When managing a project, there are many moving parts at play, so organization is key for meeting deadlines and successfully completing tasks. OKRs provide a goal setting framework that can help you determine your immediate objectives and how you’re going to meet them.
In this article, you’ll learn about the value of implementing OKRs as part of your project management strategy. You’ll also receive access to free templates from monday.com to get you started on using OKRs and setting clear objectives for your project team for long term success. Click the button to take our platform for a quick spin or scroll down for an explanation on this goal setting metric.
What are OKRs?
OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. They’re a simple project management tool that help project managers outline and meet their goals. They typically work by prompting you to set an objective and then come up with three to five key results you’re hoping to see. The OKRs should help your team members analyze and understand what role they need to play in the project and which tasks to complete.
For example, say you’re running a project that focuses on improving overall customer satisfaction. One objective may be to improve your customer service department. Examples of key results might include:
- Bringing the average call waiting time under five minutes
- Cutting churn rate in half
- Hiring two new customer service representatives to reduce individual workload and increase productivity
OKRs for project management describe objectives or goals you need to achieve and the path you can take to get there.
Aside from adding clarity into goal setting and how to achieve those goals, OKRs can directly contribute to a company’s success.
Why are OKRs important in project management?
With your OKR software or template, you can clearly define long-term and short-term goals and create an action plan for how to achieve them. The benefits teams can reap from implementing OKRs include:
- Connecting employees to corporate goals
- Providing a clear direction for all team members
- Increasing productivity by focusing on specific goals and outcomes
OKRs go beyond the static process of outlining goals in Excel spreadsheets or Google Docs and then emailing them out to team members. Instead, OKRs provide a dynamic and flexible framework that makes it easy for everyone to track progress and make informed decisions based on current data.
Conversely, if objectives are not being met, OKRs make it easy to evaluate why they’re not being achieved. Then, team leaders can reallocate resources to change the strategy and work toward these goals in a different way. Many successful corporations use OKRs to their advantage, including Google, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Setting up OKRs is a simple process once you understand the basics. To follow the OKR framework, check out the following steps.
Setting up OKRs with project teams
Identifying common objectives for each of your projects and tasks is only the first step in implementing OKRs. Once you have a goal, you need to link that goal to targeted results, considering all possible outcomes. Then, you track and monitor progress toward the objective.
To set up OKRs:
- Ask yourself what your company goals are and which objectives will help you achieve them
- Choose the right tools to support your team and organization in achieving those objectives
- Remember to include your whole team in steps one and two
- Write your OKR objective statement
- Develop your key results
- Plan your initiatives
- Regularly track where you are in achieving your initiatives
One aspect of key results is successfully completing tasks — or initiatives — that help you get to final outcomes. To manage these processes, keep track of completed tasks, and set up OKRs, you can use a robust Work OS such as monday.com.
Managing OKRs for project management on monday.com
Templates from monday.com help project managers and teams with task management, developing OKRs, and overseeing the process of achieving desired results to meet your goals. When you work with an intuitive OKR template on monday.com, you can define your goals with transparency so your whole team is on the same page.
How does the work OS help?
Our Work OS supports the OKR for project management by centralizing your workflow into a visual layout that’s easy for teams to collaborate on. With your documents, tasks, and project schedules centralized on one powerful Work OS, team members from anywhere in the world can log on and access the same information and workflows and provide real-time feedback and updates without disturbing one another. This helps keep everyone on track and facilitates a collaborative approach to your project management and OKRs.
Is monday.com easy to use?
Working on your projects, setting OKRs, and completing tasks as a team on monday.com Work OS improves your experience as a project manager in a number of ways. There is no training necessary to get new team members up to speed on how to use the monday.com templates or collaborate on documents available through the platform. monday.com is highly intuitive and offers countless integrations with other software, like Microsoft Excel, enabling your team to upload working files from other applications.
monday.com templates also cover various aspects of project management to give you all the tools you need to keep your team on the same page. Let’s check out a few related templates below.
Related templates
When using monday.com for project management, consider implementing one of these templates for OKRs to improve productivity. They can also help you monitor your progress and see if you’re on track to meet deadlines.
OKR Template
Our OKR Template helps you define your objectives and desired outcomes for your project. The template makes it easy to break down objectives by quarter and create a unique table for each objective. Within that objective, you can add rows for key results, ranking them by order of priority and indicating a completion status in one of the adjacent columns. Outline a timeline for each key result and assign specific team members who are responsible for seeing that specific task or result through.
Accountability is essential for successfully meeting your OKRs and project deadlines.The benefits of using the monday.com OKR Template include a shareable board that everyone can access to keep track of due dates and progress. The template is also fully customizable, so you can alter it to suit your project parameters as necessary. The integrations mean you can easily export documents and spreadsheets to Excel or import them to your project board for team collaboration.
Quarterly Objectives Template
Our Quarterly Objectives Template helps you break your goals into more manageable, actionable tasks that you can prioritize and assign to specific team members. For each quarter, simply fill out a table with each row containing an objective or goal for that quarter. Then, indicate the objective’s priority level and assign responsibility to a specific individual to ensure the task is completed by the specified deadline. The status column allows anyone checking this board to know at a glance how much progress you’ve made towards each goal.
Once you set up OKRs and start managing a project, you may have other questions about accountability and the overall process. We’ve touched on some frequently asked questions in the section below to help answer those queries ahead of time.
Frequently asked questions
What is WBS in project management?
WBS stands for Work Breakdown Structure. In project management, WBS is a method for approaching a complex project with many variables. The WBS is a diagram or flowchart that divides various aspects of the main project tasks and goals into smaller, more manageable chunks that can be delegated among a project team. Use WBS in conjunction with OKRs to go from goal to plan of action.
What is SPOC in project management?
SPOC stands for Single Point of Contact in project management. The SPOC is an individual who is designated as the representative of the project team and allowed to speak publicly or to stakeholders about how the project is going and what progress has been made. When you have a SPOC, ensure they are updated regularly on OKRs so they know how to answer questions coming from external sources.
Is project management hard?
Project management can be a challenging role, but it’s also extremely rewarding. A person can learn the skills necessary to be a project manager, but that can be difficult if they don’t already have a foundation of soft skills that are critical to the position. Soft skills like leadership, communication, conflict management, decision-making, and time management are difficult for someone to teach, so individuals who naturally possess these skills are best suited for a project management career.
monday.com can help you reach your project goals with OKRs
Any team can improve productivity and achieve objectives with the right tools. Working with a monday.com template provides support and direction for project teams while enabling them the freedom to make changes. Use our templates to identify your objectives and evaluate what key results will help you get there, and then rely on our Work OS to help you manage the process.
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