10 Questions That Help Teams Write OKRs That Move-The-Needle

Becoming really good at goal setting means ensuring the right thought processes, conversations and checks have been carried out before starting to work towards its achievement.

ZOKRI can do these checks as part of its customizable OKR proposal and sign-off workflows.

Question

Why is it important that you / we make progress on this OKR now?

Which Company OKR does this OKR align with?

Which teams / individuals have you spoken to about this OKR?

Can you make progress on this OKR without or with the support of other teams?

Which teams / individuals do you need the support of to make significant progress on this OKR?

If you need the support of others to make significant progress on this OKR, have they confirmed they can and will give you this support?

Describe the time and resources you to make progress on this OKR – is it available?

Do your Key Results have measurements that matter e.g. leading metrics?

What level of impact will achieving this OKR have on team performance?

How will you and the team feel if you achieve this OKR?

Answer Type

Paragraph

Choose Company OKR

Name teams / individuals

Options: No support needed / a little support / lots of support

Name teams / individuals

Yes / No

Paragraph

Yes / No

Options: Huge impact / some impact / unknown impact

Options: Feel amazing, feel ok, not sure

Why?

It focuses you on creating goals that will make a material impact (Wildly Important Goals) and tells others why this OKR matters and needs support.

Team OKRs should align with Company OKRs and selecting one ensures alignment.

Socializing OKRs is an important step in their creation.

The more you need the support of other teams to make progress on an OKR the harder it is to make progress. This is why cross-functional teams are often created to work towards OKRs.

This builds on the question above and ensures the specifics of who is needed for collaboration is understood.

The final check to be done if collaboration is being relied upon.

Being overly ambitious and not having the time. money, and people to make the progress needed is not uncommon.

Creating Key Results that are outcomes not outputs is always preferable. By checking you are reinforcing the best-practice.

This is similar to the first question and double confirmation that the OKR is going to make a material impact.

Imagining achieving a goal is a great way of increasing dopamine levels and goal engagement.

The benefits of having a question like these built in to your OKR process and software?

Having a systemized approach to OKR creation makes it easier for teams to learn how you want OKRs to be thought about, planned, socialized, and eventually worked towards. The key benefits of a process like the one above being:

Reduction in OKR training and oversight overhead
Increased OKR quality
Better cross-team collaboration
Reduction in poorly resourced and underachieved OKRs
Increased OKR engagement
Faster and higher levels of OKR achievement

Summary

Having something you call OKRs is not enough. You need to be writing the right number of OKRs that can both move-the-needle and be resourced. Having a process that ensures that is a great way of ensuring quality, consistency and performance.