.

• Key result #2: Make 1000 phone calls a week.

• Key result #3: Negotiate and close 15 new clients a month.

• Key result #4: Grow our customer list by 30% within three months.

• Key result #5: Increase average team’s response time by 20%.

How can OKRs help you achieve your goals? 

OKRs are a way to set company or team-wide goals that everyone knows about and can work towards. They help people clearly see what their co-workers are working on and let employees track their progress towards OKRs. 

OKRs have a few benefits: 

• OKRs can be used to measure performance.

•  OKRs can bring clarity to an organization’s goals.

• OKRs promote coordination between departments within a company or different teams.

• OKRs can keep everyone focused on the same goals at the same time.

• OKRs help employees focus on what matters the most.

Watch how you can use huminos to set-up your OKRs with easy clicks:

Tracking the progress of your OKRs

When you set goals for your team, it’s important to make them achievable and timely. Otherwise the OKR system won’t work as well because people will get frustrated if they don’t see any progress in weeks or months even though there is plenty going on internally at their own level!

Conclusion:

Remember that setting effective OKRs takes time and practice – it’s not something that can be perfected overnight. But with a bit of effort, you’ll be able to create a system that works for you and helps you reach your business goals.

About Huminos

Huminos is a comprehensive performance conversations platform that helps your employees to achieve impactful outcomes, even if they are working remotely. Features like OKRs, 1:1 conversations, feedbacks, reflections, and pulse allow you to plan and measure work that really matters to your company.

Get a FREE 14-day trial of the Huminos OKR software to understand how well it fits your business needs.