CHAPTER 5
Playbook for Phase 3 – Cycle Coaching

MY FATHER, MARIO LAMORTE, was a master elementary schoolteacher. In his freewriting exercise, he provided simple instructions: write down whatever is on your mind while keeping your pencil moving for 10 minutes. One gloomy student approached him with a sad look and complained, “I can't think of anything to write – it's frustrating to see the other kids writing so fast.” My father replied, “Perfect! Write down exactly what you just told me. You're off to a great start.” The student returned to her desk and started writing. While Mario's freewriting workshop generated enthusiasm, the real work was just beginning.

My father took the journals home to read over the weekend and inserted personal notes, questions, and encouraging comments. He created an ongoing dialog and collaborative relationship with each student. His approach to teaching writing informs my approach to OKRs coaching.

The training described in Chapter 4 generates enthusiasm. If you are an OKRs trainer, you might simply deliver training and move on to your next project. But you are not a trainer. You are a coach.

Like my father with his students, you know the workshop is just the beginning of an ongoing collaboration. You provide coaching throughout the OKRs cycle to ensure your client translates theory into practice. While your client may not have a journal, they often provide written OKRs for your feedback. Your encouraging comments and questions enable the ongoing collaboration that is essential to OKRs coaching.

This chapter breaks down how to coach your client through the steps of an OKRs cycle. Each step begins with solutions for avoiding common pitfalls. To make this concrete, we include excerpts from actual cycle coaching sessions and a case study that follows one of our client's OKRs through each step of the cycle.

STEP 1: SET AND ALIGN OKRs

Pitfalls

  • Defining too many OKRs
  • Writing key results as a list of tasks, measuring output not outcomes
  • Failing to define why the objective is important now
  • Creating OKRs in silos, ignoring dependencies

Solutions

  • Focus on one to three objectives per team.
  • Distinguish between key results, health metrics, and tasks.
  • Align on why each objective is important prior to drafting key results.
  • Involve key stakeholders outside your team when drafting OKRs.

Most organizations that approach us have already tried to roll out OKRs on their own. They often want to use OKRs to focus, but define way too many OKRs. We were recently approached by a team that defined 11 objectives! They presented us with a massive list of key results that looked more like tasks than measurable outcomes. Some organizations seek to use OKRs to increase cross‐functional alignment and reduce silo effects. Ironically, these same organizations often define teams based on their org chart and ask each team to draft OKRs in silos.

When approached by a prospective client that has encountered these pitfalls, let them know they are not alone. Provide validation. Remind your prospective client that it takes time to get OKRs right. Present them with the solutions outlined in this book, and they may go on to become your client. To help your client avoid these pitfalls and define effective OKRs, we designed the seven steps for creating team‐level OKRs, shown in Figure 5.1.

An illustration of the seven steps for creating team-level OKRs

FIGURE 5.1 The seven steps for creating team‐level OKRs

While the first two steps, mission and alignment check, are not technically part of defining OKRs, do not skip them. These first two steps create valuable context for drafting team‐level OKRs. Here is a sample OKR we developed with a client after completing these seven steps with a marketing team:

This section breaks down the steps we took to develop this sample OKR. The steps are meant to be iterative. For example, our clients often return to Step 3 to revisit their objective after working on key results in later steps as shown in Figure 5.2. Our analysis of each step includes questions to ask and tips for success.

Schematic illustration of common iterations back to step 3, develop objectives

FIGURE 5.2 Common iterations back to step 3, develop objectives

1. Agree on a Mission

Many organizations implement OKRs to shorten their planning cycle. Shorter cycles create more opportunities to adjust course. However, introducing short cycles can also be a potential pitfall of OKRs. Are OKRs too shortsighted? How can OKRs be strategic if they look out only for three months? How can we ensure that each team's OKRs are connected to a longer‐term mission?

Here is a simple equation to connect OKRs to a longer‐term mission: M + OKRs = MOKRs where “M” stands for “mission.”1 Most organizations define company‐level missions. If your client does not have a company‐level mission in place, put the OKRs program on hold and complete a mission exercise with your client's leadership team right away. A company‐level mission is the foundation upon which to build OKRs.2 As most organizations do not define missions at the team level, you have an opportunity to add value right away.

We recommend starting with missions with every team you coach. Team‐level missions provide context for drafting OKRs and help connect work to the bigger picture. Our clients consistently report that developing team‐level missions is time well spent. We advise teams to allocate one hour each year to refresh their missions. Figure 5.3 summarizes the mission statement exercise that we use with our clients.

Here is the outcome of Step 1 from our sample marketing team.

  • Marketing Team Mission: Provide tools to enable our sales team to sell and beat the competition.

Three Questions to Ask:

  1. In one sentence, how would you describe your team's purpose?
  2. Whom do we serve?
  3. What service do we offer?

Tips

  • Confirm a companywide mission is in place as context for all OKRs.
  • Encourage each team to create their own mission; revisit it each year.
  • Provide your client with a simple mission exercise like the one in Figure 5.3.
Table represents sample mission exercise

FIGURE 5.3 Sample mission exercise

2. Check Alignment

Amazing outcomes almost always require collaboration across teams. Some organizations create cross‐functional squads. Others define team‐level OKRs based on their org chart.3 Regardless of how OKRs teams are defined, take time at the beginning of each OKRs cycle to identify near‐term dependencies across teams. If a given team has a strong dependency on another team, consider including key stakeholders from outside the team. Input from outside the team often leads to a dependent key result or a shared OKR and can improve cross‐functional alignment.4

We are often tempted to skip the alignment check. However, our clients find it useful to take 5 to 10 minutes to identify dependencies outside their team before diving into OKRs. While several minutes is sufficient for most teams, other teams allocate more time for this step.5 Here is the outcome of Step 2 from our sample marketing team.

We depend on …

  • Product to design features and new products.
  • Sales to call new leads and provide feedback when we lose.
  • Customer success to create happy customers that agree to be featured in marketing collateral.

These teams depend on us …

  • Sales team needs us to provide leads.
  • Finance team needs us to report ROI and minimize cost per lead.

Three Questions to Ask:

  1. Which teams do your objectives depend on?
  2. Which teams do you collaborate with most often?
  3. Which teams depend on you? How?

Tips

  • If there is a critical dependency on another team in the upcoming OKRs cycle, consider creating a shared OKR.
  • While five minutes may suffice to check alignment, allow more time for highly engaged clients.

3. Develop Objectives (Why Now?)

After checking alignment, your client is ready to draft objectives. We recommend reviewing top‐level OKRs as context for creating team‐level OKRs. However, creating team‐level objectives requires critical thinking. Avoid the direct cascade approach, as outlined in Chapter 3. Teams should not copy and paste higher‐level key results to define their team's objectives.

While the creative process of developing objectives is more of an art than a science, our clients do best with some guidance. We advise the following three guidelines to help your clients develop objectives: (1) Write as a single sentence, (2) Begin with a verb, and (3) Define a focus area for improvement, not maintenance. We also advise presenting one or two sample objectives that are relevant to your client.6 Here are three sample objectives, followed by a short paragraph detailing why each objective is important now.

After presenting examples of objectives and why they are important now, give teams 15 to 30 minutes to draft one objective with three to five sentences that explain why their objective is so important right now. The explanation of “Why now?” should educate and motivate staff. Be sure to specify how the objective connects to higher‐level goals (vertical alignment) or to another team's goals (horizontal alignment). Our sample marketing team's objective has both vertical and horizontal connections, as “cost effectively” connects vertically to the company's profitability goal and “quality of leads” connects horizontally to sales team goals. Here is the outcome of the objective exercise for our sample marketing team.

Three Questions to Ask:

  1. Fundamental objective question: What is the most important area to focus on making measurable progress in the near term?
  2. Why is this objective so important now?
  3. If the team had to focus on a single objective, what would it be?

Tips

  • When struggling to define objectives, consider going back to Step 1 to revisit the team mission.
  • Do not copy top‐level key results and paste them as team‐level objectives.
  • Include several sentences that answer the question: “Why is the objective so important now?”
  • In addition to educating and motivating staff, the explanation of “Why now?” should clarify how the objective is aligned (i.e., vertically to higher‐level goals or horizontally to other teams.)

4. Draft Key Results

Objectives tend to be easy to draft. Key results tend to be difficult to write as precise, measurable statements. The best way to master this step, and the remaining steps that cover how to finalize key results, is to review excerpts from coaching conversations and reflect on your own sessions. Specifically, we recommend reflecting on your actual OKRs coaching sessions multiple times using the left‐hand column exercise detailed at the end of Chapter 1.

Sample draft key results that represent the outcome of this fourth step with our sample marketing team include: (1) reduce cost of leads from X to Y, (2) remove leads with personal email addresses from qualified leads, and (3) estimate the cost of marketing events.

Three Questions to Ask:

  1. Fundamental key result question: At the end of the period, how will we know “the objective” will be achieved?
  2. What metric needs to move to reflect progress on the objective?
  3. How will we make the objective measurable?

Tips

  • Give your client time to write silently when drafting key results. Ask each participant to write as many ideas as possible in a few minutes. Then, have them compare their draft key results in groups of two and share their best key result.
  • Specify the baseline! Instead of writing a key result in the form “Increase metric A to Y,” specify the baseline so that the key result takes the form of “Increase metric A from X to Y.” If the current value is unknown, encourage your client to explore a baseline key result.
  • Focus on the essence of key results when drafting. Do not obsess on the exact values of X and Y at this stage. You can use an approximation, so that the draft key result takes the form of “Increase metric A from ~X to ~Y.”

5. Convert Tasks to Key Results

When drafting key results for an objective, one often produces a list of tasks. Coming up with a to‐do list is perfectly fine, but remember, tasks are not key results. Teams must convert these tasks into key results or remove tasks from the list of potential key results altogether.

Let's look at how one of our sample marketing team's draft key results was converted from a task to a key result. The draft key result, “Remove leads with personal email addresses from qualified leads,” is a task. Our client reported that removing leads with personal email addresses like “@yahoo.com” or @gmail.com” could be done by a single person within a week. After coaching, this task was converted to a result that reflected the intended outcome to “increase conversion from X to Y as measured by the percentage of leads that convert to opportunity within six weeks of creation.”

Three Questions to Ask:

  1. Fundamental task‐to‐key result question: What is the intended outcome of the task?
  2. If we complete the task, does that mean we've achieved the objective?
  3. What is the best possible outcome you can imagine that could result from completing the task?

Tips

  • Remind your client that it's important that each key result has an action plan, but that these action items need not be listed as key results.
  • To ensure your client feels heard, consider creating a list of tasks below the OKRs drafting document. For example, several of our clients call their critical task list “Just Do Its!”
  • Explain that the list of “Just Do Its!” can include activities that consume significant team resources. A given action item may drive a health metric or key result or reflect a high‐priority compliance activity that just needs to get done (e.g., “complete the audit” or “update security software”).

6. Challenge the Set of Key Results

Key results should be complementary. They should represent the minimal set of important metrics required to define the achievement of an objective. If an objective has three key results that are all highly correlated, the overall set of key results may be redundant. Each key result should add value. A good set of key results work together to tell different parts of the objective story.

Teams that use OKRs effectively often have complementary key results that reflect quantity and quality. Two key results that illustrate how our sample marketing team drafted both a quantity and a quality key result for their objective are:

  1. Quantity key result. Increase inbound leads from 500 to 1,000.
  2. Quality key result. Increase conversion from 20% to 40% as measured by leads that convert to opportunity within six weeks of creation.

If the team focuses only on the quantity key result to get more leads, they might find a decrease in the quality of leads. By including both key results, the team can focus on both lead quantity and lead quality. In addition to balancing quantity and quality, teams that use OKRs effectively often define a set of key results that include both leading and lagging indicators.

Leading indicators tend to be more controllable and are often referred to as inputs. Lagging indicators tend to be classified as outputs and may not be very controllable, especially in the near term. Examples of lagging indicators include bottom‐line metrics such as revenue, profit, and average revenue per employee. Examples of leading indicators include metrics such as new leads created, website traffic, and landing page conversion rates. Here's an example that illustrates how our sample marketing team might balance leading and lagging indicators:

  • Leading indicator key result: Increase conversion rate on landing pages from 3% to 5%.
  • Lagging indicator key result: Increase marketing contribution to pipeline from $1.5 million to $2 million.

In this case, marketing feels like they can get to work right away, testing to optimize landing page conversion rates. However, it will take time, possibly several months, before this increased conversion rate impacts the pipeline. Because increasing landing page conversion rate drives an increase in pipeline, landing page conversion is the leading indicator, or input, and pipeline is the lagging indicator, or output.7

Three Questions to Ask:

  1. If all key results are achieved, is the objective also achieved?
  2. How can the set of key results be reduced?
  3. Do the key results capture quantity and quality? Leading and lagging?

Tips

  • If a given objective has several key results that appear to be highly correlated, eliminate at least one key result. Apply the less is more mantra!
  • Look for a balanced set of key results that include both quality and quantity as well as a mix of leading and lagging indicators.
  • As the set of key results evolves, revisit the objective. The seven steps are not meant to be perfectly sequential. Remember to iterate as illustrated in Figure 5.2.

7. Refine Key Results. Finalize Team‐Level OKRs.

Prior to publishing OKRs, use the characteristics of effective key results as a checklist to further refine key results. The eight characteristics of key results are:

  1. “Key,” not “all.” Will the key result inspire action that will move the needle, or does it reflect business‐as‐usual maintenance work?
  2. Specific. Use specific language to avoid ambiguity.
  3. Measurable. Progress should not be subject to opinion.
  4. Results, not tasks. Key results are results/outcomes, not tasks.
  5. Clear. Use high school English with only standard acronyms.
  6. Aspirational. You achieve more when you set the bar high.
  7. Scored. Use confidence scores to manage expectations.
  8. Champion. Each key result has a champion who updates progress and ensures the key result does not slip through the cracks.

Once key results are refined, some of our clients publish their OKRs. However, some organizations that define OKRs at the team level prefer to conduct one final review to ensure alignment prior to publishing. Assuming that your client included input from dependent teams when drafting OKRs, your client's OKRs are likely horizontally aligned. However, in addition to horizontal validation across teams, team‐level OKRs should be vertically validated.

We recommend team leads share their OKRs with senior leadership for final approval just before publishing to confirm vertical alignment. Consider facilitating brief conversations between team leads and leadership. Once OKRs are approved, ensure your client publishes OKRs in a single location. We call this single location the OKRs tracker. Dikran Yapoujian, the first certified coach to join the OKRs.com team, discovered an excellent way to introduce a client to the OKRs tracker.

Three Questions to Ask:

  1. “Key,” not “all.” Is this a focus for improvement now or is it already in an acceptable range?
  2. Measurable. Rather than writing the key result as “Increase metric A to Y,” can it be written as “Increase metric A from X to Y?” What is the baseline?
  3. Scored. What is a commit level of progress within our team's control that feels 90% likely to be achieved? What is a stretch outcome that represents a 10% confidence level?

Tips

  • Use the characteristics of effective key results when refining key results.
  • Consider reviewing OKRs with leadership to confirm vertical alignment.
  • Load final OKRs into a single location to ensure visibility throughout the cycle.

STEP 2: CHECK IN AND MONITOR

Pitfalls

  • Zero OKRs review – “set‐it‐and‐forget‐it”
  • Too many OKRs‐specific meetings and processes

Solutions

  • Conduct a mid‐cycle review with multiple OKRs teams.
  • Integrate OKRs into existing team meetings and reports.

With OKRs published in your client's OKRs tracker, you are ready to coach your client through Step 2, check in and monitor progress. Without a coach, teams often do not integrate OKRs into their daily work.

While set‐it‐and‐forget‐it is the most common pitfall, some teams overcompensate by introducing excessive OKRs‐specific check‐in meetings for the entire team to attend. In fact, we've seen some organizations introduce two meetings per week just to review OKRs! More meetings can make an OKRs program feel like yet another burden.

The check‐in step works best when integrated into existing team meetings. We advise teams to begin their weekly or biweekly team meetings with a quick OKRs review. If you are starting the engagement exclusively with top‐level OKRs, you have an advantage. Given that executives often play the role of team lead, your client will be in position to build off their success at the top level when the time comes to explore OKRs at the team level.

If your client wants help with team‐level OKRs from the start, we advise narrowing the scope to coaching a small group of three to five pilot teams through a complete OKRs cycle. Remember to leverage the crawl‐walk‐run mantra by emphasizing learning about OKRs during the first cycle and reserving the second cycle to explore how best to scale the program. Regardless of how you start, most organizations will ultimately want your coaching to support team‐level OKRs.

There are two types of team‐level coaching sessions that you can facilitate to optimize your client's check‐in process: (1) single‐team sessions with the members of one team deploying OKRs, and (2) multi‐team sessions with members of several teams.

Single‐Team Check‐Ins

Our clients often adopt a standard set of tools for each step of the OKRs cycle. In Step 1, we provide clients with an OKRs drafting template and an OKRs tracker. For Step 2, we help our clients develop a standard check‐in tool such as the sample template shown in Figure 5.4.8

Nearly all our clients document progress in a standard format in a single location. We recommend that this single location be whatever is most comfortable for your client. For example, this single system might be a dedicated OKRs software solution. However, many of our clients use existing systems such as Google Sheets, Microsoft PowerPoint, or Confluence. Champions provide updates on key results as part of a structured check‐in discussion. As a coach, you bring structure to your client's check‐in process. You facilitate at least one check‐in session with each team deploying OKRs.

Table represents sample 2 × 2 template for OKRs cycle step 2, check in and monitor

FIGURE 5.4 Sample 2 × 2 template for OKRs cycle step 2, check in and monitor

In addition to providing your client with a visual like the one in Figure 5.4 and agreeing on questions to help facilitate single‐team check‐ins, you must ensure that teams complete the check‐in step of the OKRs cycle. As Madlyn Del Monte noted in her working agreement canvas described earlier in this chapter, teams should agree on how often they will review OKRs at the start of the cycle. This cadence can be weekly, biweekly, monthly, or even ad‐hoc.

Multi‐Team Check‐Ins (The Mid‐Cycle Review)

If your client has multiple teams setting OKRs, you facilitate a mid‐cycle review with multiple teams. Do not allow each team to read through their entire set of OKRs. Apart from top‐level OKRs, reading through a complete set of OKRs is a waste of time. Instead, we advise giving each team several minutes to share two key results with the larger group. One key result should be on track—we call this the big win. Another key result should not be on track—we call this the big learn.

When sharing the big win, key result champions take a couple of minutes to share and celebrate progress, often thanking people outside their team. Some organizations clap after each big‐win key result is announced.

When sharing the big learn, key result champions take responsibility, sharing what they are learning about the business and/or the OKRs process itself. This is not a time to point fingers outside the team. We encourage the audience to cheer champions after each big‐learn key result is shared. Doing so reinforces that OKRs are about learning in addition to making measurable progress. In addition, clapping can be an effective way to keep the session moving.

Be sure your client has a timekeeper to keep the meeting on track. Mid‐cycle reviews with multiple teams are typically planned for an hour. These reviews work best when limited to at most seven teams. If a team needs more than 10 minutes, set up a follow‐up discussion with a smaller group. After completing the mid‐cycle review, you are ready to move on to the final step of the OKRs cycle, reflect and reset.9

STEP 3: REFLECT AND RESET

Pitfalls

  • Skipping this step entirely
  • Conducting a retrospective that only looks back

Solutions

  • Schedule reflect and reset sessions with clear agendas.
  • Ensure that teams apply learnings to inform next cycle's OKRs.

Reflect and reset is our favorite step in the OKRs cycle. Unlike a retrospective that emphasizes looking back, this step features both a reflection on the past as well as a reset that focuses the team on how best to move forward. Perhaps we like this step so much because we take credit for inventing it! This is where the rubber meets the road. This is your opportunity to help your client build their goal‐setting muscle as they apply learnings to inform the next OKRs cycle.

While you do not hold your client accountable for achieving a given key result, you do hold your client accountable for learning. Each team must document learnings from each key result. To optimize learning, consider including two teams in a single reflect and reset session as this allows teams to watch another team complete the process.

Our clients often like to send an email to set expectations about their upcoming reflect and reset coaching sessions. Let's look at an actual email one of our clients sent to each team leader to help prepare for reflect and reset sessions at the end of their first OKRs cycle. Typically, the OKRs project lead sends this email (as shown on following page).

Outcome of the Reflect and Reset Session

Let's analyze the outcome of an actual reflect and reset coaching session for a sample key result. We used our client's OKRs tracker tool to facilitate the session. The tracker included three fields for reflect and reset: (1) Final Score, (2) Learning, and (3) Keep, Modify, or Remove? Figure 5.5 illustrates how we used this tracker for the key result: “Increase partners from 100 to 500.”10

Table represents sample OKRs tracker from step 3, reflect and reset

FIGURE 5.5 Sample OKRs tracker from step 3, reflect and reset

After reading the key result aloud, the key result champion explained that the key result was scored a zero, shared the learning, and suggested that we apply this learning to draft a modified key result for the next cycle.11 When the key result was created in Step 1, the team expected to easily double partners from 100 to 200. In fact, 200 partners represented the commit level of progress. We pointed out that this growth rate seemed quite high as a commit, but the team confirmed that they felt anything short of 200 would be considered a failure. They felt 500 would be a stretch and reported a 50% confidence of ending the quarter with 300 partners.

When we started the reflect and reset session, the final score field was already populated with “140 score is ZERO.” Midway into the OKRs cycle, they confirmed that it was easy to get more partners, but difficult to get quality partners. The learning field was also populated. The team took a few minutes to apply their learning to draft a key result for the upcoming cycle. Everyone agreed that the focus needed to shift to quality rather than quantity of partners. As external OKRs coaches, we asked, “What makes a partner ‘high quality,’ and how can we make this measurable?” In just a few minutes, the team clarified what they meant by a “quality partner” with the magic words “as measured by.”

While they did not specify the commit, target, and stretch level of progress during the reflect and reset session, they walked out with a draft key result for the upcoming cycle based on what they had learned in the prior cycle. They learned that new partners who failed to sell certificates right away tended to drop out of the program. They applied this learning to draft a new key result, “Increase high‐quality partners as measured by three certificates sold in first month from X to Y.”

Ending the cycle with a draft set of OKRs for the next cycle positions your client for success as they begin Step 1 of the next cycle. Here are tips for making the reflect and reset session a success:

  • Purpose. (1) Agree on final scores for key results, (2) capture learnings from the OKRs cycle, and (3) apply these learnings to the next cycle.
  • Duration. Depending on the number of key results, 30–60 minutes. Limit the time per key result to 10 minutes. If more time is required, agree who will meet after the group discussion to resolve.
  • Attendees. Key result champions must attend this session; ideally, the entire team attends. Consider conducting a reflect and reset coaching session with two teams to optimize learning.

OKRs CYCLE COACHING CASE STUDY

Now that we've covered the three steps of the OKRs cycle, let's look at an OKRs coaching case study that follows an OKR through each step. Our client was a high‐tech e‐commerce company. Let's call this client “Company ABC.” Company ABC's leadership was not happy with their existing OKRs program. They felt they had defined too many OKRs and that they were poorly written. Most teams set several objectives and defined well over 10 key results. Many key results looked more like tasks than results.

The leadership team sought to use OKRs to increase focus. The organization was in rapid‐growth mode. The CEO felt “everyone worked really hard but had taken on too many projects.” They wanted to implement OKRs to get teams to stop chasing the latest shiny object.

Step 1: Set and Align

As with all our clients, we defined deployment parameters prior to getting started with OKRs cycle coaching. Most relevant to this case study, we agreed to limit each team to two objectives and adopted a modified version of the Radical Focus approach to scoring. Rather than writing each key result as a target with a 50% confidence level, they opted to define stretch key results with just a 25% confidence level. This case study focuses on the partner success team led by Jimmy. Jimmy quickly developed his team's mission and completed the alignment check step. The final version of the OKR analyzed in this case study is as follows.

We spent most of our coaching time defining measurable key results. Here is an excerpt of the OKRs coaching dialog between me (external coach) and Jimmy (team lead). This conversation occurred right after drafting the objective and illustrates how we refined three key results at the end of Step 1 of the cycle.

OKRs Coach/Ben:How will we know that we will “end Q3 on track to retain 90% of last year's total revenue share from our existing partners?” How many partners are on board now? Should all be counted the same or are some partners more impactful than others?
Partner Success Team Lead/Jimmy:We have several hundred partners. And yes, some partners are more impactful than others. In fact, for the next few months, we want to focus on the top 10 partners up for renewal. The top 10 make up about 80% of the revenue up for renewal.
Ben:OK, so how can we make this measurable? Is it as simple as either renewing a partner or not renewing a partner?
Jimmy:Kind of, but not quite. We tend to retain nearly every partner. The tricky thing is to renew our partners without giving away too much of the pie. We want to retain partners without losing our revenue share, which is typically set anywhere between 1.5% and 2.5%.
Ben:Are you measuring your ability to renew partners while maintaining revenue share?
Jimmy:Yes, when we figure all our partners into the equation, including the ones we lose for whatever reason, we're coming in at 70% to 90% total partner revenue retention.
Ben:What is the most amazing revenue retention you can imagine in Q3?
Jimmy:100% is theoretically possible, but nearly impossible since none of the partnerships are set up to increase our revenue share, and some are set to reduce slightly over time. I'd say 90% would be amazing.
Ben:Is that a stretch key result with 25% probability of achievement?
Jimmy:Yes.

➔ Leads to key result 1: Retain ALL Top 10 partners up for renewal in Q3 with an overall average of 90% of existing revenue‐share agreements.

Jimmy:We need to launch new products based on what our partners want. This shows we're adding more value and being responsive. We need a key result like launch five products in Q3.
Ben:Is that even possible?
Jimmy:Not really. But we could write it as launch – or get approval to launch – five products in Q3.
Ben:Does any product count here?
Jimmy:No. We should count enterprise products only; they are the ones partners are demanding.
Ben:OK, that sounds like a potential key result. Have you measured the number of enterprise products launched in the past, say for last quarter?
Jimmy:Yes. Last quarter we launched two and got approval for one, but our CEO and our partners want more. In our market, launching products creates buzz. In fact, even getting approval to launch means we can make the announcement in a press release. This helps retain as well as attract new partners.
Ben:I hesitate to recommend a key result based simply on the number of launches. A key result should measure the impact of a launch.
Jimmy:I get that, but we will not see the real impact of these launches for quite some time. In fact, we may see some near‐term business impact as new products allow us to show partners that we're making progress. This gives us something positive to share when we meet up. By the way, that's really the most important indicator for how partnerships are going. We need to be more proactive with our partners rather than waiting to reach out the month or two before they are up for renewal.

➔ Leads to key result 2: Increase the number of enterprise product approvals or launches from 3 in Q2 to 5 in Q3.

Ben:I get that you want to be more proactive. How can we measure your level of proactivity?
Jimmy:It's all about face‐to‐face partner meetings. We had 50 in Q2. If we could double that, it would be great. One hundred in Q3 would be about 10 per week, assuming 10 full weeks in Q3, which is basically two per week for each of our five key players. It's a stretch, but it's possible.
Ben:We typically do not want key results like “have lots of meetings,” as that sounds more like a task. What is the intended outcome of these meetings? Are all meetings equally impactful?
Jimmy:Good question. Some meetings are better than others. The intended outcome is to get to know what's working and what we need to be doing better for our partners.
Ben:OK, can you think of a specific meeting that was highly impactful?
Jimmy:The best meetings have a documented outcome that informs the team.
Ben:And how will this documented outcome inform the team?
Jimmy:When the meeting clearly leads to an action item. It's a good outcome if we get a suggestion from our partner that drives retention or helps shape how we create an enterprise product.
Ben:What about “double in‐person meetings from 50 in Q2 to 100 in Q3 that include documented ideas for improving retention or a new product”?
Jimmy:I really like that one! How about we specify that each meeting must have next steps that drive key result 1 and/or key result 2? This will force us to be 100% clear about the goal of our partner meetings before the meeting. And it keeps us focused on our first two key results, which I expect will be our focus for the next OKRs cycle as well. It should really drive accountability.

➔ Leads to key result 3: Double in‐person meetings from 50 in Q2 to 100 in Q3 (each meeting must have next steps that drive KR 1 and/or KR 2).

Jimmy:Our team drafted a fourth key result, as well: “Create a tangible partner feedback loop that drives enterprise roadmap.”
Ben:OK. How will we know that the partner feedback loop drives the roadmap, and how do we know that this is a good thing?
Jimmy:I see your point, let me think about that one a bit more and get back to you for a follow‐up session.

Here is the email I sent as follow‐up:

Step 2: Check In and Monitor

Jimmy met with the CEO to finalize his team's OKRs, and we published these into their OKRs tracker. Just a few weeks later, it was time for a mid‐cycle check‐in. Jimmy and his team completed the mid‐cycle check‐in columns from the OKRs tracker, as shown in Figure 5.6.

Jimmy summarized his experience with Step 2, check in and monitor process near the end of the cycle:

Table represents check-in columns from an OKRs tracker

FIGURE 5.6 Check‐in columns from an OKRs tracker

As point person, we had a tracking sheet just with our three key results. This sheet lived in real time and led to a wild success for our team. We started each team meeting with a quick review of where we were on each key result. So, every team member was aware of these key results and how we were tracking. We challenged each other about the number of meetings completed each week. But it was all done in a productive way that focused and aligned our team.

As the external coach, I joined Jimmy and his team for just one, single‐team check‐in session. The coaching for this cycle concluded with reflect and reset.

Step 3: Reflect and Reset

Near the end of Q3, I facilitated a reflect and reset coaching session with Jimmy and his fellow key result champions. We started by confirming the final score for each key result. The numerical scores felt somewhat arbitrary, as they did not adopt a prescoring system to specify a 0.3/commit or 0.7/target. Instead, they assigned a number between 0 and 1 based on their understanding of Google's key result grading system. Figure 5.7 summarizes final scores and decisions to keep, modify, or remove. As the text did not fit nicely into the tracker, we inserted comments into each cell. These comments are summarized below the figure.

Table represents reflect and reset columns from an OKRs tracker

FIGURE 5.7 Reflect and reset columns from an OKRs tracker

NOTES

  1. 1.  For more on M + OKRs = MOKRs equation, refer to the OKRs.com blog post: MOKRs: OKRs with a Mission https://okrs.com/2015/07/mokrs-okrs-with-a-mission.
  2. 2.  Frameworks for developing strategy are beyond the scope of this book. For a summary of how missions create context for OKRs, refer to Paul Niven and Ben Lamorte, Objectives and Key Results: Driving Focus Alignment, and Engagement with OKRs (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2016), pp 42–54.
  3. 3.  For more on cross‐functional squads and functional teams, refer to the first deployment parameter detailed in Chapter 3.
  4. 4.  For a definition and examples of dependent key results and shared OKRs, refer to Niven and Lamorte, Objectives and Key Results, p. 111.
  5. 5.  We allocated 10 minutes to the alignment check exercise as part of a simulated OKRs coaching session with one team at a recent workshop. However, we ended up dedicating two hours to complete the alignment check exercise. This client created a “dependency matrix” summarizing how various teams depended on one another for the upcoming OKRs cycle. This client reported that the alignment exercise was the most valuable outcome of the workshop.
  6. 6.  For more sample objectives, refer to the Sample Email with Prework for a Top‐Level Workshop section in Chapter 4.
  7. 7.  The distinction of leading and lagging indicators is nothing new. For more, we recommend the following KPI Library article: https://kpilibrary.com/topics/lagging-and-leading-indicators.
  8. 8.  This sample template is loosely based on the four‐quadrant check‐in system described in Christina Wodkte, Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results (Boxes and Arrows, 2017), pp. 62–71. Some of our clients create a template like this for each key result; others use a template that captures all key results for a given objective.
  9. 9.  Additional content from actual mid‐cycle OKRs reviews is available to members of the OKRs Coaching Network. For example, we explore how and when to modify or remove key results in the middle of a cycle.
  10. 10. Increasing partners was just one of the three key results for our client's objective: “Prove our online partner model is scalable.” We advise revisiting objectives after completing Step 3, reflect and reset, for each key result.
  11. 11. Recall the three main learning areas from reflect and reset as mentioned in Chapter 2: (1) how to optimize the OKRs program, (2) how to better get stuff done at work, and (3) how best to make a business impact. This key result falls into the third category, how best to make a business impact.
  12. 12. Jimmy's first key result did not include a baseline. In this case, we did not write the key result using the “X to Y” format. Questions we might discuss in the OKRs Coach Network about this first key result include: What questions could a coach ask to specify the baseline? Is it critical to define a baseline in this case or is this key result fine without one?
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