A company’s journey from a “traditional” goal-setting model to an agile approach is not an easy road. The main challenge in team management is to accompany the team members to work with an agile framework.
Most companies that incorporate agile frameworks use OKR, which seems very modern, but it is a concept that is more than 50 years old, and that companies with a clear focus on innovation and technology, and with very successful results, have been using for decades.
What is an OKR?
OKR is a work management framework that aims to facilitate the objectives set by a company. OKR stands for objectives and key results.
The objective is what is to be achieved, the what. It is usually qualitative. There are two types:
Moon shot: these are aspirational goals, nobody expects them to be 100% achieved, but they are important for the future of the company. It has to take us out of our comfort zone.
Roof shot: these are achievable targets, made for 100% achievement.
Ideally, goals should be moon shot, aspirational, they should take us out of our comfort zone, generate energy that makes us go beyond, and motivate us to do exceptional things. No one is enthusiastic about a roof shot goal, even if it is much easier to achieve.
The key result defines how we know if we have achieved it. Ideally, it should be quantitative. It is not a list of tasks, so it is better to use a what rather than a how in defining it.
Like the objectives, the key results should be ambitious and challenging, but not impossible.
With this framework, targets cease to be deployed, and become the focus of the company.
How to apply an OKR methodology in team management?
- Firstly, goal setting can be top down and bottom up, i.e. the team has a greater say in deciding which objectives and key results it wants to work on. This requires having a highly empowered team, which is able to transform the company’s strategic challenges into challenging objectives and key results. Initiative is a key skill in teams.
- Focus on impact, not activity. We do not define indicators, we are not interested in measuring activity, we are interested in measuring the impact of our activities on key results. Defining key results requires strategic vision. There are people who are very good at thinking up indicators to measure the activity of an initiative, and working to achieve them, and yet they get stuck defining key results.
- OKRs serve to drive self-managed teams, you give them the what and they have to be able to develop the how.
- The achievement of objectives is not linked to any kind of remuneration, so how do we motivate teams, team management is very important, you need to find a way to create a common purpose, you need a team with entrepreneurial skills, with a desire to do things differently, and to take on new challenges, and even risks. This is for those who want to go further, for people with above-average motivation.
- The objectives and key results have to be ambitious, a good objective is difficult to meet 100%, if we stay at 50% it is because the objective was well defined. This, in organisations where the achievement of objectives has always been linked to remuneration, generates a lot of blockages: how am I going to define an objective that I know I am not going to meet if in the previous model staying at 50% was equivalent to not having a bonus, how am I going to set a key result that I know is impossible to meet, what will my manager think if I stay at 55%, what will my manager think if I stay at 55%? The team must feel safe, there must be a culture of trust.
- It works in short cycles, ideally 3 months. In traditional models it was normal to work on objectives for a year, with reviews every 6 months. Now you are asking your team to deliver constant value, to work with tension throughout the cycle (and not leave everything to the last week of the semester, just before the evaluation), this requires planning and work organisation skills that were not so necessary before.
In terms of team management, the big challenge for managers is how to accompany the team in this process of change. Managers have spent years telling their teams what to do and how to do it, and suddenly they are asked to empower themselves, to be autonomous and proactive, to hold back, to not be afraid to make mistakes. And this is a change that does not happen overnight.
The manager must accompany, challenge, undo the team’s blockages, and not be afraid to recalculate the route when progress is not made.
What are my main learnings from this journey?
- You have to adapt the framework of the new objectives to your company; there are no master formulas that work for all organisations. Stick with what works best and generates the best results.
- Go little by little, it’s a profound change, you have to celebrate every achievement, share with the team what works and what doesn’t quite flow.
- Accompany the team, in the definition of the model and in the implementation, it is a change of approach, which requires different skills, and they will need support.
In this new environment, both team and managerial skills must evolve. Team management has evolved, the control style of leadership is no longer as valid as it once was, although it is still valuable and makes organisations reliable, but in a new volatile and uncertain environment, a new servant leadership is needed, where the manager does not manage for results, but works to create an environment in which the team can develop and do exceptional work.
