Organisations have long used systems and solutions to help them reach their objectives.
Every day, sales, marketing & operations functions are evolving, and companies need to adjust their business goals to stay ahead. OKRs help articulate and engage teams to deliver change.
Implementing OKRs can be challenging, especially for large enterprises with complex departments and processes.
So to solve these challenges consider hiring an OKR consultant.
Benefits of hiring an OKR consultant
Several benefits come with hiring an OKR consultant. These benefits include:
- Having someone who has done it before can help you avoid common mistakes.
- Get an objective perspective on your organisation and its goals.
- Having access to best practices and resources adopted by other organisations
- Having peace of mind knowing that your OKRs are in good hands
When you should consider hiring an OKR consultant
Consider hiring an OKR consultant if
- You’re struggling to get buy-in from senior leadership for your OKRs.
- You’re having trouble getting started with OKRs.
- You’re looking for help with goal setting and/or measurement.
- You don’t have the internal resources to dedicate to OKRs.
- You need help communicating and cascading OKRs throughout the organisation.
Every organisation is different. One or more of the above criteria are indicators citing the need to hire an OKR consultant.
Four areas the consultant will help y
1 Understanding the WHY
Before embarking on any new business venture, it’s crucial to understand what you hope to achieve and how you plan to achieve it.
Without a clear understanding of the fundamental principles underlying OKRs, you risk setting unrealistic goals, becoming frustrated with the process, and seeing your OKR implementation fail.
An OKR consultant will work with you to implement the framework in the following manner:
- First, it is essential to have a consensus on why your project matters and commit to delivering a successful strategy that will improve goal management for all employees.
- Second, it is crucial to establish a clear strategy for prioritisng goals and the approach to defining and delivering OKRs
- Third, a stakeholder map of the likely internal and external stakeholders that best placed to engage with OKR s
2. Defining HOW – Implementing OKRs
An OKR expert will help you understand the nuances of the decisions you’ll need to make and ensure that you strategy and plans in place for success, preparing for the initial OKR cycles.
An important task is to engage with senior stakeholders to validate the dynamics that will influence the goals and to validate which team members will be assigned to help define and deliver OKRs.
3. Defining the WHAT and WHEN – Defining OKRs
In an OKR process, different teams need guidance in their own way to successfully implement OKRs.
As a leader, your goal is to ensure that everyone is aligned with and connected to the organisation’s strategic priorities.
The role of OKR consultants is to help make sure that everyone is following best practices that are in place and reciprocate with the team when needed. An outsider can paly a unique role in initial workshops to help bring different stakeholders together and support the leadership in concise and accurate reporting of progress.
Having strong support within and outside of your team will enable you to speed up getting agreement to defining the detail of the goals and momentum to delivering change.
4. Supporting OKR Workshops
An OKR consultant sees the workshop as a tool to understand the nature of questions during the OKR implementation process.
The workshops are designed to understand better what people think, feel, and do about the OKRs. The workshops also help identify any areas of confusion or misunderstanding.
The consultant uses the workshop to understand how people interact with the OKR system and identify any potential areas for improvement.
The workshop’s output is a report that includes recommendations for improving the OKR process.
5. Rolling-out OKRs
After a company-wide training, the OKR consultant will help you roll out the OKR framework to the entire organization.
This includes working with different teams to ensure they are all on board with the new system and understand how it works.
The roll-out plan should be designed to minimize disruptions and maximize efficiency.
6. Review process
After the OKR system is up and running, the consultant will help you monitor and review the progress.This includes setting up regular check-ins and progress reports. The consultant will also help you identify any areas of improvement.
At the end of each quarter, the consultant will review the OKRs with you to see if they are still relevant and achievable.
If necessary, the consultant will help you adjust the OKRs to ensure they are still aligned with your company’s goals.
Other things in which an OKR consultant will help you is –
Follow-up actions – After the workshop, the consultant will work with you to establish a clear action plan. This plan will include a timeline, milestones, and deliverables.
Systems and training
Based on the size of your organization, the consultant will guide you to the best of his ability to find a system that can work for you.
Your OKR coach would usually recommend systems with which they have adequate knowledge and hands-on experience. They would train you and the entire team on using it before leaving you to manage the system yourselves.
The consultant will also provide you with resources, templates, and tools that you can use to make the OKR system work for you.
Conclusion
Hiring an OKR consultant can be an excellent decision for your business. They can help you get started with the framework, ensure it’s implemented correctly, and provide you with guidance and resources.
When choosing an OKR consultant, ask about their experience, tools, and resources. Also, make sure that they understand your company’s goals and objectives.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is an OKR Consultant?
An OKR consultant helps an organisation to implement and optimise an OKR framework that improves the organisation’s goal-setting, performance measurement, and overall strategy execution.
2. What does an OKR coach do?
An OKR coach guides individuals on how to create an OKR framework for goal-setting and performance measurement. Unlike consultants, they address the doubts and fears around strategic execution and goal alignment.
3. How much does OKR training cost?
The average cost of OKR (Objectives and Key Results) training varies depending on the type of training and provider. However, the rough estimate for online training courses starts from $100 per course.
4. What is the difference between OKR and KPI?
OKR aligns the objectives at the individual, team, and company levels. Whereas, KPIs measure the performance of a particular process, function, or activity within an organisation.
