What is an OKR?
An OKR is a popular management strategy that defines objectives and tracks results. It helps create alignment and engagement around measurable goals.
Introduced and popularized in the 1970’s at Intel, it has since spread throughout the technology companies as a way to help employees understand and be engaged in an enterprise’s charter. Studies show that team members are more engaged in their work and more productive when they have a clear idea of what the team is trying to achieve and, more importantly, the significance of the task.
OKRs are a refinement of a widely used practice of management by objectives (MBO). The difference is that OKRs are a more collaborative process as opposed to a top-down bureaucratic process. Peter Drucker – who first popularized MBO – suggested that a manager should review the organization’s goals and then set the worker’s objectives. In contrast, OKRs rely on the teams within the organization to take high-level objectives and refine them for each specific area. And if teams have to work with other partners in the organization to reach high-level objectives, those teams might collaborate and write OKRs together to ensure proper alignment. It’s a shift in mindset where the question changes from “were we busy doing the tasks?” to “did we move the needle for our organization to thrive?”