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OKRs Done Right: OKR Retrospectives
So, you’ve dipped your toes into the OKR pool. Love them or hate them, OKRs are a great method to set, track, and achieve goals while keeping your team hyper-focused. Setting OKRs is just the beginning, the real magic lies in also having retrospectives.
Annual performance reviews are so 1999. Businesses today need agility. Quarterly OKR retrospectives offer the frequent touchpoints that modern businesses need to continuously change, learn, and adapt. These periodic checkpoints allow teams to assess performance and recalibrate strategies without having to wait an entire year. It’s like updating your computer’s operating system; you wouldn’t wait a year for important updates, would you? (I half joke, I know way too many people that keep ignoring theirs. UPDATE THEM NOW!) Quarterly cycles offer you the tools to make changes in real-time, based on real data.
What’s in a retrospective?
Before you dive into your retrospective, make sure everyone knows what’s on the agenda. An OKR retrospective essentially breaks down into three components: Celebrating, Observing, and Improving. Each deserves its share of the spotlight. You’re looking at at least 2 hours for a workshop, so be sure to allocate enough time and provide a space for people to actively engage and stay focused.
As you start your retrospective, start with evaluating the objectives themselves.
- Did they encapsulate the team’s goals?
- Next, focus on execution: Did we meet our key results?
- Did we aim too high or sell ourselves short?
All these questions serve to make your future OKRs smarter, sharper, and more aligned with your goals. They are your North Star, guiding you toward an effective strategy for the coming quarter.
Learning from wins and losses
A scoreboard is a tracking tool that captures your OKRs’ performance metrics. Think of it as your go-to dashboard for everything OKR-related. It quantifies your objectives and key results, allowing you to clearly see where you stand…
