OKRs
7
min read
Unfortunately, even with the rising popularity of the OKR framework in recent years, many managers struggle to conduct a successful OKR progress review. The confusion stems from the lack of specificity around what should be included in weekly, monthly and quarterly OKR reviews. As a result they end up being another unsuccessful performance meeting.
In this article, we will cover —
- the best practices for periodic OKR progress review meetings,
- what you should include,
- how often you should have these meetings, and
- a template of questions you can explore with your team members.
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Merits and process of OKR progress review
An OKR progress review is essential to gauge and track performance against each objective and key result and eventually, identify enablers and blockers to accelerate progress. You cannot simply set OKRs and then forget about them.
Especially, in a fast growing organization, where processes are being set and things are dynamic, you need to conduct OKR progress reviews to ensure everything is on track. Your OKR progress review must be in the form of regular check-ins. Based on the frequency, each type of check-in will have a specific objective, agenda and next steps.
One of the most effective ways has been to schedule your OKR progress review in three cycles.
- First schedule weekly check-ins to maintain continuity and encourage real time updates.
- Second, you must have quarterly check-ins to get a more expansive view on performance progress and other aspects.
- Finally, set annual check-ins to facilitate OKR grading and setting new OKRs.
Through the course of this article, we will cover diverse aspects of each of these forms of OKR check-in that you can leverage to ensure OKR success for your organization.
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OKR progress review phase 1: Weekly OKR check-in
Let’s start with the most frequent form of check-in in the OKR cycle, the weekly OKR check-in. You might think that “we will hardly accomplish anything in a week, so what’s the point?” Well, as a part of the OKR progress review, weekly check-ins are integral to ensure continuous alignment and transparency within the team and set collective priorities and reflect on the performance on a regular basis.
The objective of a weekly check-in is to keep everyone focused and on track. These review meetings are generally short and specific in nature.
Weekly OKR check-in: Before the meeting
Before you go into the meeting, you must reflect on the week before and ensure that you:
- Set a regular cadence beforehand and inform everyone in the team
- Have a clear agenda that you seek to address
- Are clear on the progress made along different objectives
- Answer questions around satisfaction with the progress, priorities for next week, key challenges etc.
- Set a robust OKR framework that you will use in the meeting and ensure that the same is communicated to everyone.
You can divide your OKR progress review framework into three parts.
1. Collect the facts
In the first one, focus on getting the facts together. This refers to having a clear view of what you were able to achieve, was it upto the mark, etc.
2. Reflect and learn
In the second segment, you should focus on reflection to understand your learnings from the week before. Here throwing light on what went well, what requires more effort is important.
3. Plan and execute
In the final part, you need to point your attention towards creating an action plan for the coming week. This should not only focus on what needs to be done, but also who will be doing it and how it will get measured.
Weekly OKR check-in: During the meeting
Once all the preparation is in place, you need to ensure that you run the meeting in a way that is effective and fruitful. Here are a few tips to achieve the same:
- Limit the duration of your meeting to 15-20 minutes and moderate it well to ensure that the conversation doesn’t get derailed. Make a conscious effort to stick to the framework. Any side conversations can be continued between smaller groups.
- Drive collective participation along each segment of your framework. Invite quick reflections on the performance of the week before and priorities for the next one. Leverage diverse views and perspectives to make your OKRs achievement impactful. Try to drive consensus on the OKRs for the next week.
- Ensure that you end the meeting with some key takeaways and a robust plan for the next week. Also, keep an eye out for those who might not be actively participating in the OKR progress review and engage them to ensure collective action.
Weekly OKR check-in: After the meeting
To end the meeting with an action plan and to not follow it up with execution is all but a waste of time. To avoid landing in such a situation, you must follow up every meeting with:
- A communication on the next steps with a clear responsibility for each team member
- Clear visibility into the daily OKR progress by using the right platform
An OKR progress review meeting held on a weekly basis which follows this process will enable you to take action and achieve your OKRs in a very strategic manner. In addition to reflection and planning, you can also use the weekly OKR check-ins to celebrate some small or big achievements for your team and act as a source of motivation.
SUPER TIP — Never miss a chance to motivate your employees. Try these quick tips in your next OKR progress review meeting.
OKR progress review phase 2: Quarterly OKR check-in
While your weekly check-ins as a part of your OKR progress review are limited to intra-team participation and will yield the best results when members within the team are involved, quarterly OKR check-ins work best in a company-wide manner.
Quarterly reviews can help you get a comprehensive view on OKR progress across the organization and the level of achievement for each team and department.
Quarterly OKR check-in: Before the meeting
Even before you conduct the meeting, you need to undertake certain activities to ensure that your quarterly OKR progress review is a success. You must:
- Set a date for the meeting well in advance which suits teams across the organization. Ensure that the date doesn’t fall in between a very busy period or on an official day off, because rescheduling can create a lot of friction.
- Have an agenda which clearly mentions when OKRs for each team will be discussed, along with other aspects of common discussion.
- Encourage every team to have an OKR presentation ready in a similar format to have a strategic conversation on reflections and next steps in a time effective manner.
While there are several templates or structures you can encourage your teams to use, having a simple one like below can be very effective:
1. Recap of the progress
Quickly offer data points and insights into what has been achieved and the team’s view on their achievements. This should focus on sharing the percentage progress for each OKR as well as whether the team is satisfied with the achievement or other aspects of the performance.
2. Reflect on the efforts and initiatives
Each OKR is accompanied by initiatives that the team or the organization will take to achieve the OKR. The next part of the presentation should focus on the team sharing the key initiatives they undertook and what worked well and what did not.
3. Discuss the learnings and next steps
Finally, the teams must present what they learnt from the OKR cycle in the previous quarter and how they seek to apply those learnings in the quarter to come. Here the OKR retrospective is important to gauge what the team should start/stop/continue doing and all the best ways to add effectiveness to the whole OKR process. This could include focus on better OKR writing or implementation, more frequent reviews, etc.
SUPER TIP — While preparing the presentations, encourage your teams to give context and use terminology which members from other teams can understand to drive discussion and not just a monologue.
Quarterly OKR check-in: During the meeting
When the date of the OKR progress meeting comes at the end of the quarter, there are a few ways that you can conduct the meeting to make it impactful and results-driven:
- Follow the agenda and give each team enough time to share their presentation on the level of OKR achievement.
- Leave enough time at the end of the presentations to invite comments, suggestions, feedback and opinions across teams.
- One of the best practices is to drive constructive feedback to help teams figure out alternative initiatives to facilitate better OKR achievement. Furthermore, as someone conducting the meeting, you should create a safe space where all team members are able to share their opinions irrespective of their level.
- Encourage different teams to ask the right questions about the process, enablers, blockers, achievements, etc. to gauge deeper insights. The right questions can spark a lot of critical thought and help you move towards better OKR achievement.
15 questions to ask during quarterly OKR progress review meeting
Quarterly OKR check-in: After the meeting
After conducting a robust and discussion driven meeting, your next focus must be on collating all the notes for post meeting action. As a best practice, you must —
- Gather all key takeaways in one document and share it with the entire organization
- Leverage OKR solutions like SuperBeings to communicate the next steps and OKRs for the next quarter as well as to keep all your meeting notes in one place
- Closely track everyday OKR progress in an integrated dashboard, supported by automated reporting
Once the meeting is over, your teams will focus on creating or refining their OKRs for the next quarter. You should focus on preparing for your next OKR progress review meeting to make it more impactful than the previous one.
OKR progress review phase 3: Annual OKR check-in
In the final segment of the OKR progress review, we will talk about the annual check-in or the one which happens once every year to help you reflect on the year-long performance of your organization towards OKRs and plan for the next year.
Annual OKR check-ins are important for the OKRs that you seek to achieve over the year. While there will be some OKRs that have a short term focus and those will likely be achieved in a quarter or two. However, the final status of annual OKRs can only be sought after the end of the year.
The process of preparation for the annual progress review meeting is similar to the quarterly review. Here are a few best practices you must keep in mind:
- Track the progress for each OKR for every quarter and understand the progress/stalling for each quarter
- Gauge what went well for each quarter, not just from an OKR perspective but other factors like market conditions impacting the same
- Leverage OKR grading template to measure the level of OKR success
- Reflect comprehensively on the performance and plan OKRs for the next year.
More often than not, your OKRs will be set for every quarter and you can use your annual OKR progress review meeting as a culmination point to gauge everything achieved during the year. The idea is to understand and illustrate how the achievement of diverse OKRs throughout the year has resulted in getting closer towards the vision or the overall goals of your organization.
Final Thoughts
If you see OKR progress review as unnecessary, you need to think again. Since OKR success is driven by execution, regular check-ins are integral to ensure that everything is on track and you are able to monitor progress.
OKR progress review can also enable you to motivate your employee and address any challenges that they may have in achieving the OKRs. Having a partner like SuperBeings can help accelerate this process. With SuperBeings, you can:
- Motivate and engage your employees by creating goal transparency within and across teams
- Keep everyone on track with real-time insights into day-to-day OKR progress
- Resolve performance issues preemptively
- Get guided templates for managers to conduct successful weekly, quarterly, annual OKR check-ins
- Keep an eye on key OKR status as well as compare progress over time
- Automate OKR progress reports, check-ins and leverage AI recommendations
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