How to boost team impact with collaborative OKRs
Do you want to create alignment and drive outcomes effectively? Here's how to plan for that!
Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) elevate a team's effectiveness by providing a clear framework for setting and measuring goals, aligning efforts across the organization, and fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement. While OKRs are just one mechanism to align teams around a common goal, I have experienced them to be particularly effective in my role as Head of Product Management.
Why OKRs matter for product teams
For product teams, clear focus is critical to achieving success. Especially in the startup world, but not exclusively, product teams face multiple demands—they need to create more customer value, find product-market fit, fix critical client blockers, maintain system stability, fix bugs, and more. Without clear direction, teams struggle to drive outcomes that lead to business success, often working on a long list of tasks based on recency bias rather than a clear goal. The result is frustrated, burnt-out teams with no significant business impact.
OKRs help set a clear focus and framework, empowering the team to decide what to work on and why. This ensures that every team member understands and is committed to the overarching goals. This clarity drives better alignment, focus, and ultimately, better results.
Foundation for effective OKRs
Effective OKRs must be based on a strong foundation, which includes:
Company mission and objectives: The long-term vision and overarching strategy set by leadership provide the context for all OKRs. This ensures that every objective aligns with the broader mission and goals of the company.
Product vision and principles: Your product vision and guiding principles should inform the objectives and key results, ensuring they support the direction and standards you've established for your product.
Product strategy: Define clear, short-term strategies that outline the immediate priorities and initiatives that will drive success. These should be specific and time-bound, providing a clear roadmap for achieving the set objectives.
Why collaborative OKR setting matters
Setting OKRs should not be solely a management function; it should involve and leverage the expertise of the team members who will execute the OKRs. Depending on your team size, this could mean involving everyone in your product team. At a minimum, team leads need to participate in defining OKRs. Setting OKRs collaboratively is essential for several reasons:
Enhanced buy-in and commitment: When team members are involved in the goal-setting process, they are more likely to feel a personal connection to the objectives. This sense of ownership increases their commitment to achieving the goals, driving higher engagement and accountability.
Leveraging diverse perspectives and know-how: Collaborative OKR setting brings together diverse perspectives from different team members. By harnessing the diverse skills and knowledge within your team, every individual's expertise contributes to collective success. This diversity leads to more innovative and well-rounded objectives and key results, leveraging the collective knowledge of the entire team.
Increased transparency: A collaborative approach fosters transparency in the goal-setting process. Team members gain a clear understanding of the rationale behind each objective and key result, which builds trust and ensures everyone is on the same page.
Better problem solving: Collaborative discussions during OKR setting can help identify potential challenges and obstacles early on. By addressing these issues collectively, teams can develop more effective strategies and solutions to overcome them.
Enhanced team morale: Involving team members in setting their own goals can boost morale and motivation. When people feel their input is valued and that they have a say in the direction of their work, they are more likely to be engaged and satisfied with their roles, driving higher engagement and accountability.
Running Effective OKR Workshops
Implement interactive OKR workshops with your product squads to set a clear and inspiring direction for each quarter. These sessions should be dynamic and engaging, ensuring every team member's voice is heard and their insights are valued. Here’s how to run these workshops effectively, both in person and virtually:
Allow for preparation: Distribute pre-workshop materials, including a brief overview of the company's strategic priorities. Ask team members to think about potential objectives and key results in advance.
Start by setting strategic context: Begin the workshop by providing the strategic context and explaining why certain objectives matter, and how they bring about success for the company. This helps the team understand how their work contributes to the bigger picture.
Discuss objectives: Facilitate collaborative discussions to draft possible objectives, addressing the most impactful problems the team can solve to drive business success in line with the product strategy. Ensure that everyone has a chance to contribute.
Create focus: Select THE objectives for the next quarter — the one thing the team wants to win at and that matters most. In this step, staying disciplined in selecting a single objective per team it key. The more focussed the team, the higher their impact on the outcome. In also advise to brainstorm and clearly list other things that matter but will be deprioritized to maintain focus.
Brainstorm key results: Brainstorm key results collaboratively for the selected objectives, ensuring they are realistic and achievable within the given timeframe.
Refine the OKRs: Review and refine the proposed OKRs, ensuring they align with the company's strategic goals and are achievable within the given timeframe. Ensure that goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).
Communicate and track: Document the final OKRs and distribute them to the team. Set up regular check-ins to review progress and make adjustments as needed.
A clear strategic direction ensures that all efforts are synergistically directed towards overarching company goals. OKRs are a powerful tool for aligning teams around common goals and ensuring everyone is moving in the same direction. By involving the full product team in the planning process and running effective OKR workshops, you can drive better alignment, focus, and outcomes for your product teams.