Getting back on track after one year without OKRs
By: Dan Gurgui
Tags: Leadership, Management, Goals, Okr, Coaching

More than a year ago, I stopped working with OKRs at both professional and personal levels. I did it because I changed companies at the professional level and because too many changes happened at the personal level. To sum it up: the pandemic started, I went back to my home country and started remote work.

One year later, I want to go back to the practice of OKRs and want to share my observations and the reasons behind this decision.

The most important thing that I’m missing is working with results-oriented people. Many times when picking up projects or work that requires collaboration, I find myself in the middle of debates regarding the “how” with little or no focus on the “why” or the “what”. This happens especially when working with creative people who have hundreds of ideas about how something can be achieved. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against being creative, and I like brainstorming, exploring different perspectives and ways of doing things. But too many ideas and the focus drifts to anything except the objective. That’s why, when focusing on a project or even a task, it’s essential to keep in mind the desired outcome and visualize the results of implementing that project. This practice keeps the focus on the “what” and “why”; what you will achieve and why you are doing it. For example, after I participated in the OKR Forum one year ago, it helped me get insights about my future objectives and what results I wanted to achieve because my peers challenged me to think that way.

Another thing that I noticed after 1 year is that I now take fewer risks. When being focused on results, the how becomes less important, and because of that, I took more risks. For example, I had as an objective to find a new place to rent, and I had concrete key results behind it: to be cheap and of excellent quality. And because I wanted that, I ended up renting an apartment provided by a rental company rather than a classic owner. It was a risky move because I had never done that before. Overall, it was much easier for me to go down the unknown path as long as it took me where I wanted. Probably that was one of the reasons I stopped using OKRs. When the pandemic hit, I realized that I had to be in a safer environment, and I wanted to rely more on my short-term intuition rather than medium-term goals. I didn’t want to take any risks. When using your intuition, it’s challenging to put a result behind an objective, you choose an objective, but you don’t really know why you are doing it.

Even though I was not working with OKRs, I finished many projects and managed the work using a framework. I used the classic framework of project management, taking a goal, breaking it down into actionable steps, milestones, deadlines, etc. A project management framework is great for getting things done, but it doesn’t help much with motivation, direction, and measurement, areas where the OKR’s really shine. For example, I finished the website at www.efesent.com, and I’m very proud of it. It looks very nice, presentable, it’s a great piece of work, and from time to time people visit it, and I get the chance to collaborate with somebody, but 4 months after launching it, I’m not happy with the results that it brings: I don’t have enough visitors, the SEO optimizations don’t bring enough people to it, etc. Looking back at it, when I started the project, I should have placed first the results: leads, contacts, sessions with people, etc., and be flexible about how I was going to achieve those results, with a website or without a website. I learned the hard way that OKRs are about achieving the goal, setting a benchmark for measuring results, giving direction, and motivating. OKRs work hand-in-hand with project management frameworks and GTD systems, they don’t replace them but build on top of them.

I’m now leaving 2020 behind and starting 2021 with fresh personal OKRs. I’m really excited about it, and I can’t wait to share these with others. I see now that the first OKR podcast was launched at There Be Giants, and there are free virtual classes at OKRs For Success