OKR-Management in Clarity

OKRs in Clarity: Being Successful with Agile Strategy

Anna Schoch, Clarity Marketing Managerin bei itdesign

by Anna Schoch

Published on 04/06/2022Updated on 12/16/2024

14 min read

Increasingly in use, but rarely applied correctly: OKR is on everyone’s lips. You might be forgiven for thinking that it is just another business fad. The crux of the matter is: The OKR method will not be forgotten tomorrow. It is a tried and true, highly successful management framework.

As early as the 1970s, Andy Grove devised the OKR method and used it to put Intel on the road to success. John Doerr later introduced the method to Google, which is the company best exemplifies the OKR model today. OKRs have shown their effectiveness everywhere from global corporations, like Intel, Google, LinkedIn, Zalando, and Daimler to a variety of medium-sized companies, start-ups, and small businesses. Even individual employees have applied them successfully. So let’s talk about it:

  • What is OKR?
  • What is the added value of OKRs?
  • How do you formulate good OKRs?
  • Which stumbling blocks should you avoid?
  • How can the Clarity software help with OKR?

OKR – What Is It?

Definition: OKR is an agile method for strategy implementation.

The acronym OKR stands for objectives and key results, which are the two central levers that the method uses to help your company achieve progress: a motivating goal and measurable results.

The objectives describe the target vision that is to be achieved in the short term. This target status provides the team with orientation and inspiration. The key results define the measurable changes that must be brought about in order to achieve the target state with all its facets. It is a matter of making qualitative goals (objectives) measurable using quantitative goals (key results). 

Hence, the two fundamental questions addressed by OKRs are:

  • What do we want to achieve?
  • How do we know if we have achieved it?
John Doerr, Author o the book "Measure What Matters"
Agile OKR is a management methodology that helps to ensure that the company focuses efforts on the same important issues throughout the organization.

John Doerr|Author of the Book "Measure What Matters"

Autor des Buches "Measure What Matters"

Example: OKR for Q1 2024

An OKR set consists of one target vision (objective) and 2-5 measurable target values (key results). Normally, the OKR is formulated for a quarter and is based on the long-term strategic goals. An OKR set could look like this, for example:

Objective

Our customers perceive us as a professional partner for OKR management.

Key Results
  • 3,000 views of our OKR blog post
  • 10 qualified leads generated via our website
  • 5 customers have made an appointment for an OKR workshop
  • 2 OKR implementation projects started with customers
  • 40% of our existing customers registered for our OKR webinar

The Added Value You Get from OKRs

Many of you will be familiar with the problem: Top management has drawn up a visionary strategy document, but the employees don’t have time to deal with it. They have to deal with the short-term challenges of day-to-day operations. Without a link to the operational level, the strategy can quickly seem unattainable and therefore irrelevant to the workforce. And so there is a gap between the strategy and its implementation. This is where OKR comes into play…

OKR breaks down the long-term vision into short-term achievable milestones. This helps to operationalize the strategy, focus efforts on the most important next step, and derive concrete to-dos for individual employees. In this way, OKR fills the gap between strategy and day-to-day business.

OKR Offers These Concrete Advantages
  • Active participation: OKRs provide employees with the opportunity to actively participate in defining and implementing goals. This promotes identification with the goals and intrinsic motivation.
  • Measurability of goals: OKRs make goal achievement measurable and assessable.
  • Making the contribution to the company's success visible: The progress of achieving the OKRs is clearly visible at all times, and employees can use the results to see in real time how their own work improves the team or company's performance.
  • Greater level of focus in everyday life: Focusing on the most important part of the strategy per quarter reduces complexity. Employees have fewer topics on their minds at the same time and can concentrate on achieving the one common objective.
  • Encouraging creativity and innovation: Properly defined OKRs only specify the desired effect (outcome) and not any specific instructions for action. This creates plenty of room for creativity, the opportunity to think in new ways, and try out new approaches.
  • More transparency: OKR makes visible which strategic topics are currently being actively worked on. This can eliminate the silo mentality within departments and improve cross-departmental cooperation and communication.
  • Rapid responsiveness and agility: The OKR method allows companies to move towards strategic goals in a focused manner in short iterative three-month cycles, enabling rapid course corrections and a nimbleness to pursue trends.
  • Maximum flexibility: Whether at the corporate, team, or individual level, the OKR method may be applied at different working levels. Moreover, the approach can basically be used to achieve any objectives, at any size company, and in all industries and administrative structures.

Checklist: Setting Up Good OKRs

Anyone who takes a closer look at OKR quickly realizes that the success of the method depends on the correct formulation of objectives and key results!

Objectives – The ‘Mini-Vision’ for the Next Quarter

The objective describes the desired state of the world (= target vision) – summarized in an inspiring sentence that employees will remember. As a guiding principle, the objective provides orientation for prioritizing work and motivates employees to contribute their own ideas to achieving the goal.

Further important characteristics:

  • Statement of a qualitative goal
  • 1-2 objectives per team
  • Catchy phrase that describes the target group's perspective (e.g., “Our customers love...” or “Our employees know...”)
  • Oriented towards the overarching, long-term strategic goals (e.g., vision and MOAL)
  • Formulated inclusively, i.e. every team member can contribute to achieving the goal
Key Results – The Measurable Partial Results of the Objective

For the OKR method to really work, it is crucial that the key results measure the “right” goal! With OKR, success is not measured by how many resources have been invested (input), what specific measures have been taken (activities), or what visible products have been created (output).

Instead, key results are formulated in such a way that they measure the impact of all activities on the target group – i.e. the actual added value (outcome). This may sound obvious, but in practice this is perhaps the biggest challenge.

Further important characteristics:

  • Statement of a quantitative, measurable goal: KRs always contain a number!
  • 2–5 key results per objective
  • KRs measure the desired reactions of the target group (outcome) and not the company's own investments, activities, or products.
  • Oriented to the associated objective (KRs should cover all important facets of the objective)
  • Clear, continuous, and measurable without major delays

What Stumbling Blocks Should You Avoid?

At itdesign, we have been working with OKRs for quite a while and also support our customers in using the method. Based on our experience, we have compiled some of our best practices to help you avoid typical pitfalls and take full advantage of the method:

Set OKRs: Don’t Think that it All Must Work Out!

In order to successfully implement OKRs, one of the most important things to have is the courage to fail. Set ambitious goals that inspire creativity, innovation, and change. OKRs should not include what you would achieve regardless. Yet, they shouldn’t be unattainable either. A good rule of thumb is that if you reach 70% of your target, you’ve done a really good job. And most importantly, celebrate successes! Accomplished key results reflect a feat of strength. This should be noticeable.

Do Not Plan OKRs over Several Periods in Advance

In the past, “strategy” meant drawing up a detailed action plan to achieve a goal and following it as closely as possible over a period of years. Nowadays, this approach no longer works. Our world is developing so quickly in all areas that a plan would have to be constantly corrected.

OKR therefore offers an agile strategic approach that thrives on regular reviews of success and failure. It is no longer necessary to carefully plan the path to achieving a goal because we assume that we will know a better way in a few months’ time anyway. Instead, only the most important next step is formulated as a short-term goal – these are the OKRs.

The three-month timeframe has proven itself in practice – long enough to really make a difference and short enough to remain flexible. Trends can be identified at an early stage and any necessary course corrections can be initiated in good time. Avoid planning OKRs for several periods in advance in order to retain the necessary flexibility.

Collaborative Instead of Directive: Understand OKR (Also) as a Bottom-up Process!

Strategy development takes place at management level. However, OKR as a method for strategy implementation should not be understood as exclusively top-down. Instead, OKR offers the opportunity to involve the company’s base in the strategy work and to benefit from the operational expertise of employees. Involve employees closely in the design of objectives and key results. The commitment of the entire team is the decisive success factor for achieving objectives.

Establish OKR in your meeting culture and share regular status updates. In this way, the method increases employees’ identification with the goals and sharpens their focus on the purpose (“What is the purpose behind my tasks?”) – both important factors for the intrinsic motivation of employees and conducive to achieving the overarching overall goal. Make your OKRs easily accessible and findable for everyone.

Clear Focus: Only One Objective per Team

Don’t make a list of everything that needs to be improved. Decide which one thing you really want to tackle now!

OKR is intended to help drive individual topics forward while consciously eliminating other topics. This is not about classic prioritization, where all other topics remain in a hierarchical backlog – no, it’s really about removing all topics except OKR from the backlog! Only if there are no hidden side issues can employees fully focus on achieving the objectives.

Too many objectives in a team at the same time indicate that there is insufficient focus or that your objectives are too fragmented. We recommend only one objective per team per quarter.

Medium and Long-Term Perspective as a Basis: Okr Alone Is Not a Strategy

OKR is an important building block in the agile strategy toolbox. However, it is no substitute for a missing overarching strategy.

OKRs are short-term milestones and can only be meaningfully formulated if it is clear where the company wants to go in the medium and long term. The formulation of OKRs therefore requires other elements in your strategy framework (e.g., purpose, vision, mission, MOAL) that can be used as a guide for the OKRs.

OKR Introduction Requires Know-How and Drive

For the introduction of OKR, you need a driving force with methodological expertise within your own ranks – an OKR champion or OKR master. This role drives the introduction forward with full conviction and at the same time brings the necessary methodological knowledge to the team. If the driving force or the know-how is missing, the OKR introduction may be doomed to failure and quickly lead to frustration for everyone involved.

Ideally, the OKR champion is a neutral person and not a team member themselves. This allows them to concentrate fully on moderating the OKR process without being involved in the content. However, a team member can also take on the role of OKR champion. It is important that the method is applied correctly, that the team is open to the method, and that there is a shared commitment to the objectives.

Outcome Orientation: Specifying Effects Instead of Measures

A correctly defined OKR sets the direction, but does not define the path. It describes the field of action in which the team is responsible for developing and testing measures. The key results should therefore not contain any recommendations for action, but only define the desired effect on the target group. The way in which this effect is achieved is then in the hands of the implementation team.

Example: As a KR, do not specify that employees should “Carry out 5 additional quality checks per day”. Instead, set the following target: “Reduce quality-related customer complaints by 50%”.

Select Early Rather than Long-Term Indicators as Key Results

OKR is an agile method based on trial and error and the development of minimum viable products (MVPs). The intermediate results are analyzed on a weekly basis, new measures are defined and then tested.

In order to be able to see each week what effect the most recently implemented measures have had, the key results must reflect the impact of the actions with as little delay as possible. This requires early indicators (also known as “lead measures”), such as “number of visitors to our website” or “demand for demo appointments”. This is the only way to achieve a steep learning curve, draw the right conclusions, and optimize the procedure accordingly.

An example of how not to do it: The “number of contracts concluded” measures the change in customer behavior (outcome). However, in some sectors, it can take one to two years before a contract is concluded. It is therefore a late indicator (also known as a “lag measure“), where the effect of an action only becomes visible after a significant delay.

Use OKR for Change-the-Business, Not Run-the-Business

OKR is a method for implementing strategic changes (change-the-business), not for measuring performance in day-to-day business (run-the-business).

Instead, the performance of day-to-day work (run-the-business) can be measured using KPIs. These indicators are chosen for the long term, are permanently valid, and provide insights and control over the general health of the company. They help to sound the alarm if something goes wrong in the core business and performance does not meet expectations.

In contrast, OKRs are aimed at strategic changes. The objectives and key results are formulated so specifically that they are only relevant for the current period. In the next period, they are replaced by new objectives and key results. This focus on new objectives and metrics in each period enables a targeted focus on the currently most important change (change-the-business).

A good balance between change-the-business and run-the-business is needed to be successful. Therefore, you should not choose between using OKRs and KPIs, but use both – but each for the right purpose!

Autonomy of the Team: Being Able and Allowed to Set and Implement Goals

In order to successfully carry out strategy work with OKR, the teams in your company must have the freedom to define goals independently and implement changes. This is the only way to unleash creative potential and increase the necessary commitment. Top management provides medium and long-term strategic goals for orientation, but the teams can decide for themselves how they contribute to these goals based on the OKRs (= short-term goals).

In practice, this autonomy is often not given or is limited. On the one hand, top management sometimes finds it difficult to relinquish responsibility and refrain from issuing specific instructions. On the other hand, it can also be due to the structure, for example if changes are organized centrally (e.g., in the PMO) and teams are only responsible for operational implementation. One conceivable solution would be a cross-functional constellation of the OKR team consisting of project and PMO team members. Alternatively, you can also decide to only use OKR in teams that have the freedom to participate in change processes.

Managing OKRs in Clarity

Companies that want to introduce OKR (or are already working with it) are faced with the task of finding the right tool for implementation. This is accompanied by the question of what such a system must be able to do and what challenges it should provide an answer to. The good news if you are already using Clarity for your PPM: OKRs can be excellently mapped, organized, and tracked in Clarity. The introduction of an additional tool is therefore not necessary. We will show you how OKR management works in Clarity.

Would you like to display the content of YouTube? Then please confirm this with one of the two buttons. Please note that data will be exchanged with a third-party provider.

Unblock content Accept service and unblock content
More Information

Advantages of Clarity for Implementing OKRs

Visibility of Corporate Goals

With Clarity as a single source of truth, OKR management can be handled in the same tool as your project, portfolio, and resource management. Strategy and goals are thus closely tied to everyday processes and integrated into a tool that is already in use in your company. The ability to link project management and OKR management has great added value: Projects can be easily and straightforwardly linked directly to the key results and objectives to which they contribute. Clarity thus helps to make goals more transparent and the contributions of employees more visible.

High Usability

Working with OKRs should inspire, motivate, and be fun. Usability is a crucial factor here. In Clarity, thanks to the intuitive interface and a wide range of filter options, your users can configure and store their own views, consolidate information, highlight deviations in KRs by color, and more.

Simultaneous Editing

Unlike classic Excel-based solutions, users can work simultaneously on OKRs at any time without having to manually consolidate different lists afterwards. This eliminates potential sources of error right from the outset and avoids unnecessary effort. Moreover, it facilitates coordination and collaboration across departments and allows conflicting goals to be identified and resolved at an early stage.

High Degree of Configurability

OKR management is a highly customized process that thrives on flexibility. Objectives and key results vary from company to company and from quarter to quarter. Clarity allows you to customize your OKR process without being restricted by the limitations of the tool you are using. For example, you decide which metrics are necessary and should be calculated for your KRs or which views you need.

Clear Status Reporting

Clarity provides you with real-time insights on the progress made towards achieving your goals. From continuously updated statistics to Power BI reports to special OKR dashboards, Clarity offers you everything you need to track your OKRs and visualize the status quo. This gives you and your employees a constant overview of where you stand with regard to specific key results and allows you not only to check progress in real time, but also to motivate your employees.

Identify Trends at an Early Stage

Clarity provides a record of all important data related to KRs. This allows you to easily track progress over time and identify relevant events, turning points, and trends.

Automated Reminder E-mail

An automated e-mail reminds the KR managers to make their entries in the system on a weekly basis. This ensures that the KRs are updated regularly and reliably, and allows you to track where you stand in terms of achieving your objectives.

Overview of Correlations

Clarity’s Hierarchy module allows you to display the OKR hierarchy, consisting of strategy, objectives and key results, in a clear and consolidated tree structure. This gives you an overall picture at a higher level and always presents the most important information in front of you. If you want to show more details, you can adjust your hierarchies at any time.

All Clarity Features at a Glance

Clarity provides you with all the important features you need for professional OKR management. And all that in a tool that you already use, that the employees at your company already work with, and for which you pay money anyway! Take advantage of the synergy effects and start using OKRs in Clarity.

  • Use of Custom Investments to represent strategy, objectives, and key results
  • Visual representation of the OKR hierarchy using the Hierarchy module
  • Integration of Power BI reports to display current interim results in a status report
  • Individual configuration of additional dashboards
  • Weekly reminder e-mail to all KR managers
  • Customer-specific assignment of edit rights and view rights
  • Automatic calculation of customer-specific key figures and benchmarks
  • Highlighting of positive and negative deviations by color
  • Diverse filter and configuration options for creating individual views

itdesign as Your Implementation Partner

It is our pleasure to help you implement your OKRs in Clarity. What advantage can we offer and what sets us apart? Experience.

We have not only overseen implementation projects for our customers, but we also have several years of experience working with OKRs in Clarity. Based on this experience and the solution approaches we have developed, we can also help you to implement OKR management in Clarity. This way you can get started quickly and without complications. We know the challenges and benefits of the approach from our own day-to-day work and look forward to sharing our experience with you.

If you are interested in using OKRs at your company, we offer you a comprehensive package. Feel free to contact us with no obligation!

Let's Talk!

Are you interested in mapping OKRs in your Clarity system? Contact us! We would be happy to discuss without obligation how we can map your OKR management in Clarity.

Clarity Beratungsteam von itdesign

Read Next

Anna Schoch

Marketing Manager

Anna Schoch, Clarity Marketing Managerin bei itdesign

62 Blog Posts More about Anna
Hierarchies in Clarity

Hierarchies in Clarity – Sources of Inspiration for Successful Deployment

Use hierarchies to transparently map a wide variety of project types and initiatives: We share our best practices for successful deployment of the Hierarchies module in Clarity.
6 min read
Resource management game at the PPM Conference 2019

Resource Management Made Easy: Learning the Key Principles in a Playful Way

Get to know the most important principles of a functioning resource planning with itdesign's game "Resource Management - Place Your Bets".
Your battery is almost empty.