Every sector, including HR, is rapidly adopting AI in 2024. As of early 2024, about 38% of HR leaders are actively piloting or have already implemented generative AI technologies within their operations, showing a significant increase from 19% in mid-2023. This is in line with another survey where 61% of CHROs planned to invest in AI in 2024.
Daily standup meetings are a routine part of a manager’s life. They serve as an axis to keep the team well connected and in touch with each other’s role in achieving the common goal.
In the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, the world continues to embrace remote work more and more.
Some of the biggest problems a manager with remote employees face is eliminating the communication gap and daily standup meetings can be an effective way to deal with it.
A standup meeting can also help a manager in improving remote employee engagement and increasing productivity besides removing barriers to communication.
All you need to do is follow certain tips to ensure that you derive maximum value from the time you spend in your daily standup meetings.
In this article, we set out to explore what exactly is a daily standup meeting, how it can make a difference to your remote team and what you can do to make it more effective and engaging.
So, let’s begin.
What is a daily standup meeting?
In an agile team, a daily standup meeting is where the team gets together every day for a specific time to discuss the daily progress and the plan to be followed.
As the name suggests, people often do not sit down in this meeting to avoid long discussion, stress on the urgency and keep the meeting straight-to-the-point and time-bound.
It is supposed to last for 15 minutes and addresses three main questions
What has been achieved?
What remains to be done?
Are there any issues that are hampering the completion of a task?
Why are daily-standup meetings vital in remote work?
The purpose of a daily standup meeting is to keep everyone on the same page which becomes even more important when you are managing a remote team.
In a regular office scenario, team members can walk up to each other to clear doubts and are aware of the real-time updates which cannot happen in a remote work setup.
Hence, a standup meeting serves as a tool to address issues collectively and improve transparency amongst team members.
A team with remote employees, however, may have members distributed over different geographical locations.
The absence of physical proximity makes communication and coordination more complex with remote employees.
Thus, the role of standup meetings expand and become more essential.
In a remote work environment, standup meetings become a focal point of bringing the whole team together daily and discuss action items, strategies and blockers on a common platform for better synergy.
Mostly, a standup meeting is the only time when the remote employees are present with other team members in the same capacity.
It keeps them in the loop and more connected.
Difference between daily standup and status update meeting
Their difference lies in the question they aim to answer.
In a status update meeting, the main concern is – “How much work has been completed?”
But, in a daily standup meeting, the core theme is – “What is your action plan for the day?”
A status update meeting focuses on the progress of the deliverables whereas a daily standup meeting aims to improve planning and achieve maximum team collaboration.
A status update meeting helps a manager in knowing what an individual employee has completed up to a point of time.
A daily standup meeting, on the other hand, concentrates upon how a team can achieve its goals together and the roadblocks the team is focusing on.
A status update meeting wants to know the results whereas a daily standup meeting aims to understand the future course of action.
Benefits of daily standup meetings for remote employees
Besides the advantages of flexibility and freedom, remote work also ushers in a set of unique challenges.
Lack of coordination and miscommunication happen to be some of the problems that remote employees face.
But, they’re only the tip of the iceberg.
There’re many intricate issues that a remote employee may face which are completely different from that of a regular office-going employee.
A daily standup meeting can help a manager streamline a lot of them. Here’s how –
1 Helps in building team rapport
One of the major challenges of remote work is lack of human connection.
The lack of personal connection and acquaintance may cause major obstacles and hamper interpersonal coordination.
A daily standup meeting allows the entire team to be present at the same time on the same platform even if it’s virtual.
Your remote employees will get a chance to interact with other team members and learn more about them.
2 Removes roadblocks
For a remote employee, their manager is their immediate and often the first point of contact for every issue they may be facing.
Some of the problems can easily be solved with the help of a fellow team member instead of reaching out to you directly.
However, remote employees are not acquainted enough with their teammates and are reluctant to contact them.
A daily standup gives them a chance to get to know the entire team and helps them get familiar with other employees’ personalities and skills.
It also eases their hesitation in approaching others and they may even solve many problems with their team member’s help rather than approaching you for every single issue.
3 Encourages knowledge transfer
Your remote employees work independently and depend upon their knowledge, research and your guidance for learning and execution of their task.
In a shared workspace, team members tend to consult each other and rely on each other’s expertise to get things done.
There will always be an Alex who’s great at excel or a Tina who can make a presentation look better with a few tweaks.
A remote employee might not get the opportunity to know either Alex or Tina without a daily standup meeting.
When every employee shares their issues on a common platform, they may be able to find help or suggestions from another team member.
This exchange will encourage the transfer of valuable information and strengthen your team.
4 Improved coordination
A daily standup meeting will ensure that all your direct reports are aware of the progress and the upcoming action plan.
This way everyone is aware of the responsibilities and there’s no scope of miscommunication or confusion.
Increased transparency and better communication lead to maximum coordination and saving of time.
5 Instill a recognition of shared goals
Often, remote employees become isolated and estranged from the organizational goals.
They know that they’re expected to deliver 5 articles, or deploy the code, or provide 5 designs by the end of the period.
However, they don’t know how it contributes to the company and how it affects the overall process.
In a daily standup mee
ting, they get a complete view of the bigger picture and where they stand in it.
It instils a sense of belonging and helps them realize where they fit in the puzzle.
This knowledge of their work’s importance will boost their morale and will make them feel included.
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How can daily stand-up meetings help in remote employee engagement?
Due to the precautions being taken up after the Coronavirus outbreak, the number of remote employees will rise inevitably.
A research by Gartner reveals that 74% of CFOs are planning to shift a considerable number of their employees to remote work permanently.
While this move opens up new avenues to retain and hire diverse talent, it also poses the challenge of re-imagining the strategies to keep remote employees engaged and well-coordinated.
In a traditional workplace, daily standup meetings have been playing the role of channelizing better management among the team.
As a manager, you already know the ropes of conducting these meetings in a way that they are productive, engaging and interesting.
With the shift in workplace dynamics, you will have to accommodate remote employees and ensure that they are well-represented in the meeting.
Here’re a few tips that can help you out.
Tips for productive & engaging daily standup meetings for remote teams
1 Decide a fixed time
The reason why we have a standup meeting is to inculcate a routine of accountability, discipline and concrete planning in our team.
And, this is why you must decide upon a fixed time to conduct it every day.
If you change the time often, it will lead to confusion, delay and late arrival or absence of many employees.
With fixed time, your entire team will become habitual and will embrace it in their daily routine.
Ideally, a daily standup meeting should happen either at the beginning or the end of the day.
A standup meeting at the start of the workday helps in planning the day while the one at the end helps in preparing your employees for what to expect the next day.
In case, your remote employees are working from another timezone, you will need to ensure that they’re comfortable with the time.
Remember, a daily standup meeting will garner positive results only if all your team members are present; including your remote employees.
Pro tip: Send out a calendar invite which includes a link to the virtual meeting and use the same link daily.
This will help all your direct reports in finding the meeting link every day without having to contact you or someone else.
2 Decide upon tech tools
Now that your team has remote employees, you are more likely to conduct the daily standup meeting virtually.
Thus, it becomes important to have the right tech tools for your support.
For a daily standup meeting, you will require the following kind of tools –
A video conferencing tool like Skype or Google meet
A task management tool to keep a note of all the action items
An easy-to-use screen sharing mechanism
Make sure that everyone agrees on the tools decided upon and have no technical difficulties in accessing them.
It’s a good idea to have a trial run with your team including your remote employees before you finalize on the time and the tech tools for your daily standup meeting.
Pro tip: Use an online meeting software that can help you keep track of all the action items, take notes and set reminder for follow-ups.
3 Have a fixed set of questions
A daily standup meeting is a routine get-together for your team where they discuss their action plan.
Having a fixed set of questions saves your discussion from elongating unnecessarily with distraction and surprises.
It also helps your direct reports in prioritizing their tasks and understanding what’s more important at every juncture.
Your daily questions could be as follows –
How do you feel today?
What did you work on yesterday?
What do you plan to do for today?
Any challenges/roadblocks?
You could also include a few ice-breaker questions in your initial daily standup meetings to help remote employees gel with other team members.
You could ask them to introduce themselves and let each other know about their roles in the team.
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4 Give every team member a chance to speak
The structure of a daily standup meeting requires every team member to be participative.
So, you’re responsible for ensuring that all of your direct reports get ample opportunity to discuss their plans especially the remote employees.
A standup meeting with remote employees will need a different approach.
You may begin in the order with seniority to familiarize new joiners and remote employees with the structure of the meeting.
Or you may even segregate the order based on the roles. For example, the developers begin the meeting followed by the design and the content team.
Moreover, it is important to stick to the same order for a few weeks before reshuffling to avoid confusion at the beginning of every meeting.
5 Keep it short but be flexible
Generally, a standup meeting is time-boxed and is supposed to last for 15-20 minutes.
However, a lot of this time limit depends on the size of your team.
Also, a team with remote employees should have some room for technical issues like connectivity, screen sharing and voice clarity.
However, the golden rule of a standup meeting remains the same in every case – as short as possible.
As you already have a pre-decided set of questions, the discussion will start to become concise after a few initial meetings.
But if there’s any pressing issue that surfaces during the standup meeting with a particular employee, you should decide to take it up after the meeting instead of keeping everyone on the call.
6 Share major updates
If there’s an important announcement or update in a project, try to share it in your daily standup meeting.
Your daily standup meeting will be
come the hub of communication and will have the presence of all of your direct reports including your remote employees.
If you share any updates here, it will reach everyone in your team at the same time and make your remote employees feel included.
Furthermore, it keeps everyone in sync about the events and happenings in the organization and eliminates any chance of missing out.
7 Encourage cross-personal interactions
In a daily standup meeting, your remote employees get a chance to speak to their counterparts at least once in a day.
You can harness this opportunity to encourage discussion within the team and get them acquainted with each other.
Say you have a remote employee Laura who’s facing an issue in preparing reports.
And, you also have another employee Patrick who’s a pro at it.
During the standup meeting, you can set both of them up for a separate call to resolve this problem.
By doing this, you will not just save time but will also help your remote employee in engaging and interacting with the team.
Team building is very important for achieving consensus on important matters in the smooth execution of tasks.
This step of initiating a conversation will improve team coordination drastically and the next time, your employees may even contact each other directly for support.
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8 Keep a note
Documenting the discussion in a daily standup meeting is essential as it serves as a basis of future actions and strategy making.
Ideally, it’s a manager’s responsibility to keep everything noted.
However, you can also assign this task to your remote employees to ensure that they’re engaged in the discussion.
This responsibility will also give them a chance to establish contact with everyone as they will pay attention to everyone’s discussion and send the pointers across.
What happens in a daily standup meeting can become a catalyst to better engagement of remote employees if used properly.
Closing thought
The best way to keep your remote employees engaged is to communicate more and keep them aligned with the common goal.
With a daily standup meeting, you can provide them with an opportunity to converse with the entire team and keep a track of what’s happening in the organization.
As they get daily reports of what their teammates are doing, they will also be able to assess their performance, find solutions to their issues and improve their visibility.
So, before you try out new-age methods to manage your remote employees, you must implement trusted methods like a daily standup meeting.
With the above tips in mind, you will be able to start a collaborative culture and better communication with your remote team.
What stood out is the deep understanding of the Peoplebox.ai team and their willingness to listen & enhance the platform to scale with our long-term needs.
Khilan Haria
VP and Head of Payments Product, Razorpay
I'm glad that we partnered with Peoplebox.ai for our company-wide OKR rollout. Thanks to its simplicity, we achieved significant adoption within two quarters
Rohit Arumugam
Business Head, Nova Benefits
Since we started using Peoplebox.ai, we have been able to bring all of our leadership across the organization together and show them how all of our goals align
Jaclyn Hoover
Senior Director HR, Propel School
Driving the entire interface through slack is simply brilliant especially for a tech product company! There was zero time spent on training! It can not get easier than that!
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VP - HR, Khatabook
I chose Peoplebox.ai because it had integrations with the tools we use for sales and engineering to automate updating of key results and sync projects
How to Roll Out OKRs for First Time: 7 Steps Startegy
How to Roll out OKRs for the first time is a question common among organizations just introducing OKRs.
Imagine a scenario-
You are rolling out OKR for the first time.
One thing goes wrong and… Boom!
Your employees are already hating the process- even before it took a pace.
You certainly wouldn’t want that to happen in your organization. OKRs can surcharge and accelerate your organizational growth. But the key is to get this done right.
That’s why a well-planned rollout is significant for the success of an OKR system.
Introduce the new goal-setting approach strategically but not in a mechanical process. Every organization is unique and can face unique challenges while implementing OKRs.
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How to roll out OKRs: Here are 7 Best Practices for a successful OKR rollout
1 Communicate the OKR Methodology to all the teams
Get everyone in the organization on board with OKRs. Present the concept clearly and precisely. Educate everyone on the OKR language.
While some people will embrace the changes with open arms, there are also going to be some skeptics into the bargain. You must let them express their concerns and provide answers to their “why, how, and what?” questions.
Explain to them the benefits of implementing the OKR framework. Highlight how it’s going to impact the business and the individual success of the employees.
Organize workshops, training, discussions, introductory presentations, and seminars to help your employees’ design quality OKRs. Transparently explain to them the strategic execution, alignment, expectations, and tools they will be required to use for the purpose.
To help everyone speak the same language, document your company OKR framework
2 Inspire with success stories
List the names of reputed companies like Google, Netflix, Intel, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. which have successfully implemented OKRs. Narrate their success stories to help them visualize how OKRs can cater to their individual success.
For example, OKRs helped LinkedIn become a 20 Billion Company. Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, describes OKRs as, “something you want to accomplish over a specific period of time that leans toward a stretch goal rather than a stated plan.
It’s something where you want to create greater urgency, greater mindshare.”
You can either go for an organization-wide rollout Consider running an OKR Pilot first, depending on what fits you best.
If you have a culture that’s open to change and a flexible structure of functioning, an organization-wide rollout will work best for you. But it’s always best to take small steps. Start from one part and gradually move to others.
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Crafting and implementing OKRs across the entire organization can seem overwhelming especially if you are a large organization. Instead, choose a particular part of the organization and run a pilot project.
“If you concentrate on small, manageable steps you can cross unimaginable distances.”
It’s also important to decide “how often?” will OKRs be reviewed. Will it be done quarterly or annually?
4 Go for the Top-down approach
A top-down approach to OKRs was the first pattern attempted. The top management has a significant role in setting the overall direction of the company. Starting from the top provides clarity for the rest of the organization.
“People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.”
For example, you can start with the senior leadership team. Make them an example to roll out OKRs to the departmental heads. From there you can move on to team leaders, and to the rest of your teams.
5 Get aligned
You can’t just sit with a blank sheet in front and magically start crafting the perfect OKRs. You need to understand the context. Make the company mission and vision your starting point and tailor your OKRs accordingly.
Buy-ins are critical for OKR success. The success of OKRs depends on the collective effort of each team member. You can imagine it as a group dance performance where everyone needs to perform their parts well to make it a masterpiece.
Thus you need to align the efforts of the workforce, executive leaders, and company heads both horizontally and vertically. This will help you foster transparency, smooth cross-functional communication, and reduce overlap among departments.
6 Track and monitor progress
Tracking OKRs are important to evaluate and measure the progress and understand which teams are falling short.
You can identify any issues and make course corrections as required by Monitoring progress.
Leverage technology to track OKRs. It will make the process transparent.
Using OKR software will also automate the calculations and save your time as you are no longer required to manually update the progress of each team member.
Bonus tip: Remember to celebrate whenever you Hit the nail on the head through OKR win meetings and shoutouts to keep
7 Do frequent check-ins
To stay on top of OKR progress, you need to do regular check-ins. Employees might feel overwhelmed with concerns and doubts, especially in the initial days.
Regular check-ins will give your employees direction. And provide them the required assistance and guidance. Frequent Check-in meetings will also identify the overlappings, increase accountability and ensure execution.
Define your preferred frequency of Check-in meetings. You can do it weekly or monthly as per your organization’s needs. Although weekly check-ins are most recommended to keep track of the progress and evaluate continuously.
Have OKR Champions
Consider having OKR champion who starts implementing the OKR framework with a strong war cry. Build a team of champions who will work as ambassadors to head the change. And make the OKR framework run smoothing across the organization.
They work as mentors and internal OKR experts. And can help you adopt and execute OKRs at all levels of the organization. These OKR enthusiasts will make sure that every concern is addressed, every ‘whys and wherefores’ are explained.
Too many objectives and key results: Less is more. Don’t set more than 5-7 Objectives and 3-5 key results.
Fill it, Forget it: Don’t set OKRs just to forget in a few days.
Mixing KPIs with OKRs: KPIs aren’t a substitution for OKRs. They have separate roles and outcomes.
Rigidity: Rigid adherence to rules can lead to disengagement. Instead, move forward with a flexible and intuitive OKR approach
Link OKRs with Recognition: Don’t make the mistake of making OKRs a base for your reward and recognition program. It can negatively affect performance. And compromises the business output.
The start is never perfect
You might struggle when you are just starting. But after a few OKR cycles, you are sure to hit your stride.
To end, OKR’s success depends on consistency. So, remember to continuously reflect, learn, and refine the process.
Hope we were able to answer all your queries in our blog How to roll out OKRs for the first time? If you have questions feel free to comment below.
Pooja Pooja
Types of OKRs: Aspirational OKRs vs Committed OKRs
Every organization wants to grow, but how do you set goals that are both achievable and visionary? The answer lies in the types of OKRs: committed and aspirational.
Whether it’s near-term performance or long-term innovation for your business, you’ll know just how to leverage the power of committed and aspirational OKRs effectively to unlock new levels of success for your business.
Committed OKRs are about clear, attainable targets that teams can confidently deliver within a set timeframe. This type of OKR delivers accountability and is important for day-to-day business success.
Aspirational OKRs, on the other hand; push teams to be bigger and challenge themselves. The moonshots: ambitious OKRs are meant to stretch an organization from its comfort zone, kindling innovation and long-term growth.
In the rest of this blog, we will take the difference between these two types of OKR apart and see how to balance them in such a way that they enable performance as well as inspiration.
What are Aspirational OKRs and Other Types of OKRs?
A committed OKR is a stretch goal that the team has to achieve or complete before the cycle is over. A committed goal pushes the team to reach, but still achievable attainment. All metrics of the Key Results must be completed fully and on time. Consider a situation like this:
Daniel’s organization and his teams have agreed to execute certain OKRs and have mapped a precise action plan on how they are going to do so.
These are called Committed OKRs.
An aspirational OKR sets the bar for success further out, and by design will exceed a team’s ability to execute in a given quarter. When they set such a high bar as to be seemingly impossible they are called 10x goals, or “moonshots.” While most aspirational OKRs are never fully achieved, they exist to push a team to think bigger than a committed OKR. Consider the following case:
Martha’s organization is more visionary. They have stretched goals. And her teams are not likely to fully achieve these ambitious goals.
These are called Aspirational OKRs.
Understanding the distinction between aspirational and committed goals is crucial for effective goal-setting and team motivation within the OKR framework. Aspirational goals encourage ambitious thinking and long-term vision, while committed goals focus on immediate, measurable outcomes.
Learning OKR focuses on the acquisition of knowledge, new skills, or insights rather than a direct achievement of business outputs. Extremely helpful when entering new areas or uncertainties and requires experimenting, learning, and developing new skills, Learning OKRs distinguish between usual output measuring of success and measuring acquisition of knowledge, that will later add value for future objectives. For example:
Jerry wants to gain a deep understanding of machine learning to drive full product development. He wants to finish three advanced courses and test his skills by building a model in sandbox.
These are called Learning OKRs.
Aspirational OKRs and Committed OKRs: Key differences
When you aim for the stars, you may come up short, but still reach the moon.
– Larry Page
Read on to find out the key difference between Committed OKRs and Aspirational OKRs.
Objective
Aspirational OKRs are meant to push the boundaries and encourage employees to achieve visionary objectives. Committed OKRs, on the other hand, focus on committed objectives that offer a more realistic vision of goals with fully achievable results.
Aim
Committed OKRs help companies achieve their goals through individual and team achievements. Aspirational OKRs are often beyond the current capacities of the organization but help in pushing boundaries.
Timeframe
Aspirational OKRs are usually created to focus on long-term strategic vision while Committed OKRs offer short-term operational priorities to guarantee progress in the short term.
Committed OKRs are supposed to have a 100% success rate as each key result comprises fully achievable targets. Aspirational OKRs are usually found to have a success rate of 60-70%.
Committed and Aspirational OKR examples
The difference between committed and aspirational OKRs is subtle. Committed objectives are meant to be fully achievable, requiring teams to concentrate on straightforward priorities without taking unnecessary risks, ultimately serving as motivational tools to foster small wins and consistent progress.
A standard example in the sales team scenario might be like:
Committed OKR
O: Expand to the US market
KR1: Close first 6 start-ups
KR2: Get a meeting-to-close rate of 6%
KR3: Reach average deal size of $200
Aspirational OKR
O: Capture the entire US market in one quarter
KR1: Get onboard 95% of big customers in the US market to grow over competitors
KR2: Get a meeting-to-close rate of 30%
KR3: Reach average deal size of $2000
In the managerial team, these OKRs can manifest like such:
Committed OKR
O: Improve customer satisfaction with the existing solutions
KR1: Increase customer satisfaction score (CSAT) from 85% to 90% by the end of the quarter.
KR2: Reduce average response time from 15 minutes to 10 minutes within the next three months.
KR3: Train 100% of the support team on the new customer service tools within six weeks.
Aspirational OKR
O: Become the market leader in AI-powered customer service solutions.
KR1: Achieve a 30% market share in the AI customer service industry by the end of next year.
KR2: Launch three groundbreaking AI features that no competitor currently offers within 18 months.
KR3: Secure a partnership with at least two top-tier companies by the end of next year.
In a tech context, OKRs like these can come up:
Committed OKR
O: Improve the performance of the app and reliability
KR1: Reduce app crash rate from 2.5% to under 1% within the next quarter.
KR2: Decrease page load times by 30% in six months.
KR3: Fix 100% of the top ten reported bugs within the next two sprints.
Aspirational OKR
O: Revolutionize the user experience of our mobile app.
KR1: Increase daily active users (DAU) by 100% within 12 months.
KR2: Develop and launch a fully AI-driven recommendation system that personalizes the user experience by the end of the year.
KR3: Achieve a 4.8+ rating across app stores by introducing five innovative features within the next 18 months.
How to decide between Committed OKRs and Aspirational OKRs?
Committed OKRs will work best if your organization is newly introduced to the framework or is still in the rolling-out phase.
With each goal achieved, your team’s motivation and engagement will rise higher. In addition, teams easily get into the habit of running Committed OKRs and make it part of their work culture.
But if you have already used the framework in the past, aspirational OKRs can do wonders for you.
Creating a result-driven work culture takes time. It demands discipline, continuous effort, and a mindset shift of employees and management. So you should start simple and focus on learning the methodology first. And set up the necessary processes to make it work.
Setting aspirational OKRs in the very beginning would make your teams feel overwhelmed and over-pressurized. Extremely ambitious Key Results soon become too much to handle. Learning a new methodology takes time. Once your teams are used to the framework and it becomes a part of their work-life, you can consider aspirational OKRs.
With the later process, you can have objectives and a combination of committed and aspirational key results. While some key results will be easier to achieve, others will aim higher. Understanding the distinction between aspirational and committed goals is crucial for better goal-setting and team motivation.
Choosing the Right Type of OKRs
Choosing the right type of OKRs depends on the organization’s goals, culture, and priorities. Committed OKRs are suitable for organizations that need to achieve specific, measurable outcomes within a set timeframe. They are ideal for teams that require a clear direction and a sense of accountability. Aspirational OKRs, on the other hand, are suitable for organizations that want to drive innovation, creativity, and excellence. They are ideal for teams that want to push the boundaries and strive for something bigger.
When choosing between Committed and Aspirational OKRs, consider the following factors:
What are the organization’s goals and priorities?
What type of culture do we want to foster?
What kind of outcomes do we want to achieve?
What level of risk are we willing to take?
By considering these factors, organizations can choose the right type of OKRs that align with their goals, culture, and priorities. Whether you opt for committed or aspirational OKRs, the key is to ensure that they are aligned with your company aims and internal communication processes, fostering a balanced approach to achieving both immediate and long-term objectives.
How to balance Committed and Aspirational OKRs?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer, but where OKRs are aligned with company strategy, teams are well educated, open communication exists, and performance is reviewed regularly, it will help keep the balance between aspirational and committed OKRs intact.
However, the first step in finding equilibrium between the two forms of OKRs is that there has to be a knowledge of the difference. It needs to be apparent from the outset that everyone involved makes it clear the distinction between the two OKRs.
Teams and employees may have suitable insights that will assist in determining what is realistically achievable (committed) and what is a stretch but possible (aspirational). This can help determine what the balance ratio for the OKRs is going to be.
A very critical element to succeed with OKRs is reviewing and tracking the progress. With weekly check-ins, teams can go through their OKRs regularly and update the same performance data. It becomes easy to track how they have progressed on the outcome of the OKR in the OKR review process.
The grading of OKRs is very clear on the distinction between committed and aspirational goals. Committed OKRs are things to be accomplished within the cycle, and grading is binary: pass or fail. That is, an OKR is said to be successful if 100% of it is accomplished; otherwise, it is regarded as a failure. Aspirational OKRs, on the other hand, are graded along a more nuanced scale.
Common mistakes to avoid while setting up Aspirational OKRs
Here are 6 common mistakes organizations commit while setting up aspirational OKRs-
1️⃣Ignoring organizational structure and needs
A common mistake most organizations commit while writing aspirational OKRs is to write something like, “What can be done more if we have extra resources and luck favors us ?” Instead, you can pretend to be a genie and strive to understand “What our customer needs at present moment?”
2️⃣Unrealistic aspirational OKRs
Aspirational OKRs don’t imply setting unrealistic goals. It should be achievable, with the understanding that your teams won’t have any clue about how to achieve these OKRs. Aspirational OKRs demand overuse of resources. They are fluid and flexible. But still helps your teams focus on well-defined goals.
3️⃣Writing a low-value objective (LVO)
Moving forward with a “Who cares?” attitude is a common pitfall among organizations. Low-value objectives go unnoticed even after the successful completion of the key results.
4️⃣OKRs should be framed to gain tangible benefit
OKRs are a tool for organizations to work for big goals in the long run by breaking them into small chunks that can be achieved within a shorter cycle.
5️⃣A committed OKR must deliver a 1.0
It makes the framework stiff and doesn’t leave scope for improvement.
6️⃣Too many OKRs
How many aspirational OKRs you should set for one cycle will depend on your company’s resources. But never aim for too many Objectives and key results. As it can easily divert your focus altogether.
Best Practices for Implementing OKRs
Implementing OKRs requires a structured approach to ensure success. Here are some best practices to consider:
Align OKRs with company goals: Ensure that OKRs align with the organization’s overall goals and priorities.
Make OKRs specific and measurable: Ensure that OKRs are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).
Set ambitious yet achievable goals: Set goals that are challenging yet achievable, and provide a clear direction for the team.
Establish clear key results: Establish clear key results that indicate progress towards achieving the objective.
Track progress regularly: Track progress regularly and provide feedback to teams and individuals.
Foster a culture of transparency and accountability: Foster a culture of transparency and accountability, where teams and individuals are held accountable for their progress.
Provide training and support: Provide training and support to teams and individuals to ensure they understand the OKR framework and how to use it effectively.
Review and adjust OKRs regularly: Review and adjust OKRs regularly to ensure they remain relevant and aligned with the organization’s goals.
By following these best practices, organizations can implement OKRs effectively and achieve their goals. Regularly reviewing and adjusting OKRs ensures that they stay aligned with the evolving needs of the organization, helping teams to maintain focus and drive continuous improvement.
Conclusion
Now that you know the difference between committed and aspirational OKRs and how they can impact your organization’s success, it’s the decision time. Choose the one that will best suit your purpose.
And don’t forget it’s a trial and error method. Have regular OKR check-ins and reviews. Collect feedback during and after each cycle. And use your learnings to avoid further mistakes in the next OKR cycle.
Pooja Pooja
Quarterly OKRs: 5 Tips for Successful Wrap-Up
Imagine a scene! the quarter is about to end and it’s time to review and wrap up quarterly OKRs.
The clock’s ticking. Everyone is in a rush. And you are busy evaluating which goals are yet to be achieved. And what has already been done. It’s also time to think about your priorities for the next quarter.
There are so many checklists and questions going in your head.
Have my teams found ways of closing out quarterly OKRs? Will my teams beat the clock and tick all the boxes? Have they reflected on their OKR progress? How will I deal with this end-of-quarter OKRs rush?
Feeling overwhelmed!!
Here is a step by step guide to help you prepare best to wrap up your quarterly OKRs–
Before you start to review and wrap up quarterly OKRs- remember that wrapping up quarterly OKRs is teamwork. And to see the best results every team irrespective of their department have to come together.
Track your team’s OKR progress and gather the key results scores. You can score your OKRs on a scale of 1 to 10 on the basis of how far the objectives have been achieved.
This will help you evaluate your progress in a truly data-driven manner.
If the scores are low this might suggest that your OKRs were unrealistic. On the other hand, if the score is too high it may suggest that your OKRs were not ambitious enough.
Whatever learning you made from this process. It will help you to form the basis for designing your next set of quarterly OKRs.
Make sure everyone is up to date
It is important to ensure that your teams have clarity about their OKR status. At the same time, they have visibility into what other teams have been doing. It can be achieved through regular check-ins with your teams. Check this ebook on OKR handbook.
This step will help you check if your teams are aligned or not. When everyone in your team is on the same page taking decisions based on priorities becomes easy. As you have the data in hand to rely on instead of guessing.
Organize OKR check-ins
The importance of check-ins for OKR success cannot be emphasized enough. OKR check-ins provide you an opportunity to have 1 on 1 discussion in all OKR matters.
With OKR check-ins you can discuss with your leaders and team members about – what went well, what didn’t work for them, what needs to be dealt with immediately, what problems they are facing etc. at an individual as well as team level.
OKR check-ins will help you understand what’s holding teams back. You will further get the chance to push priorities that might have shifted midway.
Dig into opportunities
Organize Quarterly OKRs review meetings to dig into opportunities. During these meetings, go through each key result with your teams. Find out what went well and what needs to be done better.
Let the OKR leaders from each team present their learnings and achievements before everyone. Here teams can give a small presentation highlighting the most important lessons with context.
So that other teams can benefit from their learnings and experiences. And use them in designing their OKRs for the next quarter.
If you are a large-scale company working with multiple departments. The OKR review meetings can be held at the departmental level.
Plan the future
Now that you have gathered the data and matrix you need through OKR check-ins and OKR review meetings. It’s high time to plan for the next quarter.
OKRs have the power to build the future of your organization. But OKR failures can cost you a fortune.
Hence it’s important to find out the core reasons behind your OKR success or failure for the present quarter. And use it as context while designing OKRs for the next quarter.
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Do you need to plan new OKRs every quarter?
“Should OKRs change every quarter?” is a question often left unanswered.
Even after an OKR is achieved, you can roll it forward for the next quarter if necessary.
For example, if your OKR was to increase customer satisfaction by 20% in the present quarter. This could be relevant even for the next few quarters.
In case, of missed OKRs, you need to take a call. And decide whether you want to carry it forward or set new OKRs based on the data gathered.
When should you review and wrap up Quarterly OKRs
You should preferably wrap up the quarterly OKRs at least a week prior to the beginning of the next quarter.
But the preparation and discussions for the next quarter should be initiated almost a month before the new quarter begins. This is because designing OKRs takes dedication, time, and effort.
Bonus Tips:
Maintain Transparency from day one. Keep data transparent so that everyone knows how it’s going.
Create a culture of critical feedback. Be honest when it comes to feedback. At the same time be open to getting feedback from your teams as well.
Celebrate wins– even the smallest ones. Recognize your teams for their achievements more often.
Over-communicate. Communication is the key when it comes to wrapping up quarterly OKRs.
Take a moment
Wrapping up end-of-quarter OKRs will allow you to pause and take a moment to think. It provides you time to reflect on your wins, failures, and setbacks. It’s a stitch in time to make sure that your OKR framework is a success.
Follow the steps given to close out quarterly OKRs and make the most out of the process.
