John Doerr rightly said, “Ideas are Easy – Execution is everything”. When you use the right OKR approach, you can accelerate strategy execution. Looking for an OKR Certification Online?

During the last few years, there has been a gradual shift in focus from strategy formulation to strategy execution. As a result, the way OKRs are used to accomplish strategy execution is evolving. Strategy execution has become more complex than ever as a result of a fast-changing and uncertain environment.

Among different organizations, what makes some succeed and others fail? It has been found in the studies that strategies are often implemented more slowly than their actual planning. Only a small percentage of leaders believe they will achieve 80-100% of their strategic objectives.

If strategies are not executed well, they do not make sense. This problem can be solved with OKRs. A proper OKR approach and the right steps can help your organization accelerate strategy execution. Let’s have a look at the following approaches:

Promote Focus and Better Communication

Aligning your objectives with your mission, vision, and strategies is not enough. Proper communication of those strategies with your teams will help your execution. However, in a study, a shocking 95% of respondents said that they do not understand their organization’s strategy.

In another study, poor communication is termed as one of the top three reasons why strategy execution fails. 

OKRs enable you to narrow down your focus from a more blurry mission and vision or a long-term strategy to maximum of five objectives that matter the most. By communicating your goals and the measurable key results with your teams, it is possible you can narrow your focus even further. 

In this way, your teams will be able to focus on the actions that need to be taken in order to deliver the expected results. Motivating your team to achieve the set objectives and resolve any issues that arise by promoting communication is part of the OKR framework.

Establish a strategic timetable

It is a good practice to ensure that strategy and execution are balanced by setting planning timelines. Setting deadlines for key results, projects & actions will help you achieve your objectives more quickly. Keep your teams on track with OKRs by providing them with visual metrics and timelines.

Also, it is recommended that team members can keep a track of OKRs in order to ensure progress is being made. In case you use an OKR tool, please connect the entire organization to the tool for transparency. Similar to sports events, scoreboards provide information about the team’s actual progress.

Review and take corrective actions

 The management and teams should keep the progress meetings with a focus on results and any issues or roadblocks. Depending on the purpose, progress reviews can take a variety of forms. The purpose could be to provide team status updates, mid-quarter OKR reviews, and OKR adjustment updates.

You can benefit from frequent progress reviews in the following ways:

• Avoid late-stage challenges by anticipating them early and finding solutions in time.
• Identify the metrics and keep track of them. 25% of respondents to a study said that tracking implementation is the most difficult part of executing strategies. Your teams can use numerical results to translate their strategy into action plans and evaluate them throughout the process.
• When you create a feedback loop, your teams will be able to influence the progress. By providing ongoing feedback and recognition to your teams, they can remain motivated and engaged.
• Leaders are recommended to make transparent OKR decisions. Teams will be able to track OKR progress throughout the quarter with the same level of clarity. 

Utilise an OKR software tool

In order to bring OKRs to life, it is suggested to use a dedicated OKR software tool. By creating a framework and fostering communication around OKRs, they help you achieve your goals.

There are a number of ways in which OKR software can assist you, such as:

• Focus is enhanced and clarity is offered.
• It’s easy to track progress with it.
• As you progress, it guides you.
• Teams are able to visualize responsibilities because of it.
• It integrates OKRs into the workings of your team.

OKRs can translate strategy into yearly and quarterly focused execution cycles with more narrow objectives and clear measurable key results. The teams can ideally see how their projects and actions influence these key results and how the overall quarterly OKRs serve the strategy well.