How to Use OKRs to Do Less and Succeed More

Think back to this past week of your work. How many times did you sit in a meeting and wonder to yourself silently deep inside your cranium where your colleagues can’t see:

• ”What is the point of this conversation/project?”

• “Is this really what we should be focusing on right now?”

• “Is this a good use of this team’s time, energy, money?”

Those thoughts suck. Can you guess why?

• They’re demoralizing

• They’re demotivating

• They’re often rooted in some sort of truth

Here’s the thing - if you thought that…it’s likely that someone else in that same meeting also thought that. Even if you both are wrong and the project is super worthy and impactful - it’s still a bummer that you have doubt.

So how do teams:

• Make sure efforts are worthy

• Make sure everyone is bought in?

Well if you haven’t heard about OKRs yet, strap in.

There was this guy named Andy Grove. He escaped communism and became the 3rd CEO of Intel back in the 70s - where he created this concept of “Objectives & Key Results”.

Fast forward to 2016 and the leaders at the company I just joined, Elance-oDesk, are talking about how to work more effectively across teams. Elance-oDesk was the product of a merger between 2 previously fierce rivals - Elance and oDesk and they had to figure out how to merge teams and ways of working. That’s when I first heard the acronym OKR.

So what are OKRs? They're a framework for setting and measuring goals. Instead of just setting vague goals like "increase sales," OKRs break it down into specific, measurable objectives with key results that you can track progress against. For example, an objective might be to increase website traffic by 20% and the key results would be outcomes like improving search engine optimization, increasing social media engagement, or launching an ad campaign.

But setting OKRs alone isn't enough. You also need a prioritization process to help you decide what tasks or projects to tackle first. This is important because there are always more things to do than there are resources to do them. Prioritizing helps you focus on the most important things and make the most of your limited resources.

So how do you use OKRs and a prioritization process to manage your marketing roadmap?

Start with the big picture

Before you can set OKRs and prioritize projects, you need to know what you want to achieve.

Gather your team and align on high-level goals. Think about where you want to be in six months, a year, or even five years. These should be specific, measurable, and time-bound. The SMART framework is helpful for this (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound goals).

Define the objectives in specific ways. “Make more money” isn’t as good as “Grow customer acquisition by 25% in Q3”.

Break objectives down into smaller ideas

Once you've got your big goal, it's time to break it down into smaller, bite-sized pieces – your Key Results.

This is also where teams typically brainstorm ideas for how to crush these smaller goals. I like to use the design thinking framework - which creates time and space for team members to get creative with solutions, pitch, and cross-pollinate ideas.

Prioritize like a boss

Now that you've got your OKRs, it's time to prioritize projects that'll help you achieve those Key Results. Ideas are great. It’s just that sometimes there are too many - and when they all get greenlit, you all of a sudden have 5 different projects in flight that you have to manage and you end up spreading your headspace, budgets, and design resources across all of them and end up doing none of them well.

In marketing, especially in advertising, these projects are really expensive! You need budget to run campaigns - and it’s often better to have just a few goals and priorities to hit rather than 4 or 5. When you have that many, your message can get diluted and your audience can get confused.

This is where a framework comes in handy.

At both Airbnb and Upwork, we used the ICE system to rank projects. We assigned a score from 1-10 for each project based on:

• Impact: How much will it help us reach our Key Results

• Confidence: How sure are we that it'll work?

• Effort: How much time and resources will it take?

Then, we added up the scores and ranked projects from highest to lowest. The higher the score, the more important the project.

Communicate and align your teams

Once you've got your OKRs and prioritized projects, make sure your teams are on board and aligned. Share your roadmap and explain why you chose each project. This helps everyone understand the big picture and stay focused on the end goal.

Also - this exercise wasn’t meant to be done once, shoved in a drawer, and forgotten about. You have to make OKRs highly visible and regularly report on progress towards them. 

At Upwork, we had weekly check-ins to discuss progress and adjust our roadmap if needed. This kept everyone accountable and working towards the same vision.

Celebrate the wins

Work can be tiring. You know what’s energizing? Being recognized and valued. When your team hits a goal - it’s an opportunity to celebrate and have fun. Take the time to enjoy it.

I always felt more motivated when it felt like our team was progressing towards our north star - and I was lucky enough to have leaders that made sure we felt valued when we did well.

This whole process accomplishes a few things:

1. Crowdsources from all levels of the org, surfacing a wider variety of ideas

2. Forces leaders to see ideas through a sizing lens - making sure efforts have potential for large impact

3. Enables the power of no. It automatically forces a cutline and rejects workstreams that are not impactful enough to be prioritized

4. Ingrains focus - minimizing distraction or questions about whether or not work is important. Doubt is bad for morale.

5. Automatically gives ideas and legitimacy if they are aligned with the OKR - helping individuals and teams justify asks and ideas

By setting clear goals, breaking them down into manageable steps, and focusing on the most important projects, you can make more progress towards the big metrics and prevent your team from burning out.

The real question is….how are teams managing themselves in the absence of OKRs?