Set goals like google

Richard Parslow from Goalscape shares his thoughts on the importance of setting visual goals for remote workers, and how they use OKR, a goal setting process that keeps everything in check.

Goalscape is a small but geographically distributed company, with people in different parts of Europe and across the world. So very early on we recognized that the ability to share projects online was vital to support remote working. Goalscape’s visual display makes the initial setup very quick: we define the goals and priorities, assign responsibility and set timescales. As we work, our shared Goalscape projects keep our goals in sight and we can all access and update them at any time, wherever we are working. We use Goal Comments (per-goal Instant Messaging) to discuss progress and any issues on specific goals, with email notification options to alert the relevant people. The visual display provides a continuous, instant review of everything that is happening, so our periodic meetings are fast and focused.

Goal Setting: Objectives and Key Results

I recently stumbled across a goal-setting process called OKR which stands for Objectives and Key Results. I wish I had done so earlier. OKRs are used on a daily basis by successful megaplayers like Intel, Google, LinkedIn and many others. The beauty lies in its simplicity and common sense. There is a lot to OKR but my key takeaways are for effective remote working are:

  • Set goals in short intervals. Maximum every quarter, minimum every month. Annual goals are too long-term: they do not reflect changing circumstances and priorities; and they are not specific enough to provide the day-to-day focus required, which means they can easily be usurped by daily operations and ‘firefighting’. Annual goals are like New Year’s resolutions. They fade and wither quickly and only result in a feeling of inadequacy. Quarterly goals foster a quicker success and learning cycle. They support focus, motivation and a result-oriented work ethic, which is particularly important for teams working remotely from each other.
  • Be ambitious with your Key Results. Aim high and try to find creative ways to achieve a goal that might seem unachievable at the beginning of the quarter (or month). According to John Doerr (who introduced OKR at Google in their early days), Googlers aim to consistently achieve 70% goal completion. My interpretation of this figure is that 70% should be well achievable within the context of skills, available resources and external limitations that are known at the time when the Key Results are defined. The remaining 30% can only be achieved through synergy and creativity – and this is exactly what this process fosters like no other approach. But you need to make sure to:
  • Keep the performance evaluation process separate from the goal-setting process. The danger is that people will only commit to low goals to make sure they hit their targets and look like overachievers (this is called sandbagging). Base your performance evaluation on other criteria. Like how much someone helps others for example. For the CEO of The Lego Group, Jorgen Vig Knudstorp, helping has the highest priority. He says, blame is not for failure, it is for failing to help or ask for help. Get creative with your performance evaluation, but avoid sandbagging at any cost.
  • Make Key Results as specific and measurable as possible. Objectives can be more general, but Key Results MUST be measurable and concrete. Not to measure performance, but to support a focussed work ethic.
  • Don´t set too many goals. Agree on up to 6 high level goals for the year (these are the Objectives) and up to 4 Key Results for the quarter per team member. This also keeps efforts AND creative thinking focussed.
  • Keep all Objectives and Key Results visible and transparent to anyone. An abstract and siloed documentation is inefficient because it does not support daily workflows and an open, constructive goal oriented culture.

Goalscape is a great tool to implement OKR on a personal, team or even enterprise level. Check out the Template project as a starting point as well as the following Video for a quick demo, here.

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