Goal Diggers: OKR & Strategy Execution

The answer is: yes! Just like any organization, non-profit organizations have strategies that need to be delivered. And, OKR is the perfect tool to communicate and execute those strategies. Curious to learn how NPOs roll OKR out and work with the framework?

We spoke to Nathan Friedman, co-President and CMO at Understood (120+ ppl) — a non-profit organization dedicated to helping those who learn and think differently thrive — about their experience working with the OKR framework. Nathan shares why OKR (and KPIs) are key to their organization’s success, the approach they took to successfully rolling OKR out to the entire organization, and the benefits they’ve seen ever since they implemented the framework. He also shares what other NPOs should be focusing on when working with OKR.

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Curious to learn how other organizations rolled OKR across their organization? Give these episodes a listen:

• OKR rollout: an untraditional approach to success
• OKR rollout: what every organization should know

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If you're new to OKR or are just getting started, download The ultimate guide to OKR. We'll walk you through everything you need to know to get started with Objectives & Key Results.

And, if you're looking to master the art of setting great OKRs, head over to our newly published (revised edition) eBook on How to write great OKRs.

Start tracking your OKRs (& KPIs) for FREE! Create your own Perdoo account here.

OKR is often mistaken — it's seen as a rigid framework with rules that need to be followed to a T to ensure its success. That's far from the truth.

The OKR framework provides best practices that are tried and tested, however, beyond that, it's how you integrate it within your company culture and how you operate as an organization that ensures its success.

In this episode, we're speaking with a special guest, Ben Stilwill from Streamline Health. Ben will provide you with a window into how his organization's OKR program and how they've integrated OKR within their cultural DNA, by combining it with other engrained cultural elements — their One-Page Strategic Plan & Clifton Strengths personality assessment by Gallup.

During this episode we'll discuss:

1. How Streamline Health got started with OKR and their experience so far
2. How they've integrated OKR within their cultural blueprint
3. A deep-dive on Clifton Strengths and their One-Page Strategic Plan
4. How they maintain a healthy OKR program
5. OKR advice and best practices

Learn more about:

• Clifton Strengths by Gallup (Talent Assessment)
• Scaling Up by Verne Harnish (One-Page Strategic Plan)

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Ready to track your OKRs the right way? Head over to Perdoo and create a FREE account.

Learn more about strategy, goals (OKRs & KPIs) & growth — visit the Perdoo Resources Hub.

If you've read "Measure What Matters" you've probably come across the term cascading OKRs. Typically, when you think of cascading OKRs, top-down rigid cascading is what comes to mind.

In an ideal world, rigid cascading seems logical — it gives an impression that an entire organization is pulling in the same direction. In reality organizations are slightly more complex and require multi-directional goal setting.

Top-down cascading is a reflection of traditional command and control. Therefore, there's a good reason why many softwares and consultants discourage top-down cascading of goals.

So what is cascading OKRs all about? We spoke to Peter Kappus, an OKR consultant, about:

• The definition of cascading OKRs
• Why organizations should avoid rigid top-down cascading?
• What should organizations be focusing on instead?
• Rigid vs. directional cascading

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Curious to learn more? Here are some additional resources:

• Why your Key Result can't become someone else's Objective
• Two things Measure What Matters got wrong

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Ready to track your OKRs the right way? Head over to Perdoo and create a FREE account.

Learn more about strategy, goals (OKRs & KPIs) & growth — visit the Perdoo Resources Hub.

The Executive's Trinity is a concept devised by Stephen Bungay, author and consultant on strategy and leadership, that describes the three different types of work every executive should master.

While The Executive's Trinity says little about OKR as a tool that organizations can use to execute strategy, through the experience of one of our clients, Mathis Christian, we’ve learnt that combining the right leadership with OKR is a recipe for success.

Mathis is a founder, coach and consultant whom has set up a collective called Craft Agile — an organization that transforms businesses by being helping them craft and master robust structures and processes. Mathis works closely with Stephen Bungay and The Executive's Trinity concept, as well as with OKR and Perdoo, and we'll go into depth on his experience in doing so.

During the episode we'll discuss:

• What The Executive's Trinity is all about
• How organizations use The Executive's Trinity to execute their strategy through OKR
• The challenges faced with using The Executive's Trinity

Curious to learn how to manage The Executive's Trinity and OKR within Perdoo? Head over to this guide.

Tune in to our episode with Stephen Bungay to learn more about putting strategy into action.

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Ready to track your OKRs the right way? Head over to Perdoo and create a FREE account.

Learn more about strategy, goals (OKRs & KPIs) & growth — visit the Perdoo Resources Hub.

The OKR framework is designed to set organizations up for success. Yet many organizations that adopt OKR see little to no benefit of working with the framework. Why is that?

Well, a lot of these organizations use what Felipe Castro calls the "Tinkerbell approach to OKR" — they simply continue working the same way they did before and just sprinkle some "OKR" pixie dust over it. That might work if you're lucky, but in most cases it won't.

OKR calls for a fundamental shift in how you approach work and has a few key areas that need attention in order for it to be a huge success. We spoke to OKR trainer and consultant, Felipe Castro, on what it takes to be successful with OKR.

During this episode we'll discuss the 3 things you need to be successful with OKR:

1. Commitment to OKR from senior leadership
2. How to use OKR in practice
3. Unlearn old models

Tune in to get a deep dive on what you need to do to make your OKR program a massive success. Learn from the experts!

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Books discussed during the episode:

• 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen R. Covey
• Unlearn by Barry O'Reilly
• Scrum: Twice the work in half the time by Jeff Sutherland

Resources that can help further boost the success of your OKR program

• How to write great OKRs
• Outcomes vs. outputs

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Ready to track your OKRs the right way? Head over to Perdoo and create a FREE account.

Learn more about strategy, goals (OKRs & KPIs) & growth — visit the Perdoo Resources Hub.

Growth is the result of a combination of carefully designed strategies and an organization's learning processes.

OKR is the perfect tool to facilitate such growth, by bridging the gap between an organization's strategy and its activities, while fostering learning simultaneously.

We spoke to Philipp Engelhardt, a growth strategist, OKR consultant and founder of scaleon, a management consulting company. We'll be talking all about growth strategies and OKR. Here's what we'll be covering:

• Intro on growth and growth strategies
• The difference between strategy and goal setting
• The relationship between OKR and growth strategies
• Task completion doesn't equal goal attainment (outcomes vs. outputs)
• How OKRs support an organization's strategy
• The two schools of OKR: Strategy & HR
• The importance of tracking OKR and strategy in the same place
• Using OKR to fit your organization's needs
• When OKR is useful for high growth companies

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Looking to set and implement your strategy within a single tool? Head over to Perdoo and create a FREE account.

Learn more about strategy, goals (OKRs & KPIs) & growth — visit the Perdoo Resources Hub.

There's no one-size-fits-all approach to rolling OKR out. The OKR framework provides you with a loose set of rules and instructions, however, organizations are free to adjust and use the framework in a way that best fits their needs!

We spoke to Nichole, the OKR Ambassador at the company she works at, and she walks us through the successful yet untraditional approach that was taken to rolling OKR out.

Excited to hear what that entails? Here's what we cover in the conversation:

• Why her organization decided to implement OKR
• A step-by-step walkthrough of the approach taken
• The challenges faced
• How the challenges were overcome
• The benefits of working with OKR
• Best practices when implementing OKR

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If you're new to OKR or are just getting started, download The ultimate guide to OKR. We'll walk you through everything you need to know to get started with Objectives & Key Results.

And, if you're looking to master the art of setting great OKRs, head over to our newly published (revised edition) eBook on How to write great OKRs.

Start tracking your OKRs (& KPIs) for FREE! Create your own Perdoo account here.

Let's talk strategy execution with none other than an expert — Stephen Bungay, author of The Art of Action and former consultant at The Boston Consulting Group.

In this conversation we'll cover the following:

• What is strategy?
• The 4 conditions required to need a strategy
• Does every organization need a strategy?
• The concept of strategic thinking and who should be doing it
• The difference between a plan and a strategy
• The 3 gaps in strategy execution
• How to avoid detail and provide clarity
• How to execute a strategy

In a nutshell, strategy is a framework for decision making. By providing such a framework, an organization has better direction to act and subsequently push the organization in a desired trajectory.

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Looking to set and implement your strategy within a single tool? Head over to Perdoo and create a FREE account.

Learn more about strategy, goals (OKRs & KPIs) & growth — visit the Perdoo Resources Hub.

In theory, OKR (Objectives & Key Results) is simple. However, it can be a challenge when rolling out the OKR framework across an entire organization.

We spoke to Kathrin Hafermas, the OKR Ambassador at Proemion, who has a wealth of insights to share with you based on her learnings while implementing OKR at Proemion.

Let's take a look at what an OKR rollout process looks like. What we'll discuss in this episode:

• Why Proemion decided to implement OKR
• The OKR rollout process
• Challenges faced
• Approaches taken to overcome those challenges
• How Proemion has benefitted from OKR
• Best practices you should keep in mind when implementing OKR

A key takeaway: OKR won't be an overnight success — it requires planning, commitment and effort. Get this right, and you'll be successful.

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If you're new to OKR or are just getting started, download The ultimate guide to OKR. We'll walk you through everything you need to know to get started with Objectives & Key Results.

Start tracking your OKRs (& KPIs) for FREE! Create your own Perdoo account here.

What really is an Individual OKR? And, why is there so much talk about working with Individual OKRs on the internet?

Henrik-Jan van der Pol, CEO of Perdoo and Peter Kappus, an OKR consultant, are here to finally give some in-depth insight into Individual OKRs and clarify the misconceptions around them. 

During the interview you'll get a deep-dive on:

• What Individual OKRs are all about
• Organizational structures that support working with Individual OKRs
• The common misconceptions and consequences of working with Individual OKRs
• Why organizations use Individual OKRs
• Recommendations on how to work with Individual OKRs

Still want to learn more about Individual OKRs? Head over to these resources:

• Everything you need to know about Individual OKRs
• Why Individual OKRs just aren't a thing
• The pros and cons of Individual OKRs

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Start tracking your OKRs (& KPIs) for FREE! Create your own Perdoo account here.

Learn more about strategy, goals (OKRs & KPIs) & growth — visit the Perdoo Resources Hub.

If you're new to OKR or are just getting started, download The ultimate guide to OKR. We'll walk you through everything you need to know to get started with Objectives & Key Results.