We all make mistakes while setting up our goals. Here are the 10 top OKR mistakes that managers and business owners usually make. This blog will teach you how you can avoid common mistakes and make your OKR management easy.
What is OKR?
OKR is an acronym for objective and key results which is usually used as a goal-setting framework by an organization, a team, or an individual to set an ambitious goal and measure their performance and outcomes.
Objective means the end target needs to be achieved, and critical results suggest a measurable impact required to achieve the ambitious goal. Andy Grove, CEO of Intel, 1970, first introduced the OKRs framework.
Top 10 OKR Mistakes to Avoid
1. Setting Up Too Many OKRs
As a business owner, you should know your orrganisational goals, what is essential right now, and what can be avoided. Too many OKRs can confuse you and your team, and consequently, it reduces efficiency and accuracy. You need to priortise and it is where OKRs can work like magic.
Don’t put unnecessary pressure on your team by giving them multiple tasks. Some companies set too many goals per quarter to achieve early success, but they fail. The lesser the plans, the more clarity you have. Make fewer quarterly tasks to clarify what is needed and where to focus your attention.
2. Unmeasurable Goals
Your objectives should be in a measurable form. Quantifiable goals can be easily tracked with the help of numbers, units, and figures.
For example, if the company needs to increase production in the next quarter, then it can be written in many ways. Let’s consider two statements to understand this better:
- “To increase the production by 20%” or
- “To increase the production”.
As you can see in the first statement, the goal is a numeric (measurable) and clear. In contrast, another statement is defined as an unmeasurable goal, as there is no mention of how much is to be achieved. If the goal is measurable, it is easy to understand and pull it off.
3. Realistic & Challenging OKRS
Your objective should have a moderate level of challenge. If your team achieves a 100% goal, your aim is too easy. Also, if you set too challenging OKRs, your team will struggle to reach them.
Make sure your OKR challenges are realistic as well as challenging enough. You should expect 70-80% objective to be achieved per quarter. If the achievement rate differs from this figure, you should change your OKRs.
4. The Key Result is a Task
Take your critical results as a task and not as a desired outcome. Your focus should be on completing the job efficiently and as quickly as possible in a given time, whether it achieves anything or not.
Your crucial result indicates the outcomes and results; however, if you take it as a task without considering the outcome, you will be more efficient at your task. Remember, the key result is the consequence of the tasks you do.
5. Short Term Goals
OKRs are long-term target-setting frameworks. If you have a small start-up or your business is new, don’t use OKRs. Try to set a short-term goal that can be fulfilled. Remember, your ultimate goal is to grow your business, and it doesn’t depend on how big steps you take to your destination.
Short-term goals will encourage you the most, and you will achieve your ultimate goal by taking too many successful small steps.
6. Excluding OKRs in a Performance Review
If you want your employees to aim for the best, you should always encourage them even if they fail to reach their goals. Avoid punishing your employees for their failures. If you fail to reach OKRs, show them how close they are or what they did wrong that made them fall.
Through the performance review, your team will find their positives and negatives and can quickly get an idea about where to improve. Also, it helps you to assign an appropriate task to a particular.
7. Not Tracking for Accountability
There must be at least one person in charge for constantly monitoring the OKRs. If you want to achieve your objectives, then you should check your progress regularly. It will help you to take accountability for your OKRs at the end of the quarter.
If there is no one to take accountability for, then OKR management would be complicated. If there is a person who reminds you of your task and your performance, then your workflow will be smooth and efficient.
8. Not Aligning for a Teamwork
Objectives are accomplished by teamwork. You should connect the teams as the work of each team or department is somehow dependent on one another. This cross-dependency of groups can create a mess if you don’t align them together.
You must connect the teams and individuals to work smoothly and effectively to attain your objective. You need to understand the contribution and correlation of each team.
9. Fewer OKRs Per Quarter Would be Beneficial
Less is more. Try to accomplish a few goals accurately and efficiently instead of achieving too many goals improperly and inaccurately. A maximum of five critical results for an objective and five goals per quarter is the ideal choice.
10. Tracking Continuously
Continuous tracking of OKRs is necessary if you want to update and reassess the tasks to improve your team’s performance.
Tracking your objective and critical results twice a week is suggested. If you don’t follow your OKRs regularly, you won’t be able to take quick, practical steps toward your tasks and performance.
Conclusion
We have discussed ten common OKR mistakes and how to deal with them. The objective and key result is an efficient framework. If you make effective OKRs by avoiding these ten common mistakes, your company will ensure success, and your company’s growth will be next level.
We hope this segment of OKR mistakes will help you bring off excellent outcomes for your business.