Congratulations — we’ve just finished our third quarter together! This is the moment to quickly review your annual company-level OKRs and set team-level OKRs for Q4. By mid-month, your team’s individual commitments should be in place.

We now have a clear runway to finish out the year and a clear time frame. So, what do you want or need to accomplish before the year ends?

🗓️ This week: Be Proactive

As we look ahead to Q4, get ahead — schedule your team and 1:1 meetings for the entire quarter now. You may wish to hold 2024 Company planning meetings in November, so go ahead and schedule those as well to really be on the ball. 

The simple act of starting the quarter is an excellent example of your personal dedication to OKRs for your team. 

📋 Setting Q4 OKRs

Iteration, the practice of reviewing and refining OKRs, allows you to change what’s not working while building on your team’s shared learnings. It makes pivoting possible and our ability to pivot has never been more relevant. Iterating makes OKRs better. 

You know that OKRs describe your highest priorities for the next 90 days. When you’re getting started, it’s easy to set OKRs that read like a team to-do-list. But, the secret to effective OKRs is to let them represent meaningful change. 

OKRs should inform the changes you want to see. Pivotal things, like:

• Introducing disruptive innovations
• Establishing differences between you and your competitors
• Being recognized as an industry leader in your category
• Exploring if a new market is a fit

So, if your Q4 OKRs only describe incremental changes or “gimme” goals, you may need to think bigger. 

🔍 Q4 Objectives check

Let’s look at your Q4 OKRs. Objectives are derived from missions, so, first of all, if your Objective doesn’t connect to the greater mission, it won’t be effective.

1. Are they meaningful? Are your Objectives your top priorities for Q4?
2. Are they audacious? If your Objective is successful, will it result in a significant change from where you are today?
3. Are they inspiring? Are your Objectives easy to remember? 

And now, look at your Key Results. OKRs point out what we need to do next, so your KRs should make it clear if you and your team will meet your criteria for success. 

🔍 Q4 Results check

1. Are they specific and timebound? Is what needs to happen (and by when) clear?
2. Are they aggressive, yet realistic? Are your Key Results aspirational yet achievable?
3. Are they measurable and verifiable? Is it clear when the criteria for success will be met?

Remember, Key Results must support their attached Objective. So if it isn’t clear how meeting these benchmarks will make the Objective true, that’s the first warning sign that the Key Results may not be effective.

🥁 A Constant Drumbeat for Your Team

Last year, some teams had to significantly alter their plans and goals. The silver lining? We learned to focus on the challenges immediately in front of us. Others had to scale up to respond to the moment. As we continue to navigate the newest normal, remember that OKRs are not just a framework for achieving results, they’re also a good way to meaningfully engage with your team. 

Lisa from the What Matters team often describes OKRs as “a constant drumbeat within an organization.” How true! When your team rallies around them actively, they can guide engagement to new levels of success. But what happens when a team doesn’t rally or seem excited about another quarter of OKRs? 

If you’ve been with us through the whole year or are just jumping in, you already know that OKRs require dedication. Ensuring Objectives are set and Key Results are recorded — and graded accordingly — is a personal commitment from each member of your team. Teams sometimes struggle to keep up the momentum, new and old alike.

As Anne Wojcicki, Founder and CEO of 23andme, noted in her interview with John Doerr, OKRs can feel like work until you find your rhythm. When you start, problems that have previously been ignored often come to the surface, including lack of alignment. Anne even jokingly refers to it as “corporate therapy,” but she also rightly notes that once you start relying on the process to work through these problems, check-ins get much easier. 

At their best, OKRs are something to pay attention to daily. Nothing complicated, but as Lisa noted, they are a constant drumbeat; a powerful source of energy and motivation. 

🔴 Don’t Ignore Red Flags

If you have an OKR that you’re rolling over from Q3 that feels “heavy” or one that you or your team avoided discussing over the last quarter — why? This is a red flag that your OKR isn’t right — and it’s something to address now, not in 90 days’ time.

👀 Keep Your Goals in Sight

As we’re in the final quarter of the year, keeping up your momentum with OKRs is important. A surefire way to keep OKRs top of mind is to ensure they’re (still) visible throughout your team or organization. 

Thinking back to John’s interview with Anne and OKRs, 23andme includes company-level OKRs for the quarter at the top of weekly meetings. At Possible Health,  they make OKRs part of every regular meeting, whether 1:1 or team-based. 

Keeping goals highly visible and quickly talking through them in meetings helps you and your team find your drumbeat. When you build OKRs into your meetings, you create a safe place to raise red flags and tackle challenges as they happen. The ability to be increasingly proactive leads teams to stretch and accomplish more than anyone thinks possible. 

In my next email, we’ll look further at CFRs, which stands for Conversations, Feedback and Recognition, and how they add depth to your 1:1 meetings. 

If OKRs are the drumbeat of an organization, CFRs add an additional rhythm — the heartbeat.

Keep up the momentum. 

The Measure What Matters OKR Certificate on Coursera 

Looking to level up your OKR skills before 2024? Now is the perfect time to enroll in our newly launched Coursera course. Join the first-ever cohort of learners, and over the course of four weeks you’ll learn directly from us how to write and use transformative OKRs within your organization. It’s the most comprehensive OKR training ever made!

Saying No with OKRs

Highly effective organizations harness the superpower of focus to strategically prioritize. It all starts with acknowledging that no individual department can do it all. OKRs provide a fair and transparent framework for saying no based on already agreed upon collective commitments. If it doesn’t fit the company’s Objectives, then it’s a no. No additional explanations are needed.