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Sorry!
Getting started with OKRs, starts with YOU! |
After making presentations at conferences I often have the following questions and answer session at the end:
Q: “How can we get started with OKRs?”
A: Read the rest of this blog for the answer
Q: "What book can I read to learn more about OKRs?"
A: There are no books on OKRs yet. High Output Management by Grove is worth reading but it's not about OKRs. Expect several books to hit the market in 2015 addressing OKRs including mine!
Q: "How do we know if our organization can really benefit by rolling out OKRs?”
A: Begin by using OKRs to see if you benefit.
All these questions take the form, I’m human and therefore somehwat lazy, so I’m posing questions that enable me to delay the inevitable: figuring out what I should actually be doing and doing it.
Here are some questions designed to motivate you to get started deploying OKRs right now:
- Do you know what to do at work?
- If you had $200k more budget to launch a new project, do you know what it would be?
- Can you tell me the 3 things you did last quarter that made the most impact?
- Can you give me an example of a project that you started on but were able to quickly stop working on once you realized it was no longer a priority?
- Do you track at least one metric and update it weekly so that you see a bar go up consistently to reflect your progress?
If you answered yes to 3 or more of these questions, congratulations, you’re already realizing some of the benefits of deploying OKRs!
If you answered no to 3 or more of these questions, you’re like most of us. You're ready to get started with phase 1: draft your OKRs.
As many of you already know, it’s very difficult to get started with OKRs and defining a decent set of measurable results on your own. If you can do it on your own, great, but for most of us, spending 45 minutes with an OKRs coach can make all the difference.
I’ve helped well over 100 professionals draft their OKRs. In an effort to remove the barriers to getting started with OKRs, I am offering a free OKRs drafting session to anyone new to OKRs.
If you’d like a preview my upcoming book on OKRs, please send me a note at Ben@OKRs.com