This article is all about sharing tips on how to build a strategy using Business Goals

Objective Key Results(OKRs) are defined as a management approach that was established in 1980s by Intel. It is one of the best strategies used by many businesses across the world. All sorts of organisations from small companies to large organisations such as Google, LinkedIn etc, they all use this approach.

OKR planning is divided into 3 steps, namely:

1. Goal Setting
2. Creating Objectives
3. Creating Key Results

Goal Setting: what are you aiming to obtain?

The first step is to think and perfectly explain what you are trying to achieve. Draw out stuff like where do you see yourself in 6 months, a year, or few years. Set the size of the market you want to win.

Choose goals that are realistic at the same time ambitious. Challenge yourself, your team and company with business goals.

Creating Objectives: How will you obtain these goals?

At this stage you should consider milestones with regards to your objectives. Make use of measurable and time bound objectives. For instance, let’s say your goal was to become a leader in selling bananas. You might have a number of objectives that will assist you in becoming a market leader. Maybe you might have a number of objectives that will assist you in becoming a market leader. Maybe you might want to get a certain percentage market share in a span of 6 months. If you achieve that percentage then you are moving towards achieving your business goals.

Creating Key Results: What are the milestones you will take to make sure your objectives become a success?

Key results break down the objectives even more. They make them small measurable targets that you can finish within a short span of time. Let us continue with the example we have mentioned above. We will assume that you choose to add a weekly sales target, for example, sell 1000 bananas per week in a specific location, or onboard x clients every month.

The main key is to set visibly measurable goals within a certain time frame.

Setting & Tracking Objectives: Business Goals

You can set objectives and business goals in different types such as macro, intermediate, or micro.

Normally you would want to start on the highest level which is Macro. This level contains organisational vision, mission and direction. The macro goals and objectives will then be spread across the entire company levels and departments. Teams and everyone else within the company will work towards the same goal.

Think of a big boat. It has a room with an engine, this is a view point for the captain and other authorised workers. The captain is the leader who gives instructions such as where the boat should be going. At the end of the day, every person in the boat will arrive in the same destination but they all have different functionalities.

The boat also has a person stationed at the highest point of the boat. His main role is to observe bad things that may occur in the water.

If he sees something dangerous, he will send a signal to the captain. Then the captain will drive the boat towards a safer route to avoid the danger. The workers stationed in the engine room will await for instructions on when to increase the speed or slow the boat down.

Course Setting

What the captain does is setting the goal on the navigation maps Then he informs the crew where the boat is going. After that the team starts doing their best to get there. They do all the necessary work such as checking which safer routes to take, speed, avoiding storms and counting on the wind.

Maintaining the course

Even though they have a thorough plan before boarding, the teams still observe for any danger or where they can improve. The lookout team only has to make sure that the boat does not hit any danger without being noticed. While the team in the engine room has to make sure that there is sufficient steam to drive at a certain speed as instructed by the captain.

Everyone is working together toward the same purpose of the boat. The only way to understand OKRs is to trickle them down in the same way from the captain of your business. Each team should make a decision on objectives to set once the high level objectives are completely set.

Example OKR Business Goals

We have listed some OKR examples for a new developing business that just launched. The business is selling sneakers in Joburg.

High-level: Business Goals
• Be a recommended brand for 16-21 years old buying sneakers
• Generate R500 000 in monthly sales in 6 months

Goal	Objective	Key Result	Task
Become recommended brand	50% market share within the age group (16-21 yr old’s)	R250k monthly sales in that age group	Get a famous teen influencer to promote brand
R500 000 in monthly sales	R 125k in weekly sales	Improve online store conversion to 15%	Re-work the landing page, add discount pop-ups

Some high-level examples(But you should note something):
•It’s possible to come up with many key results for one objective
• You may have many tasks to finish in order to achieve one key-result
• Report frequently on your key results measures. Track to see if you are working towards achieving your business goal.

Skhokho OKR tool

Skhokho OKR gives to the ability to set, track and report on your OKRs.

How to set Business Goals in Skhokho?

For a step-by-step guide, please visit our Scribe URL. It clearly shows you the steps to take when Creating an Objective and Key Result.

How to update Key Results in Skhokho?

A guide made on Scribe. It shows steps in Updating Key Results

How to track final results?

For more information on how OKRs can help your business, view this article on How to drive accountability using OKRs here.