Please note, for in-depth insights & comprehensive guides about OKRs – Check out the following detailed reads, enriched with nuances & learnings from actual deployment across high growth workplaces. Check them here as follows to improve overall OKR capability maturity: OKR Case Studies, A 6 part comprehensive OKR Manual on demystifying OKRs, The Ultimate OKR Checklist & Key Lessons learned from OKR Case Studies. In addition to this, also see Google’s guide on OKRs for best practices & deployment methodology.
Being an OKR Champion makes you 4x more likely to score in the top quartile of your industry. The Brew’s OKR Capability Maturity Index helps organizations realize the true benefits of OKRs, realizing it in to high performance organizational trajectory.
OKRs are transformational ! When deployed to its potential, it not only enables teams to contribute to organizational objectives directly, but also establishes broad alignment, accountability, autonomy, focus & transparency across entire organization – No doubt, these OKR Champions are 4x more likely to perform, earning it’s place in top quartiles across industries.
As powerful as it may sound, we continue to see atleast 2 prominent trends for organizations aspiring to be OKR Champions: a) Far too many organization fail long before they get started; b) Secondly, there is a difference between being OKR Ready & being OKR Champion (detailed over the course of this read), Both of these are due to lack of understanding of what it takes to truly embrace and harness the power behind the methodology. These organizations fall short before ever reaching the level of maturity where their organization is fully aligned and transparent, accomplishing their goals with a collaborative, cross-functional approach.
For organizations, who believe & commit to embrace OKR methodology, it is deployed & internalized in the most strategic way. The most successful ones take time to design how they will use OKRs post deploying them, build the implementation team, provide the right kind of training, follow the change management best practices, & have a support system & strategy to capture & track OKRs. As evident here, the journey from being OKR ready to leveraging OKR to its potential, is where the magic transcends with deliberated, progressive & rigorous practice of stepping up steadfastly in OKR maturity & the elemental nuances of OKR methodology.
Spread across 5 levels – Initial, Emerging, Developing, Proficient & Champion, The Brew’s OKR Capability Maturity Index, uniquely gauges organizations across 10 elemental dimensions (Goal Development, Focus & Commitment, Measurement Rigor, Distributed Accountability, Distributed Ownership etc.) of OKR methodology, to help business leaders & organizations ascertain the progressive stages, both the organization and team will go through to reach program maturity, of realizing the fullest potential of the transformational exercise. Along with enabling organizations to ascertain their current program stage, the index earmarks where they want to be, and creates a plan of upward progression.
The Brew’s OKR Capability Maturity Model helps organizations with the following:
- Ascertain the current program maturity stage across 10 elemental dimensions of OKR methodology – At Aggregate level & Individual Level, this enables to understand the under-developed elements, basis current OKR capability maturity score
- Ascertain the capability maturity path for upward progression to next level (at Aggregate Level & at Individual Element Level)
- Overall OKR capability maturity score helping us understand the overall maturity
- Optimal Goal Strategy for the current stage (Roofshots – Moonshots – Continuous)
How OKR Capability Maturity create differentiation between OKR Ready & OKR Champion (Level 5 of The Brew’s OKR Capability Maturity Model)
OKR Ready Organizations, are most of the time, driven by a set of loosely aligned aspirational goals. Organization level objectives are created, and successfully cascade and align to the goals and work other teams are doing, but most of the time, lack a proper check-in and update cadence. While the approach of adopting OKRs differ from business to business, however in most cases, reaching beyond the surface, to its potential is held back by a lack of expertise & deliberate intent to embed OKR in organizational DNA.
OKR Champion Organizations successfully cultivate a culture of collaboration, transparency, and cross-team alignment, one where teams and individuals work autonomously, self-organize, and come together to accomplish the right projects at the right time. These organizations reach a place where execution is no longer about checking the box of doing, but instead, driving real impact through measurable outcomes. In turn, their teams become more agile, innovate faster, and accomplish more in less time, and with fewer resources.
The ROI of being an OKR Champion ((Level 5 of The Brew’s OKR Capability Maturity Model)
Being an OKR Champion makes you 4x more likely to score in the top quartile of your industry
Research from Bersin by Deloitte reveals that successful employee goal-setting processes correlate strongly to positive business outcomes:
- OKR Champion Organizations have a high level of clarity around their goals and are 4x more likely to score in the top quartile of their industry.
- OKR Champion organizations create continued clarity: The frequency with which employees revise or review their goals impacts the bottom line. If employees revise their goals at least quarterly they are 3.5x more likely to score in the top quartile of their industry.
The Aberdeen Group shows on average a 26% higher year over year growth in revenue from companies with highly engaged & aligned employees. This can be attributed to the fact that engaged employees are more motivated to satisfy the needs of their customers. Satisfied customers in turn, spend more, and remain customers longer.
Like any new process, excelling & embedding OKRs in organizational DNA is an ongoing journey. It certainly will not happen overnight; & definitely will take longer than initially anticipated. But investing deliberate efforts & resolute intent, backed by an authentic ‘why’, can certainly help transcend this transformation with higher effectiveness. From initial implementation to adoption and optimization, The Brew’s OKR Capability Maturity Index can help organizations realize the true benefits of OKRs, realizing it in to high performance organizational trajectory.
