OKRs for All

CHAPTER 12Wrapping Up and Reflecting on OKRs

In this chapter, we'll talk about how to create a growth mindset by reflecting, learning, and growing from your OKRs. This starts with practical applications, like scoring OKRs at the end of a period, but the most value comes from the reflection and conversation: How do you know if you were effective? Did this work make a difference? What can we learn? Scoring OKRs provides insight and accountability that adds more and more value as you grow your program.

Closing out your quarterly or annual OKRs is an important time to stop and reflect:

• What objectives did I complete successfully, and why?
• What issues did we—my team and myself—struggle with?
• Was I way too ambitious? Do I need to scale back and focus more?
• Or did I sell myself short and not set my goals high enough?
• What lessons were learned that can be applied to the next period?
• What do we want to start doing, stop doing, or continue doing in the next period?
• What OKRs can be rewritten to be more effective in the next quarter?
• What technological integrations can be added to streamline our process?
• What reports and dashboards can be created to easily track progress?
• What additional training is needed for leaders and employees?

Each time you close out your OKRs, the process becomes smoother. This is for two reasons: one is that you become more adept at staying close to your OKRs throughout the quarter or year, so there are fewer surprises and more opportunities to shift behavior ...