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Benefits of OKRs

General benefits of OKRs

Objectives and key results (OKRs) provide strategic advantages regardless of a company's size. Massive global enterprise companies adopt OKRs, as do small companies with only a few employees and even individuals. OKRs provide many vital benefits, including that they:

  • Shift focus from output to impact: When you make OKRs the center of your business planning, focus shifts from your team's outputs to the impact they have on business. Additionally, OKRs provide clarity about the purpose of the work you're doing, thereby promoting efficiency and helping reduce employee burnout.

  • Create cross-functional cooperation that helps unify efforts and improve collaboration. The alignment of goals, including those of individuals, teams, and departments, with a company’s broader strategy helps people prioritize the work they're doing. 

  • Help you navigate rapid change and reduce risk. An OKR framework offers visibility into where you're concentrating efforts. In turn, this helps you manage risk proactively and identify themes and changes in diverse data sets that you might not notice without a unifying system. An OKR framework helps you shift focus from activity and output to outcomes, thereby making the right changes at the right time to stay competitive.

  • Provide clarity that's documented, measurable, and owned. The OKR framework helps you track and measure output using OKR software or documentation that you use to manage it. Each individual is responsible for their OKRs and company leadership is responsible for enabling pursuit of OKRs.

  • Inspire stretch and foster involvement. If you use OKRs correctly, you can make them a driving force in your strategic rhythm. OKRs help you keep people connected to your broader mission and ensure they’re invested in their contribution to it. 

  • Offer clear, contextual communication with continual progress reviews. You don't stop developing your OKR framework once you document your goals. Your OKR framework should influence interactions for everyone in your company, support a review process that helps you continuously improve and create a rhythm centered around the pivotal outcomes you're pursuing.

Benefits of OKRs for executives, team owners and managers, and individual contributors

OKRs drive alignment, agility, and impact in your organization. Adopting OKRs offers numerous benefits for:

  • Executives who want to establish a high-performing team that has a growth mindset and consistently drives strong business results. For executives, OKRs provide:

    • Full visibility into the progress of business initiatives across all organizational levels.
    • Strong collaboration between departments and teams.
    • High-performing, empowered, and engaged employees.
    • Clear connection between daily work and overall organizational goals.
    • More autonomous, focused teams.
  • Team owners or people making decisions on behalf of a larger group. For these people, OKRs provide:

    • More focused and clear priorities, so team members are more autonomous.
    • Efficiency with respect to team meetings and actionable outcomes from them.
    • Full transparency and increased collaboration with cross-functional partners.
    • Clear alignment between daily work and larger business initiatives.
    • Defined accountability and clear ownership of OKRs.
    • Improved ability to allocate resources more efficiently.
  • For individual contributors, with respect to engagement and purpose. For these people, OKRs provide:

    • Priorities that are more clear and focused. OKRs help team members understand what they should be doing and why and spend less time on business initiatives that aren't critical.
    • Visibility into the organization's top priorities, as well as those for their team and other teams.
    • Improved autonomy and ownership.