How to Actually Set and Achieve Goals (OKRs)

It seems like goal setting is something people should know how to do on their own. While all people know how to set a goal and move toward it, everyone uses a slightly different mental process. What I�m going to introduce to you is the best way to set goals and move toward them. It also really helps you see your progress over time and be honest with yourself about what you are doing and what you aren�t doing.

Several folks asked about goal setting on our last call, so I am going to teach you all how to set Objectives & Key Results (OKRs) as goals.

OKRs are actually really simple. There are two components. An objective is something you want to achieve or a project category. An objective can have several key results, which are things you need to happen in order to get closer to completing the objective. Key results have to be quantifiable as a number or as a boolean. This means that you need to be able to measure how much of that key result has happened with a number. A key result might be "design 3 posters." If you design 2 posters, you are 66% complete. Another key result might be to send out an email to the head of counselling. This doesn�t have a number but it�s basically either done or not done (boolean - true or false, done or not done).

Let�s look at the time span. OKRs are generally done weekly. We grade ourselves on how we did on last week�s OKRs and then we set the upcoming week�s goals, carrying over anything that we need to.

This is getting a bit complicated so let�s just look at an example. The following is a post that you would put up at the beginning of the week (Sunday or Monday is best).

EXAMPLE:

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Week of: June 12, 2017

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Objective: Summer Implementation Effort

% Time Share: 40% (this is a time estimate of how much of your time this will take up this week… these should be split up among each objective and add up to 100%)

Key Results:

- Complete 3 poster designs

- Put up 40 posters

- Do a 5 min presentation to psychology class on becoming a listener

Due: September 1, 2017 (this is an example of an objective with a due date or end date).

Status/Comments: This is an area you will use to explain your grading but you can also add in a note about the upcoming week.

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Objective: 7 Cups Community Exploration

% Time Share: 30%

Key Results:

- 5 one on one conversations

- 3 forum posts

- Complete 1 new listener training

Due: Ongoing (this is an example of an objective that does not have an end date or due date)

Status/Comments:

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Objective: Campus Leader Team

% Time Share: 30%

Key Results:

- Scrum 3 times

- Attend weekly meeting

- do OKRs

Due: Ongoing

Status/Comments:

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Well there it is. This is essentially a breakdown of your weekly projects/objectives and what you know you have to do to advance that project forward. This is really concrete since everything is quantified and that helps you out.

This is actually insanely productive. The 7 Cups Admin team uses this each week and in the beginning I was actually getting the campus leader team to do it informally. Google invented this and it works really well in teams.

So how do I do this?

Step 1 - draft up your OKRs in a google doc or editor.

Step 2 - Think about what the big picture is and what you need to do in general. I am going to reach out to you soon to talk about overall goals for the next few months as well, so that will come into play down the road.

Step 3 - Derive some objectives/project areas from that and make a section for each one.

Step 4 - come up with several key results for each objective. Make sure that they are quantifiable. Aim high here because you might surprise yourself. If you get 60% of your key results finished, then you are actually doing a good job.

Step 5 - estimate time share and fill in the rest of the information.

Step 6 - Start a thread in the office forum �called [Name]�s OKRs. Here is a link to my thread.

Step 7 - Take a look at the OKRs of other people. This is a public goal setting system for a reason. Feel free to ask them about it.

Step 8 - Make sure on Sunday or Monday you do your next week�s OKRs but also make sure to grade the OKRs from the previous week first. This is a great method of reflection. I�ll do a post on grading next week when we actually have some OKRs going for team members and then I�ll link it in here.

Step 9 - Post your graded OKRs and your upcoming OKRs. Don�t worry about posting bad grades. This will take some time to get down :)

I do OKRs every week for my work. I�ll make sure to post my campus leader ones in this subcommunity so you can see what my plans are and how I am doing with my work.

Usually, weekly OKRs are derived from quarterly OKRs, which in turn are derived from your organization�s quarterly goals. We�ll get into this more in Q4 (Start of September), but here are 3 objectives I want everyone to have at the very least:

Summer Implementation, Community Exploration, Campus Leader Team

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Here is a template you can use:

Objective:

% Time Share:

Key results:

- result 1

- result 2

- result 3

Due:

Status:

Happy OKRing!

This post is brought to you by the Leadership Development Program Team, find out more information about the program here.