Play of the month: How does your team set goals? (And how good are you about sticking to them? 😉)

[Kristen Roth]

We're getting ready to ring in a new year 🎉  And with that comes... new goals! 

To keep everyone motivated and challenged, Atlassian teams set Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). After defining our team objectives, we determine a key result for each (being sure to make them ambitious!). We then develop a plan to measure our performance along the way. To help facilitate this goal-setting Play, we take advantage of these handy dandy templates in Confluence and Trello. 

We're interested in hearing and learning from you: which goal-setting framework does your team use? If you haven't already, are you thinking about giving OKRs a try? Or maybe you’ve got them down and you have some helpful tips to share with the rest of us? Either way, we’d love to hear from you!

[Soumyadeep Mandal]

Hi @Kristen Roth ,

First of all the team's focus has to be on a common outcome. Then the real collaboration and teamwork take place, it was the time to show the team the destination of the work/project to be done. The most effective way that I think to achieve the desired outcome is to establish common goals that every team member can work toward. It will make the workflow for the team simple, well maintained, and lots of fun!

Commented before reading the question you asked at the bottom of the article!

Well, OKRs is a really great challenge, I'll recommend everyone to participate in the challenge!

[Kristen Roth]

Absolutely, @Soumyadeep Mandal! Common goals for all team members to work toward is key to great collaboration.

OKRs are a great challenge! Do you set them with your team or do you use another type of goal setting framework? 

[Landon Powell]

This is great content! 

[Landon Powell]

What kind of goals should you introduce to new team members trying to catch up?!

[Kristen Roth]

Hey, @Landon Powell ! Curious to know more about what you mean by "catch up." Do you mean for them to learn more about what your team is working on or has worked on in the past? Or, more generally, for them to just get up to speed on the team ASAP?

[Jack Brickey]

We have moved from MBOs to OKRs about two years back. To be honest we didn't do a great job in the first year w/ distinguishing between the two. We have done better this year and have also done better with regular checkins. We still aren't where I would like us to be and I am always looking for how others implement successfully.  

[Kristen Roth]

Glad to hear your team is making progress, @Jack Brickey! Can you help us understand more about where you're hoping to be? Do you mean in terms of working toward your goals, specifically, or are you hoping to improve upon the processes your team has in place? 

[Walter Buggenhout]

We started with OKRs two years ago at our company. But just now starting for the very first time to really align those with the bigger picture of the organisation as a whole.

In my view it's really important to have that north star view of where the organisation is headed, so at least you can have a proper guidance and direction for your own department, team or squad objectives.

I also think transparency on the process and the actual goals is really important. While not everyone has the same personal commitment and engagement to come up with great ideas for new goals, there's always a risk of people dropping out when they can't relate to the goals that have been set in obscure meeting rooms with just a happy few around the table. 

Finally, it's also challenging to keep those OKR's a living thing. The theory and the models to make it work are all there, but there is still a tendency in many companies to do the goal setting once a year, together with the yearly budget exercise. During the year, quite a bit of structure and cadence is required to review and adjust with the same level of engagement than at the start of the year.

[Kristen Roth]

Great points about aligning team goals with the organization's and the importance of transparency, @Walter Buggenhout

It can definitely be a challenge to keep OKRs a living thing. Our team uses a variation of this Confluence template to help us stay on track. We set our yearly OKRs on one "master page", and have similar child pages for each quarter where our OKRs are then scored quarterly to give everyone on the team an idea of how on (or off!) track they are. Also, one of our weekly meetings each quarter has dedicated time for everyone to give a run down of their OKR updates.

[Martin Bayer _MoroSystems_ s_r_o__]

Our team (Atlassian team) is probably most inovative team in our company, so we started with OKRs in our Team in Q2/2020. We are still not satisfied with it, but it's getting better. The biggest problem for us is still a good definition of objectives and key results. It is often too specific or too general. It is not so easy as it looks on the paper :). I think we can compare it with Agile methodology. It is quire easy to learn methodology (Scrum, Kanban.... or OKR) but it is not so easy when using in team :). We will definitelly focus on it in 2021.

[Kristen Roth]

Totally agree. It's definitely not as easy as it looks on paper ;) This article might be another good resource for you and your team as you start to ramp up more in 2021, @Martin Bayer _MoroSystems_ s_r_o__ !

[carrie_eandm]

My company is very deadline-driven. We task out new projects and features via a calendar and utilize Trello to track the nitty-gritty details to accomplish those projects/features. 2020 has certainly challenged us as a company overall and I think we've really grown the most in the last couple of months. 

As a new mom coming back to work - I now hold a different perspective on things and I am already seeing how broken our previous system was. Yes, we did meet goals and yes, we did gain clients/revenue - but there were some things that were fully missed that could have enhanced our performance overall. 

I know that OKRs won't work for our entire team as we have too many departments to keep aligned, but I am looking into using them in my direct department starting this year. I'm excited to see how this works for me and definitely will be reading #allthethings in order to best set my teams' OKRs up to win!

[Kristen Roth]

Fresh perspectives are so important! 

That's awesome, @carrie_eandm. I hope OKRs help your department become even more successful this coming year. And maybe... after your great success... you'll be asked to help your entire team determine theirs :) 

Here are a couple more resources you might be interested in checking out before you dive in:

https://www.atlassian.com/work-management/strategic-planning/okrs

https://www.atlassian.com/blog/teamwork/how-to-avoid-common-okrs-mistakes

Best of luck to you, Carrie! And please do let us know how it goes! 

[Gonchik Tsymzhitov]

Hi! 

In our company we do last 3-4 years OKRs stuff in the HR system, will it be interesting to see the solution on Jira with needful permissions :) 

Hope we can kill yet another service :)

[Gonchik Tsymzhitov]

We will still using that service for the OKR, as top management start to see a huge improvement.

[Fadoua]

We definitely are using OKRs with HR System. It was introduced recently, we will see how it goes but I am already seeing some changes in the team. 

[Kristen Roth]

That's great, @Fadoua !

[Sudarshan]

@Kristen Roth  and everyone
OKR or KPI (key performance index) both i feel are good, unless there is:

1. Effective and regular leader talks who will guide you to keep you on the right track.
(it should not be a yearly once call, where both actually forgets the initial settings :D )

2. explain/understand the Why of the organizations/departments existence. (this is the impact)

I sometimes call it as "Drive by Why" and "Driven by Why"
I like OKR though.!

[Matteo Gubellini _SoftComply_]

Interesting...!

[M Amine]

OKRs are great

[Caroline R]

I love OKRs! 

[Jack Brickey]

@Caroline R , I love okra too! Especially in seafood gumbo! 😜

[Kristen Roth]

😂

[Prashant Sangappa Shivashimpi]

Hi @Kristen Roth ,

Very nice..Good to know this..Thanks for sharing.

BR,

Prashant.

[Sedera Randria]

Hi. 

Based on the organization's perspectives, we regularly discuss team vision, objectives, team values, sprint/iteration goals, Criteria of Satisfaction, etc.
I tried to introduce OKRs, but it does not fit our context. Anyway, the 2 main things I use to motivate my teams to meet and exceed goals: frequent feedback loops (team + users/clients + management) and celebrations  :-)

[Sedera Randria]

Earlier today I gave a talk on the framework I use to build a team

[Mayur Jadhav]

@Kristen Roth and Everyone!!

Really OKRs are Great!!!!

[Marjorie]

We set sprint goals and we stick to them.

[Alexander Bondarev]

My company plan to start with OKR in the next year. Thanks for sharing and templates!

[Weronika Spaleniak Appfire]

@Kristen Roth that's a great topic, as the OKRs are getting more and more popular, we should all have the possibility to learn from each other and inspire each other. Thank you!

In Digital Toucan we've started using OKRs 2 years ago, but without the regular check-ins, the whole thing was a disaster, the OKRs were just there in the system and our work was focused elsewhere.

About a year ago, we've started doing it properly, with planning and retro sessions, weekly OKR review meetings, etc. We're using the app we've built to track them (OKR for Jira), so we have both the possibility to test the app and to work with our OKRs. The change in culture was really needed. I'd say the OKRs work well only when a set of processes is implemented and when a larger part of the company (ideally everyone) is engaged.

I know how difficult it is to get to the point where everything works, so we've been creating some OKR-related resources within the company to help others get there. You can check out my post on the community about writing good OKRs or our guide to OKRs. Hope they will help you somehow in your journey :)

[Andy Gladstone]

Our leadership team has been using EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System®) over the past 1.5 years as a method of establishing traction around our long term strategic and short term tactical goals. It took us a while to establish a meeting cadence, but we were ultimately successful in implementing it as a leadership team. Where we have stumbled/delayed is rolling it out to the entire organization. 

At its core, EOS requires us to have a clear Vision, create Traction around the goals that are required to execute on the vision, and manage team Health.

Part of the process is our 90 day goal setting (Rocks) and reporting on our scorecard, all of which is reviewed in our weekly Level-10 Meeting. 

I'm not going to write a thesis on EOS here, but wanted to mention it as it has helped us resolve the question of what data is important to the company and how to report it. feel free to reach out to me if you want more details on the system. I am in no way an expert, but experience counts!

[Andrew Legrand]

Hi Andy,

Found your post while looking for people using Jira and/or Confluence to manage EOS. I would prefer to use the tool we already use, rather than using a new one (one of the custom-built options out there).

Does your team use Atlassian tools to manage EOS? If so, do you have templates you could share?

[Andy Gladstone]

@Andrew Legrand glad to help. Please email me directly agladstone -at- fidelitypayment dot com (spelled out to avoid filters flagging this post) and we can set up a time to discuss.

[Andrew Legrand]

@Andy Gladstone email sent (a while ago actually, but I'm just following up myself).

[Fabio Racobaldo _Herzum_]

OKR seems interesting

[Sakina]

setting Objectives and goals is very important to stay focus on what you work

[Manoj Gangwar]

Interesting

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[Aslan Bennington-Barr]

We use Jira to track our OKRs and other variables. It's perhaps not the original intention, but I think it goes to show how much you can twist Atlassian products to your advantage.

[Josh Shepherd]

I hope this is better win-% then setting New Year's resolutions!