With hundreds of great resources on the importance of goal-setting to business growth, it’s hard to imagine there’s any business owner out there who doesn’t set goals. Unfortunately, business growth isn’t just about setting goals and increasing efforts. It’s about strategic planning, too. How you set your goals and communicate them with the rest of your team is important. This is when Objectives and Key Results software (OKR software) comes in handy.
This is a goal-setting method that provides organizations with a common vocabulary to enable teams to understand, focus, and align their goals while ensuring best practices to achieve an objective. This article will discuss the benefits of the software and why we believe it’s a worthy investment.
1. Team Alignment
Many employees often question the effectiveness of their contribution to the business, so they tend to set personal goals that don’t align with the company’s main objectives. OKR software provides your entire team with a clear understanding of what goals are important right now.
Top company managers like Caitlin Gossage will likely agree that OKRs are vital when concerning team alignment. Gossage is a lawyer by training and is the current VP Operations & Chief Compliance Officer at Forthlane Partners. Although compliance officers like her usually have an impressive work portfolio, at some point in their career, they might struggle with communicating company goals with team members. This is one of the main challenges that OKR tools tackle.
This methodology connects all team and individual goals towards the company’s mission and steers them in the right direction. This means that with OKRs, work isn’t business as usual. Instead, all actions will aim at approaching the main company goal.
That doesn’t mean all teams must have the same goal or objective. Instead, it means brainstorming how to achieve the main objective, breaking it down into smaller tasks, and assigning these tasks to different units. As such, each team understands what‘s expected from them, and they now have the freedom to decide which approach is more likely to produce the desired outcome.
2. Accountability and Ownership
Earlier we highlighted of how OKR software aids businesses in creating a unified direction and the subsequent freedom it gives teams in setting their individual goals to align with company objectives. Additionally, it also allows teams to take accountability and ownership of delivering their goals.
Most top management know a small percentage of frontline problems and a good OKR framework helps bridge this knowledge gap. Allowing teams to take charge of writing their collaborative OKRs enables them to leverage their frontline expertise and distribute time and energy efficiently. When teams set their OKR, they are more likely to take ownership and accountability for tasks.
Admittedly, setting up a good OKR framework to make this process seamless and achieve the best possible outcomes isn’t always straightforward. Thankfully, there are OKR consultants who can guide you. An OKR coach will help your organization develop an OKR template that supports your company objectives and desired key results
3. Innovation and Growth
The goal of every small business is to grow, and OKRs help drive this growth through innovation and improvement. Working with OKRs allows you and your team to identify the weak areas of your business and crack down on ways to improve them. OKRs help your team focus on positive changes that promote growth.
For instance, let’s assume that your business is in the restaurant industry and your goal is to have an efficient online food ordering system. OKR methodology allows you to consider the automation of your online ordering platform and inventory management. In this case, investing in a restaurant’s online ordering system will help you take orders from different delivery apps, including the restaurant’s website, from a single device.
With online ordering software, there will be fewer delays and fewer mistakes in processing orders. Small restaurant owners will be able to scale up easily without requiring additional investment. The bottom line is that OKRs allow you and your employees to have meaningful conversations that will lead to setting ambitious goals and getting incredible results.
4. Customer Satisfaction
We live in an era where the quality of customer service can affect a business’s success or failure. Customers are making more informed choices today by visiting review sites and social media to learn about a company before purchasing their product or service. This means companies must focus on having an excellent customer support team that is result-oriented and aims to delight customers.
Objectives and key results are great for setting goals that lead to customer satisfaction. You can integrate these tools into your marketing campaigns and use the data it provides to identify your target audience, see what strategies are working, and create promotions to attract new customers and retain your existing ones.
For instance, you can use the customer data accumulated by using OKRs to create a personalized customer loyalty program and email marketing to reward your existing customers for their patronage. This helps keep your customer relations on track.
5. Flexibility
Unlike other traditional strategic planning methods, strategic OKRs can be set for a year or a quarter. It’s usually better to set your OKRs for a shorter tactical cycle, like six to eight weeks, especially as a small company. This allows for effective monitoring and discussions on goals.
The flexibility of OKRs means you don’t have to wait until the end of the year to track your team’s progress. You can do it at the end of each cycle and make adjustments where need be. By doing so, you mitigate risks and reduce the waste of valuable resources.
