In order to grow as a professional – or a business for that matter, you need to set inspiring and achievable goals. The OKRs – Objectives and Key Results are a great, simple tool to do just that, and we’ve chosen to use them at Fiksuruoka – Foodello.
Our new team member and Head of Brand, Jussi Pekkala, and our CEO Juhani Järvensivu had an interesting discussion about OKRs and how they are making our lives better!
OKRs are a framework for a company, a team or an individual to set and track specific goals. The letters O, K and R stand for “Objectives and Key Results” so let’s break those words into even smaller bites.
An objective for a team at Fiksuruoka – Foodello could be to build a great selection of food waste products for our customers.
Objectives are the things you want to achieve. For example, an objective for a team at Fiksuruoka – Foodello could be to build a great selection of food waste products for our customers to choose from.
When you have the objective set – the Key Results will help you to focus on what is really important to achieve it. They are specific, tangible and measurable ways to know if you are doing the right things to achieve your objectives.
For example, to achieve the specific objective above, a key result could be the number of products on different categories that we are able to offer at our online store.
We’ve found OKRs a good tool for prioritizing our work in the entire organization to focus on the right things that matter the most. It also helps to clarify those things for the entire organization – so that everyone on the team is a strategic key player!
But what is more, it is a good tool for giving ownership to the teams and individuals working at Fiksuruoka – Foodello.
“Involvement and the fact that all teams have ownership of their own OKRs is a really important point. That’s why we like this goal-setting tool so much. It gives everyone at Fiksuruoka – Foodello a chance to get a clear picture of where we are going and how to get there. It’s super motivating”, Juhani explains.
Jussi, who joined us only a few months ago, has just set OKRs for the first time ever for his team.
“I think this tool is great because it is simple and easily approachable. It helped me to grasp the reality of our strategy and understand how I can contribute to our common goal with my team”, Jussi says.
First of all, at Fiksuruoka–Foodello we set OKRs in two levels: company and team levels.
“Once a year, we define our company strategy, focus points, and OKRs”, Juhani explains.
“Then based on the company strategy, every team gets to set their own focus points and OKRs on a yearly, quarterly, and monthly basis. OKRs help to define how your team contributes to our common goal”, Juhani continues.
“Every team gets to set their own focus points and OKRs.”
This goes into a very practical level: together they define what kind of resources they need to succeed and what kind of risks there could be on the way.
“As a Team Lead who was setting these for the first time, I found this surprisingly easy to understand. When the company strategy was set, we looked at it from our team's perspective to see where we can have an impact and focus on those things”, Jussi says.
As said, each team gets to decide their own OKRs.
“Involving the whole team in the decision-making process, also means that you have a buy-in from each team member on what we are doing next as a company”, Juhani says.
So, how did Jussi actually set OKRs with his team of four for the first time?
“We sat down together, looked at our company strategy and what OKRs our team previously had. Based on those we defined our yearly, quarterly, and monthly OKRs on how we can contribute towards our company-wide targets. Some of them were easy to decide because it was something tied to a schedule but some of them were more abstract and harder to conceptualize”, Jussi tells about his experience.
“We sat down together with the team, looked at our company strategy and what OKRs we previously had. Based on those we defined our yearly, quarterly, and monthly OKRs on how we can contribute towards our company wide targets.”
Deciding the goals for your team and yourself is very motivating because then you know why you are doing something. You can then just follow the plan and take action with a clear goal in mind.
“After we had set the final OKRs, I noticed that in our brand team, everyone quite naturally took ownership for specific parts of the action plan that felt natural to them”, Jussi says.
“I noticed that in our team, everyone quite naturally took ownership for specific parts of the action plan that felt natural to them.”
As all the company and team OKRs are shared openly within the company, it provides transparency into what others are working on and how they are contributing to the common big goal.
“I think that as the structure for OKRs is similar with all the teams, it is easier to understand what other teams are doing even if the core would be very far from your expertise”, Juhani says.
“Great level of transparency lowers the bar to ask for help and collaborate in more agile ways.”
“And a great level of transparency lowers the bar to ask for help and collaborate in more agile ways ”, Jussi thinks.
OKRs provide a clear and measurable way to track progress towards strategic goals, which helps you to be focused on what’s important and work smarter.
“As we are a growth company, it means our bottleneck is always limited resources. So, it is essential that we understand what is important and prioritize ruthlessly. This means that we also need to understand what not to focus on at this time”, Juhani emphasizes.
Jussi agrees and continues: “The clear focus points give you peace, and room to think and prioritize the most important things.”
We emphasize data-driven decision-making because we want to track what we have achieved and choose our next steps strategically. This is why OKRs are a great fit for our data-driven culture, too.
“OKRs also support our strong culture of testing.”
You can easily track progress when you have a simplified action plan and a way to see if you have reached your goals.
“OKRs also support our strong culture of testing. OKRs don’t have to be set in stone, you can test to see if they work and adjust or change them based on the data and learnings”, Juhani sums.