How Objectives and Key Results Can Help You Create and Execute a Business Strategy

Achieving big goals requires a structured strategy with measurable milestones.  After all, for a company to grow and scale long-term, it must develop its revenue streams, team members, and product offerings. Without a sound strategy, a business will likely encounter growing pains and eventually stall. This is where Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) come in. OKRs can help businesses define and track their progress toward specific goals.

OKRs can help organizations identify and track progress towards specific objectives, ensuring everyone is constantly aware of the bigger picture and their role in achieving organizational success. Let’s take a closer look at how you can build a solid OKR strategy that drives innovative action within your overall business strategy.

OKR Defined

To understand how OKRs can help you with strategy, it’s first critical to understand these metrics and their role in an overall strategy.  OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. These are measurable goals that organizations set to achieve specific objectives. Yet studies show that only 29% of Americans in the workforce are aware of what OKRs are and how they work.

Each objective should have one or more key results associated with it. For example, if your aim is to increase sales by 20% this quarter, a key result could be to increase the number of new customers by 10%.  Only when the key result is achieved can the objective be considered complete. This ensures that everyone in the organization is moving toward an actionable and defined goal.

4 Steps to Building a Robust OKR Strategy

So how can you use OKRs to create and execute a business strategy? Follow these four steps to define and implement OKRs within your organization.

1. Identify Your Company’s Big Goals

The first step in creating an OKR system is identifying the organization’s big goals. These are the overall objectives that the company wants to achieve, such as increasing market share or becoming profitable. Once the big goals have been identified, they can be broken down into smaller, more manageable objectives. Big goals can be as descriptive or broad as you like – the only requirement is that they’re specific enough to provide direction and inspire action. For example, a goal like “Improve customer satisfaction” can be broken down into objectives like “Increase net promoter score by 3 points” or “Reduce customer churn by 2%.” 

2. Create a Directional Strategy to Reach Your Goals

The next step is to develop a directional strategy. This will involve doing some market research to identify trends and opportunities and setting some targets for what you want to achieve. The directional strategy should be aligned with the organization’s big goals so everyone is working towards the same thing. If the strategy isn’t aligned with the goals, it can lead to confusion and frustration among team members.

3. Build a Growth Initiatives Pipeline

Once the directional strategy has been set, it’s time to start generating ideas for growth initiatives. These specific projects and campaigns will be executed to achieve the desired results. The growth initiatives should be prioritized based on their potential impact and feasibility. It’s important to note that not all of them will be able to be executed immediately, but having a pipeline will ensure that there’s always something in the works.

4. Stand Up the Pipeline Management Process

The pipeline management process is how you will track progress on all of the different growth initiatives. This involves setting up governance, communication, and reporting mechanisms so that everyone knows what is being worked on and how it is progressing. It is also essential to define who has decision-making authority at each stage of the process so that there are no delays in getting things done. This will ensure that the OKR strategy is executed effectively and efficiently.

5. Measure Engagement and Progress

The final step is to measure engagement and progress toward the objectives. This step includes tracking website traffic, conversion rates, revenue, etc. It is also essential to get feedback from customers and employees to gauge how well the initiative is being received and make necessary adjustments along the way. Only when you accurately and consistently measure progress can you ensure that your OKR strategy is on track.

Take Big Action with a Solid OKR Strategy

By using Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), organizations can develop a structured approach to achieving their big goals. OKRs can help identify specific objectives, track progress, generate ideas for growth initiatives, prioritize those initiatives, manage them through completion, and measure engagement and progress along the way. If you’re looking for a way to create and execute a business strategy, OKRs may be just what you need.