“A Practical Primer on OKRs” with OKR Advisors

Objectives and Key Results have gone from a Silicon valley trend to standard practice across industries over the last decade. Now, any organization can execute on their vision by following the blueprint of OKRs!

Align partnered with the OKR experts from OKR advisors to develop a comprehensive introduction to OKR implementation. Joe Ottinger and Rick Maguire have over 50 years of combined executive experience across the technology sector. As the co-founders of OKR Advisors, they’ve helped companies like T-Mobile, Best Buy, and Nike facilitate change and achieve growth with OKRs.

In this webinar, Joe and Rick help you get started writing Objectives and driving Key Results. Using a ‘teach the teacher’ approach, they share best practices you can implement immediately on your teams to enhance motivation and boost performance. If you’re looking to elevate your goal-setting and strategy execution, you won’t want to miss this learning opportunity!

The Secret Sauce of OKRs

OKRs, say Joe and Rick, help answer the biggest question in business execution: Did we accomplish what we set out to do?

The gap between planning and execution depends on the team’s ability to “Make results a Weekly habit”. “The difference in outcomes,” says Rick, “is almost always the consequence of what you’re paying attention to.” A consistent focus on OKRs throughout a quarter leads to higher-achieving outcomes.

The “secret sauce” of OKRs, is their ability to tie quarterly planning to daily and weekly communication about the progress made. Rather than just updating status of OKRs, regular OKR review works best when focused on learning and action.

Rick and Joe recommend having a system like Align in place that supports goal-centered communication. They summarize their advice with these 5 considerations:

OKR Advisor’s Top 5 OKR Success Considerations

1. Senior leadership sponsorship and active use
2. Trained OKR Champions to support leaders and managers to overcome barriers
3. “Crawl/walk/run” approach to achieve maturity
4. Keep it simple and apply critical thinking
5. Integrate them into the rhythm of your business

For the rest of OKR advisor’s best practices for OKR success, watch the entire webinar below and download their slides.

Watch “Learn the Basics of OKRs”