We’ve all been there: you set some long-term OKRs at the beginning of the year, and they seem totally reasonable at the time… until quarter two rolls around and your team has some lofty goals they need to crush in order to meet their quarterly OKRs.
While you could scale back on your long-term OKRs so that they don’t interfere with the quarterly ones, this approach may not always be ideal.
Quarterly Goals
Most companies have quarterly goals, but few have these measures in place for long-term company growth.
Quarterly OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) enable you to create achievable, actionable steps in line with your long-term goals. Without them, you may never realize your potential.
Since not all of your objectives align directly with a certain quarter’s KPIs, quarterly OKRs ensure you tie them all together through measurable results that are tracked over time.
If it seems like too much work just to achieve simple quarterly objectives, then stick to meeting deadlines and hitting targets rather than focusing on results—without short-, mid-, and long-term goals in mind, you can easily lose sight of what success looks like within your business.
Long term Goals
OKRs in place to help achieve long term goals. These are measured on a quarterly or annual basis, typically tied directly with corporate goals.
These long-term OKRs often require a lot of work over an extended period of time. Quarter by quarter objectives will include various tactics that contribute to long-term OKR initiatives.
These goals will measure your company’s progress in key areas including new revenue, market expansion and customer acquisition. Creating more value from leads is another example as well as developing strategic partnerships.
The goal of quarterly OKRs
It clearly defines and measures specific goals you want to achieve over a 90-day period. This helps reduce goals from abstract wish lists into tangible expectations, which translates into increased focus, productivity, team accountability, transparency, and clarity.
While quarterly OKRs are important on their own merits — it is estimated that businesses who use OKRs reach 10 times more goals than those who don’t — what makes them even more powerful is how they tie back into your long-term OKRs.
A great way to set your quarterly targets is by splitting them up into mini long terms objectives; one for each quarter of your yearly goal.
The goal of long-term OKRs
A long-term OKR is basically your company’s audacious, three-to-five-year goal—the moonshot that gets you excited to go to work each day.
It should be something so massive and inspiring that it blows people away when they hear about it.
For Google, it was searching once, find everything; for Snapchat, it was connecting friends through messaging; for Salesforce, it was putting a software tool in every customer’s hands—no matter what device they were on.
Where quarterly OKRs help you get from point A to point B in a measurable way, long-term OKRs can make you feel like an astronaut getting ready for takeoff. They are meant to guide big dreams along a strategic path.
The best way to execute quarterly and long-term OKRs
OKR management software is a great way to manage your quarterly objectives. But how do you make sure you’re prioritizing long-term objectives without putting your company at risk of not hitting quarterly goals?
The key is finding a balance between these two types of OKRs, so you’re always keeping both in mind as you move forward. One approach is using monthly goal tracking.
You can still measure yearly progress on your goals, but by having shorter time frames in mind, like a month or even one week, you’re bound to execute tasks more quickly and get closer to achieving milestones.
Balanced execution using quarterly and long-term OKRs
OKR software is a great way to stay on track and avoid being a slave to your daily activities.
Nowadays, people who want to be in control of their goals need some sort of planning tool or at least an organized plan that lets them maintain a balance between long-term goals, quarterly goals, monthly tasks, weekly chores, and so on.
With OKR software, you have everything you need for both short-term planning as well as long-term visioning with milestones along with your road map.
You can see an overall goal but also how it will play out over time. Plus, it’s relatively easy to set up your own OKRs—which means that it won’t take up all your time when you first start using it.
It’s no secret that you need a system in place that provides your team with clarity, focus, and execution.
What is important is getting everyone on board with how your company will achieve its goals.
With both short-term and long-term goals set in motion, you will be able to scale in ways that other teams simply can’t match—and you can do it all using a tool you may already have in place.