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Objective and Key Results: A Tool To Engage Your Employees

Objective and Key Results: How to engage your employees to commit to the company goals

It is a real challenge to keep everyone in your team concurrent, especially if you don´t keep your team members engaged with the vision of your company. It is common in corporate world that many feel lost about the direction of the company they are working for.

This happens often to millennials. A study by Gallup in 2016 demonstrates that only 40% of millennials feel connected to the visions and goals of the company they work for. It is important to note that a few years from now, the entire workforce will consist of millennials. With that being said, this should be one of your priorities in transforming your company into a high performing company.

The question is – how do you keep everyone on the same page? The answer is by involving your employees in the goal setting. Employee performance increases by 12-15% of those who are involved in the company goal setting, a study from 2015 shows.

To do the same, OKR framework will help you tremendously. OKR can lead your company into an allied transformation and mind-shift if implemented the right way.

This is exactly the level of transformation and evolution that what I offer to my clients in my Organisational Mastery Program. If you want to know more about it, feel free to take our Organisational Mastery Test. It won’t take you more than 5 minutes 

Back to OKRs . . .

OKR, which stands for Objective and Key Results, is a simple management tool designed to promote engagement among team members as well as ensure that everyone in the organisation is aligned to the primary objectives. Nowadays, it is used by many companies, including Google.

OKR – a Framework to Goal-Setting

OKRs are clearly defined, tracked, measured, and evaluated on a regular basis, on contrary to other traditional goal setting methods. OKRs can be done quarterly or yearly.

One of the main benefits of OKRs is that everyone in the organisation is aligned with the company goals. This keeps everyone on the same page and with clear priorities.

The OKR concept originally came from Intel, which quickly spread to many startup and companies all over the world. It has a powerful impact on both small and large organisations, and it has been popular by companies like Spotify, LinkedIn, Twitter, Airbnb, and Google. It is not only used in tech companies, but also by other companies in other industries, for example Walmart, Bradstreet, ING Bank, The Guardian, etc.

OKRs Key Components

As mentioned above, the concept of OKR came from Intel, where John Doerr, an American Investor and venture capitalist, who also worked at Google, introduced the idea of OKR. Below is Doerr´s Goal-Setting Formula:

I will ­­(OBJECTIVE) as measured by (SET OF KEY RESULTS).

This simple formula describes 2 things:

What one has to achieve
How is he going to measure this achievement

Remember that OKR involves measurable results. Without scaling it, a goal is not a goal. It is simply a desire.

As given in the formula, OKR consists of two aspects: the Objective and Key results. Objectives are basically the person’s goals which are qualitative descriptions of what he or she wants to achieve. Objectives are short, engaging, and inspiration statements that are supposed to motivate and challenge the team.

On the other hand, Key results are set of metrics that measure an individual´s progress in achieving his or her goals.

Each Objective should have 2-5 key results. The idea is to keep the Key Results as few as possible as having more would be difficult to remember.

Examples of OKR
Objective: Create a positive customer experience

Example #1: 

I believe one of the most important goals of every company is to provide a positive experience to their customers. This statement is engaging, motivating, as well as challenging. This objective is great, but without key results as a way to measure how far a team or individual has gone through in terms of achieving the Objective, it remains just a goal.

This is where Key Results step in. As a leader of your company, how do you know that your team is delivering a great customer service? You take into account how people perceive your products through various measurements like the Repurchase Rate and Net Promoter Score.

You want to know how the customers feel about your products or services, you also want to know whether they would buy again, and if they will recommend your services or products to other people.

However, looking at the NPS and repurchase rate alone might not be enough to assume that you are providing an great customer experience. On contrary, it could even encourage you to make customers happy and satisfied at any cost, which could later on harm your business.

What other Key Results can you take into consideration? For example, Customer Acquisition Cost is a good Key Result to measure. Good thing about it is that it keeps the balance between making customers happy and keeping the cost under control.

So, your Objective and Key Results can look something like this:

Objective: Create an awesome customer experience

Key Results: 

Maintain Customer Acquisition cost under Y
Raise Repurchase Rate from X to Y.
Improve Net Promoter Score from X to Y.

Example #2: 

You´re leading a digital company and one of your annual objectives is to delight your customers. Your OKR can look like this:

Objective: Delight our customers

Key Results:

Lower order cancellation from A% to D%.
Increase Net Promoter Score from A to C.
Improve average daily visits per active user from X to Y.
Increase Organic traffic from X to Y.

Remember that the Key Results, as shown in this example, should be clear and specific. You have to identify the numbers to measure the results. While the objective is a high-level statement of what you want to achieve, the Key Results are specific, measurable actions. Key Results are very important. They just don’t measure your goals, they also define what your goals are.

How To Apply OKRs In Your Team

Objective and Key Results is a comprehensive tool. There is no standard way to use it, you can adjust it depending on your needs. However, I want to present some of the core concepts that should always remain the same:

Your goals should be agile

OKRs are never static or definite. These goals should be adapted according to the organisation’s needs. OKRs are created and reviewed between shorter periods. They can also be changed as needed.

OKR is a simple tool

OKRs are considered among the most effective organisational tools mainly because it is so simple and straightforward. Objectives are set briefly, as well as the key results. This is to avoid confusion and ensure that everyone in the team or organisation is aligned. 

It is set on a quarterly or annually, sometimes even on monthly basis. As a result, organisations invest more in achieving their goals, not just in setting them.

OKR promotes transparency

OKR´s main goal is to promote transparency, they should be visible to anyone in the organisation. Everyone across all teams or departments should have access to what other people are doing, what their goals are, and how well they are performing.

OKR is dynamic

Organisations are ever-changing. Change is critical for a company to keep up with the competition. OKRs are flexible. They can be changed to adapt to the company’s changing needs.

It involves bi-directional goal-setting

Unlike the traditional top-down model, OKRs are more time-efficient. Former VP of Google People Operations Laszlo Bock mentions in his book, World Rules: “Having goals improves performance.”

However, spending hours cascading goals up and down the company does not. It takes too much time to make sure all the goals align. This kind of cascading method drives engagement and makes the process even simpler and faster.

OKRs have ambitious goals

The idea is that if your team is reaching goals 100% every time, it means that your goals are not ambitious enough. This means that the perfect score is not a proof of success, rather, a sign that you have to motivate your team to do better. OKRs are meant to help teams set challenging goals.

Setting ambitious goals is very important. Google mentions, in the book “Ten Things We Know to Be“: ““We set ourselves goals we know we can’t reach yet because we know that by stretching to meet them we can get further than we expected.”

OKRs promote a safe ground for employees to blossom

Companies that use OKRs provide a low-risk environment for their employees to experiment and set challenging goals. Individuals will not be punished or lose money if they set ambitious goals. This makes them more motivated to aim higher. They are rewarded for their impact on the business.

OKR is a continuous process

OKR is a process, not an event. It involves cultural transformation and it changes over time.

Common OKR Mistakes

Here are the top 5 OKR mistakes that many organisations do and how to avoid them:

Using OKR like a task list: OKR measures how you deliver value, not how you perform tasks. There is a difference between value-based and activity-based key results.
Setting too many OKRs: OKRs work best when done one at a time. OKRs include high-level goals per quarter, especially your top priorities.
Not aligning your OKRs to the company goals: Teams and individuals should align their goals the organisation as a whole.
Setting goals and forgetting them
Setting goals without measurable actions

How to Write Good OKRs

There is a compact way to help your team get started.

The most effective OKRs are short and easy to understand. They should be challenging and not boring. Most of all, they should fit the organisational culture.

OKRs don’t have to be formal statements. Feel free to use the language that is common to use in your organisation when you set your Objective and Key Results. Moreover, separate metrics from initiatives. There are usually 2-5 Key results per Objective so your team won’t be overwhelmed.

If you need more guidance in implementing this framework in your company, feel free to reach out or take a look into my OKR Training and OKR Consulting pages.

Don’t forget to take our Organisational Mastery Test so we can accurately diagnose the improvements we can implement in your company.

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OKR Guide: Understanding OKRs and How It Benefits Your Business

OKR Guide – Understanding OKRs

Due to the complex nature of organisations, employees often face challenges among the rapid changes they deal with every day. It is often that employees feel demotivated, discouraged and have a lack of purpose just because the company goals are too high-level and abstract.

That´s where Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) steps in to help companies with goal setting and implement a solid strategy.

OKR helps any organisation to achieve its goals by helping teams and individuals create their own goals and take actions, from improved focus to better team alignment, transparency, and accountability.

The main components of OKRs are: objectives and key results. Key results describe how the objectives will be measured.

This method ensures that team members learn how to prioritise, focus, and align the outcome of their tasks and responsibilities.

OKR helps companies convey strategies to their team members in a practical and quantifiable manner. OKR also helps to move forward from output to outcome-based methods.

Objectives & Key Results

What is an objective?

Objective is a goal, intention, or a purpose to be sought in the future. An objective provides you with an inspiration and serves you as an OKR guide throughout achieving a certain goal.

What is a Key Result

Key Result is a metric system where there is an initial and target value measuring progress towards an objective.

Key Result helps you measure the distance you covered and implies how far/how close you are from your goal, whereas objective serves as your goal or destination.

What s an initiative?

Initiative describes what you will do in order to determine your Key Result. An objective is your destination; a Key Result is your meter; and, Initiative will help you reach that place.

OKR History Key Aspects

The history started back in 1954 when Peter Drucker founded Management by Objectives or MBO. Later, when Andy Grove founded Intel in 1968, he developed MBO and remodelled it into what we know today, the OKR.

In 1974, John Doerr joined Intel and he learned about OKRs there. Later when he joined one of the major investors of Google, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, he became a mentor in Google in its early days.

Doerr then introduced OKR to the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. These two implemented OKR at Google, which is still in use today and inspire other companies to use it. 

OKR and its Benefits

Impact on Your Business

Studies have shown that employees who used OKR tend to be more effective at their jobs, which results to better performance and increased sales. 

Company Culture Benefits

One of the major benefits of using OKRs is a cultural shift from output to outcomes, which allows an organisation to greatly focus on metrics and KPIs. Companies using OKRs system have more focus, alignment and transparency within the organisation.

When these factors are combined, it leads to a significant improvement in employee engagement.

OKR Guide – How to Get Started with OKRs

Before implementing OKRs, it is really crucial for every company to understand the challenges or issues they want to solve or the objectives they want to achieve. For most companies, OKR is a powerful framework that allows to solve problems and create a clear, transparent business strategy.

The role of a person in charge of OKR implementation is very important as the success of OKRs highly depend on this person. Normally, this person is known as the OKR Ambassador and his main role is to ensure that each team member who uses OKR is engaged, receives help and guidance throughout the process.

OKR is also a learning process that enables employees to think about the specific steps they need to take to be able to focus on outcomes (objectives), not just the output (tasks).

If you´d like to know how to set up an OKR, check some examples in the article on how to engage your employees to commit to the company goals.

Setting up OKR Cadences

The frequency of setting your goals is called cadence. In most organisations, OKRs are set up either annually or quarterly.

When planning for the annual OKRs, companies tackle high-level goals, which correspond with their yearly strategic cadence. Quarterly OKRs are usually owned by teams and departments, followed by shorter review cycles.

This process makes it easy for an organisation to shift direction in terms of strategies. The quarterly goals are always aligned with the main goals of the company.

Creating an Ultimate OKR

Most of the organisations have a mission and a vision. But very often these are difficult to understand as they are too generalised and broad. However, OKRs help turn the mission and vision into actionable items that are measurable and attainable.

You´ll be able to define your long-term organisational goals by turning your mission and vision into your ultimate OKR.

The ultimate OKR is normally set for long-term, around 10-25 years. A great example is when ex US President John F Kennedy decided America will send a man on the moon. They called it the “Moonshot Goal”.

To accomplish this, NASA set smaller goals to achieve this purpose. Later in 1961, NASA achieved their ultimate goal.

How to Create Company OKRs

Your OKRs represent your strategy as to where you want to lead your organisation. Your OKRs should include 3-4 key results and these must be all measurable. You can review these OKRs annually or quarterly to keep track of your progress.

As the leader, it is necessary that you decide on what you want to achieve in the following 12 months. Gathering feedback from your team members is important in creating OKRs and ensuring that everyone is aligned.

I´ts a great idea to facilitate an OKR workshop to introduce the concept to your team. Allow your employees to provide suggestions on what they think the top priorities of your company should be.

In sum, commiting to a goal helps to drive performance among employees and setting challenging goals motivates your employees to perform well. OKR, the goal-setting system, helps organisations to set ambitious goals and achieve them through measurable actions.

Setting OKRs gives every leader like you a clear guidance on what to focus on during a given time frame. By adopting this popular strategy, you can tremendously foster growth and success within your organisation.

If you are interested in implementing OKRs in your company please take a look into my OKR Training and OKR Consulting pages.

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How to Properly Conduct OKR Evaluation to Keep Your Team Aligned

How to Conduct OKR Evaluation to Keep Your Team Aligned

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) is a recent leadership base that helps organisations set, communicate, and measure their goals. The main goal of OKRs is for every member in the organisation understand the objectives of the company through a set of specific and measurable goals.

When the OKRs are set, it´s necessary to evaluate them at least two weeks before the quarter ends. You need to assess whether your team has been successful, whether your department has achieved goals or whether your team´s key results were effective. You also need to plan for your OKRs in the next quarter.

To have an effective way of evaluating the OKR of your team or department, there are two ways to do this: 1. Confidence Rating 2. Grading Approach. Let´s take a look at both.

OKR Evaluation – Confidence Rating

This is a simple method that is normally used by start-ups or smaller teams that are new to OKRs. When setting OKRs, confidence rating demonstrates the probability of the team achieving their objectives.

The rating scale is typically between 5-10. Every week, team members are asked whether their confidence level has changed. They show what they have done so far in achieving their key results, whether they are on track or not. They look at every kind of data from previous weeks and check whether the team is making progress or getting closer to their goal.

You as the manager or leader is in charge of adapting the confidence to a higher rating as your team becomes more confident when they get closer to the desired result.

The confidence level can always change from week too week, however, after two months of OKR implementation, the confidence level should appoint a more stable outcome.

There are two major advantages using confidence rating in OKR evaluation:

Reminder for employees to keep track of their OKRs – Since your team is asked each week about their confidence level, they have a possibility to track their own progress and ensure they are focused on their key results. It´s an easy and effective way for a company to set the habit of success tracking.
Creates a way to meaningful conversations – When the confidence level drops, you can talk about what can be done better, what has gone wrong and what could have been done differently. Your teams can brainstorm ideas to correct this and get back on track.

Team´s OKR can affect everyone else´s OKRs and this can be a concern for the entire organisation. Therefore, you as the leader, should feel comfortable to open conversations and ask team members what can you do to help.

By the time you assess your department’s OKRs, you either mark your confidence level as 10 or 0. If they achieve two out of their three key results, it means the OKR has been successful.

This grading system helps a team double down on possible goals and get rid of efforts that are clearly out of range. This streamlines processes and eliminates unnecessary efforts.

The drawback is that some employees might misuse this system by setting one easy, one difficult, and one impossible objective. The manager´s role is to ensure this doesn´t happen.

OKR Evaluation – Grading Approach

The second OKR evaluation method is called “grading approach”. This OKR approach is used by big corporations, such as Google.

At the end of each quarter, teams and individuals grade their results using the data they collected. They use grading scale between 0-1. A grade 0 means a failure, 1 means a total success, however, the ideal score is between 0.6-0.7. Having a score lower than 0.6 means that the team is not achieving what it needs to be achieved.

Many companies fail to define a set of scoring criteria, which is a crucial element of key results. The scoring criteria are necessary if you, for example, want to use a standardised scoring system for your company and it must be defined with the creation of the OKRs. So if you want to finalise Key Results, you have to first define your scoring system and guideline.

Before you assign a final score, it is advised to do a mid-quarter check-in for everyone to find out whether they´re on a good track to achieving the desired result. Some organisations do a midpoint check, some prefer doing a monthly check.

It is a great idea if you give your employees the freedom to accomplish the goals. It is advised to keep OKRs visible, it does not only promote transparency across teams, but it´s also an effective strategy to communicate scores and establish a sense of accountability. Everyone will be “forced” to update their ratings when the quarter is almost over.

Gathering your teams for feedback is always the best way. Collaboration is the key to success in implementing a change, new process, or a different management framework. It can get really challenging to keep things in order and implement OKRs smoothly, however, with a scoring method in place, it makes it easier to evaluate your OKRs.

If you are interested in implementing OKRs in your company please take a look into my OKR Training and OKR Consulting pages.

I hope this OKR evaluation article helps. If you want to have a look of how your entire company performs as a whole, you can check the Organisational Mastery Quiz. I´ve established concrete metrics for you to see where you can improve your organisation.

I recommend forwarding this to other managers and executives in your company. It really indicates concrete areas that hold your company back from achieving its potential. See below.

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OKR Approach: A Fantastic Goal Setting Framework

OKR approach as a goal setting framework

Objectives and Key Results, known as OKR, is a recent leadership foundation that helps organisations set, communicate, and measure their goals. The primary function of OKR is to connect an employee´s personal objectives with the team and the company in a hierarchical way.

How the OKR works in short? Your team will work together in a defined direction which is shaped by measurable factors. As a manager you might think that this is just a lot of work for your busy schedule, however, tracking this goal setting approach is very easy and helpful. There are numerous software tools that help you implement and track your company OKRs.

The OKR Approach

Visibility is a keyword in the OKR concept – employees know and understand what is expected of them at work. This is why in most known companies, such as Google, OKRs are visible to everyone from leadership to team members. It allows everyone to see and understand what each individual is doing as part of the company goals and objectives. 

Ideally, an OKR is made up of 3 to 5 high-profile objectives and under these objectives, there are 3-5 key measurable results. The key results are measured through a set of scores (usually between 0 and 1.0). These allow companies to measure progress.

Setting OKRs can be done on a quarterly basis, which could be a start to see the progress. But it can also be done on a monthly or annual basis, it really depends on the needs and goals of your company.

Benefits of OKRs

The concept of OKR is not new. It was recognised in the early 1970s when Andy Grove, the former president of Intel, introduced the idea. OKRs are now used by thousands of organisations around the world, including the largest Fortune 500 companies like Zynga, Sears, Twitter, Oracle, and so much more.

 As a leader in your company, this mind shift is a total win. Leadership experts believe that OKR is one of the leading team management practices that every company should implement. Why?

Easy and simple – you don´t need many resources to implement and keep a track of OKRs

Preserves the company culture – this greatly benefits the productivity and performance of employees

Measure progress – OKR make it possible for companies to achieve their goals in a shorter period of time and accurately measure progress

OKR Framework: A Simple Model

What leaders and executives like about OKRs is the fact that it has a simple and straightforward structure. There are only three parts: Objectives, Key Results, and Metrics.

Objectives

The very first part of an OKR is the Objective. The process starts by identifying 3-5 key objectives. These are high-profile goals at the organisational level. They become more specific as they are spread toward teams and individual members.

So as you, manager, this is the part where you can give a great example to make the goals of your organisation flood from your office to your teams´OKRs.

These objectives may be more targeted to the team members´roles and responsibilities but they are and should be always aligned with the overall company objectives. 

Key Results

We shall assign 3-4 measurable results to each objective we identify. This helps you as a leader, to evaluate the performance of your employees to figure out whether they are on track to achieving their goals.

OKR results can have many forms, such as company revenue, employee engagement, growth, and performance. Having a numerical value for each result makes it easy to find out what still needs to be done in terms of your objectives.

How To Use OKRs

Create the objectives and key results

As mentioned above, the first step in implementing OKR approach is to set a specific set of objectives and the key results. Once these are defined, they are communicated to all stakeholders.

If necessary, the objectives can be rephrased in order to get a common understanding among the employees. The key is that everyone understands what the objectives are and what they should do.

Make it measurable

Key results should be assessed so that every team member can check their progress. We measure it by using a scoring system; the ideal score is between 70% and 75%. Scoring 100% can look very “suspicious”. This can actually mean that a person has set goals that are too easy to achieve.

Review OKRs on a regular basis

OKRs are not fixed, they change depending on the circumstances. For example, if the company goals change, you must also adjust the OKRs.

Advantages of Using OKR approach for Your Company

OKRs can play an important role in your company regardless of the industry you´re in.

A big advantage is that it allows all employees to be aware of the vision, mission, and goals of your organisation and most importantly, align their goals to these.

When OKRs are used regularly, they highly benefit the growth of your company. With OKRs, not only your employees understand the company goals, but they also get a clear idea of what is expected from them.

Even if there are various different departments and employees performing specific roles, with OKRs, they are able to align their personal objectives in a way to benefit the rest of your company.

How often you review the OKRs, is totally up to you. Companies mainly review OKRs monthly, quarterly, or annually. Team members can even review their OKRs on a weekly basis. 

OKR approach is widely used by various leading companies around the world because of its proven benefits. Managers and leaders like you love this approach because it has a direct impact on every employee´s goals. OKRs focus on important goals, productivity, and results.

OKRs are among the best management tools that can be used by your team. Whatever your ultimate goal is – whether to drive performance, guide your people in the right direction, implement a new process or change, OKRs will surely benefit your company.

There’s no wonder why it is largely practised by many companies, from Google to Twitter, LinkedIn, and more.

OKRs are easy to implement. They should also be flexible to accommodate changes over time. Once properly implemented, it can be one of the most powerful drivers in the continued growth and success of your company.

Conclusion

OKRs are considered one of the best management tools. Whatever your ultimate goal is – whether it is to drive performance, implement a new process or a change, OKRs will definitely benefit your organisation. 

Moreover, OKRs are easy to implement, they should be flexible to receive any changes. When properly implemented, it can be one of the most important drivers of a success in your company.

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The post OKR Approach: A Fantastic Goal Setting Framework appeared first on Luís Gonçalves.

OKRs: The Guide That Explains Everything You Need To Know

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) is a recent leadership foundation that helps organisations set, communicate, and measure their goals. Primary function of OKRs is to connect an individual´s personal objectives with the team and the company in a hierarchical way.

The main goal of OKRs is for every member of the organisation – from the key stakeholders and leaders down to the team members – understand the objectives of the company through a set of defined, specific and measurable actions.

Because of today’s complex nature of organisations, team members often find themselves feeling lost among the rapid changes they deal with every day. It happens often that employees feel discouraged and have a lack of purpose just because the company goals and strategic plans are too high-level and abstract.

OKR at Google: Case Study

There are numerous small and large companies that have adopted Objectives and Key Results to achieve their goals. Among these are Twitter, Oracle, LinkedIn, Trello, etc.

But it wasn´t entirely a new concept. One of the companies that started using OKRs long ago is Google. When Google was just starting their business, one of its investors, John Doerr, suggested using OKRs. The idea was actually adopted from Intel and proven to be highly effective.

How Does Google Use OKR

Rick Klau, Google Ventures partner gave an insight in one of this presentation about how OKRs work at Google.

Using OKRs is very simple. It starts with setting up an Objective and followed by identifying Key Results (Key Results should be quantifiable as it´s the only way to find out whether you have achieved your objectives).

Your objectives shouldn´t only be measurable, but they should be as concrete as possible. Stating you want to increase your sales is not concrete and measurable, it´s abstract. Instead, you can define that you want to increase your sales by 30%.

At Google, objectives are set annually and quarterly. When Rick Klau took charge of Blogger – a blog publishing service owned by Google – he set a quarter objective to improve the company´s reputation.

Because of an increasing competition, Blogger started losing popularity as other blogging platforms entered the market. Therefore, Klau created 4 Key Results to improve Blogger´s reputation:

Re-establish Blogger’s leadership by speaking to at least 3 industry events
Coordinate Blogger’s 10th anniversary PR efforts
Reach out personally to Blogger’s users
Fix DMCA process and eliminate music blog takedowns

Annual OKRs at Google are normally more high-level, enclosing the quarterly objectives. What´s important to note is that they change and evolve as the need emerges.

Google adopts OKRs accross whole organisation, at managerial, team and even personal level. This ensures that everyone gets things done to achieve the company goals.

By the end of each quarter, all stakeholders at Google rate their key results. The scale at Google is 0-1. The idea is not to reach 1 in every Key Results, otherwise, it is assumed that the Key Result was too easy to achieve. Employees at Google aim for a score of 0.6-0.7.

Transparency at Google is important. Everyone´s OKRs are visible. Everyone can see each other´s OKRs and their scores. It helps them understand what others are working on.

Key Elements of OKRs

Probably you´ve understood the main purpose of OKRs and how it can benefit your organisation. The real challenge though is setting up your own OKRs and analysing the Key Results to achieve your company objectives.

There are only two elements of an OKR:

Objectives – depending what your role is, you start by identifying 3-5 key objectives of your company, team, or on a personal level. While objectives should be ambitious, they should also be measurable. You, as a manager, you should make sure that such objectives are carefully communicated to everyone on your team.
Key Results – the “objectives” answer the question “What?”, whereas “key results” answer the question “How?”. Key Results must be quantifiable, achievable, clear, difficult, but not impossible. Most importantly, Key Results should be measurable. This is the only way to track your or your team’s progress, understand the issues, and develop/improve processes along the way.

Many people may compare OKR to other traditional goal-setting practices that were used before. However, the OKR process is different because it has two additional aspects:

Cascading alignment of goals
Breaking up Objectives into smaller, actionable steps

There is one element we may not forget to mention – tactic. Tactics fall under Key Results and inform the “how” part. Note that tactics are different from the tasks. They are strategies that are used to perform those tasks.

Normally, you may deal with tasks using a project management tool, such as Trello or Asana. These tasks fall under tactics. Often, you may need a combination of different tactics to achieve the Key Results that support your objectives.

How often do you establish an OKR?

The frequency of setting your goals is called cadence. If you have several departments in your organisation, it´s important that each department has the same time constraint to help with coordination and avoid complexities.

You may set annual and quarterly goals within your company. Just remember, OKR is meant to be a simple process.

Characteristics of Objectives

The goals of objectives should be to:

Answer what you want to achieve within a certain time-frame (e.g. after a quarter)
Serve as a strategic theme that oversees your accomplishment
Qualitative as it is supported by a set of actionable steps
Each objective should have 1-5 key results that are measurable

Characteristics of Key Results

Key Results should:

Refer to the results you´re looking for
Help you to measure your progress
Resonate to HOW you will achieve your objectives
Be measurable – you should include a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) that is quantified through metric

In most organisations, Key Results (KRs) are used among teams, not in management level. Teams don´t create the goals (unless they are personal goals), but managers or leaders they assign the goals for teams. They normally own the KRs.

Managers or leaders will have contributing goals, but won´t have KRs. The goals are higher level goals that have the same attributes as the KRs, which are aligned with the senior goals.

How to set up an OKR for your team
Step #1: Set the stage

Introduce the concept of OKRs to your team, explain how the KRs work and how KRs effect their performance. Explain them that purpose of the OKRs is to also make them feel uncomfortable when they set ambitious goals and miss it (as long as they are making some progress). Encourage them to go outside their comfort zone.

Step #2: Identify your objectives

Ask your team members to take part in brainstorming sessions. Don´t forget that your team goals should always be aligned with the senior goals (company objectives). Try to come up with 3-5 objectives.

Step #3: Identify your key results

Put down the measurable outcomes that show whether you have achieved your objectives. You´re dealing here with results, not tasks. See example below:

Objective: Increase profit by 20%

Key Results: 

Launch seasonal campaigns (e.g. Christmas promotion) and double revenue from the past year
Use cash discounts on suppliers to save 10% on purchases
Outsource distribution to stores to reduce cost by 10%

Step #4: Review and analyse

When you´ll review your initial list of KRs what may happen is that you will revise your objectives. If you´re very confident that you´ll hit your KRs, that means you´re not being ambitious enough. To get out of your comfort zone, try increasing your target one level up.

Step #5: Ask for feedback

Getting feedback is crucial, especially for those who will be involved in the execution. Listen to the feedback, some people might give you great suggestions to improve your OKRs.

Step #6: Scoring

A critical aspect of measuring KRs is scoring. If you´d like, you can use scoring that Google uses. They use scale of between 0 and 1.

Extraordinary Qualities of OKRs

OKRs have distinctive qualities that help transform many organisations across various industries. List below indicates some of them:

OKRs give a sense of purpose and direction – the company objectives are cascaded to individual team members more clearly
OKRs help an organisation to focus on the success of the business and allow to focus on everyone´s effort
OKR allows everyone in the organisation to align their goals with company goals
It measures and tracks the performance in a way that helps to motivate employees to do better
Regular assessments and progress check-in help with better execution
OKRs are focused on results and outcomes, not on tasks
Creating OKRs means involving the group, not only selecting individuals or key people
Helps managers measure the performance of team members and allows more targeted feedback
Brings transparency to the company because everyone can see what others are working on
OKRs foster collaboration across teams and between team members

Summary

Committing to a goal helps to drive performance among employees, some studies have shown. Setting challenging goals motivates your employees to perform well.

OKR is a goal-setting system that helps organisations to set ambitious goals and achieve them through measurable actions. OKRs should be set quarterly or annually. It´s important to focus on objectives that can be achieved within a certain time frame.

Setting OKRs gives every leader like you a clear guidance on what to focus on during a given time frame. By adopting this popular strategy, you can tremendously foster growth and success within your organisation.

If you are interested in implementing OKRs in your company please take a look into my OKR Training and OKR Consulting pages.

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OKRs: The Ultimate Guide That Explains Everything You Need To Know

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) is a recent leadership foundation that helps organisations set, communicate, and measure their goals. Primary function of OKRs is to connect an individual´s personal objectives with the team and the company in a hierarchical way.

The main goal of OKRs is for every member of the organisation – from the key stakeholders and leaders down to the team members – understand the objectives of the company through a set of defined, specific and measurable actions.

Because of today’s complex nature of organisations, team members often find themselves feeling lost among the rapid changes they deal with every day. It happens often that employees feel discouraged and have a lack of purpose just because the company goals and strategic plans are too high-level and abstract.

OKR at Google: Case Study

There are numerous small and large companies that have adopted Objectives and Key Results to achieve their goals. Among these are Twitter, Oracle, LinkedIn, Trello, etc.

But it wasn´t entirely a new concept. One of the companies that started using OKRs long ago is Google. When Google was just starting their business, one of its investors, John Doerr, suggested using OKRs. The idea was actually adopted from Intel and proven to be highly effective.

How Does Google Use OKR

Rick Klau, Google Ventures partner gave an insight in one of this presentation about how OKRs work at Google.

Using OKRs is very simple. It starts with setting up an Objective and followed by identifying Key Results (Key Results should be quantifiable as it´s the only way to find out whether you have achieved your objectives).

Your objectives shouldn´t only be measurable, but they should be as concrete as possible. Stating you want to increase your sales is not concrete and measurable, it´s abstract. Instead, you can define that you want to increase your sales by 30%.

At Google, objectives are set annually and quarterly. When Rick Klau took charge of Blogger – a blog publishing service owned by Google – he set a quarter objective to improve the company´s reputation.

Because of an increasing competition, Blogger started losing popularity as other blogging platforms entered the market. Therefore, Klau created 4 Key Results to improve Blogger´s reputation:

Re-establish Blogger’s leadership by speaking to at least 3 industry events
Coordinate Blogger’s 10th anniversary PR efforts
Reach out personally to Blogger’s users
Fix DMCA process and eliminate music blog takedowns

Annual OKRs at Google are normally more high-level, enclosing the quarterly objectives. What´s important to note is that they change and evolve as the need emerges.

Google adopts OKRs accross whole organisation, at managerial, team and even personal level. This ensures that everyone gets things done to achieve the company goals.

By the end of each quarter, all stakeholders at Google rate their key results. The scale at Google is 0-1. The idea is not to reach 1 in every Key Results, otherwise, it is assumed that the Key Result was too easy to achieve. Employees at Google aim for a score of 0.6-0.7.

Transparency at Google is important. Everyone´s OKRs are visible. Everyone can see each other´s OKRs and their scores. It helps them understand what others are working on.

Key Elements of OKRs

Probably you´ve understood the main purpose of OKRs and how it can benefit your organisation. The real challenge though is setting up your own OKRs and analysing the Key Results to achieve your company objectives.

There are only two elements of an OKR:

Objectives – depending what your role is, you start by identifying 3-5 key objectives of your company, team, or on a personal level. While objectives should be ambitious, they should also be measurable. You, as a manager, you should make sure that such objectives are carefully communicated to everyone on your team.
Key Results – the “objectives” answer the question “What?”, whereas “key results” answer the question “How?”. Key Results must be quantifiable, achievable, clear, difficult, but not impossible. Most importantly, Key Results should be measurable. This is the only way to track your or your team’s progress, understand the issues, and develop/improve processes along the way.

Many people may compare OKR to other traditional goal-setting practices that were used before. However, the OKR process is different because it has two additional aspects:

Cascading alignment of goals
Breaking up Objectives into smaller, actionable steps

There is one element we may not forget to mention – tactic. Tactics fall under Key Results and inform the “how” part. Note that tactics are different from the tasks. They are strategies that are used to perform those tasks.

Normally, you may deal with tasks using a project management tool, such as Trello or Asana. These tasks fall under tactics. Often, you may need a combination of different tactics to achieve the Key Results that support your objectives.

How often do you establish an OKR?

The frequency of setting your goals is called cadence. If you have several departments in your organisation, it´s important that each department has the same time constraint to help with coordination and avoid complexities.

You may set annual and quarterly goals within your company. Just remember, OKR is meant to be a simple process.

Characteristics of Objectives

The goals of objectives should be to:

Answer what you want to achieve within a certain time-frame (e.g. after a quarter)
Serve as a strategic theme that oversees your accomplishment
Qualitative as it is supported by a set of actionable steps
Each objective should have 1-5 key results that are measurable

Characteristics of Key Results

Key Results should:

Refer to the results you´re looking for
Help you to measure your progress
Resonate to HOW you will achieve your objectives
Be measurable – you should include a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) that is quantified through metric

In most organisations, Key Results (KRs) are used among teams, not in management level. Teams don´t create the goals (unless they are personal goals), but managers or leaders they assign the goals for teams. They normally own the KRs.

Managers or leaders will have contributing goals, but won´t have KRs. The goals are higher level goals that have the same attributes as the KRs, which are aligned with the senior goals.

How to set up an OKR for your team
Step #1: Set the stage

Introduce the concept of OKRs to your team, explain how the KRs work and how KRs effect their performance. Explain them that purpose of the OKRs is to also make them feel uncomfortable when they set ambitious goals and miss it (as long as they are making some progress). Encourage them to go outside their comfort zone.

Step #2: Identify your objectives

Ask your team members to take part in brainstorming sessions. Don´t forget that your team goals should always be aligned with the senior goals (company objectives). Try to come up with 3-5 objectives.

Step #3: Identify your key results

Put down the measurable outcomes that show whether you have achieved your objectives. You´re dealing here with results, not tasks. See example below:

Objective: Increase profit by 20%

Key Results: 

Launch seasonal campaigns (e.g. Christmas promotion) and double revenue from the past year
Use cash discounts on suppliers to save 10% on purchases
Outsource distribution to stores to reduce cost by 10%

Step #4: Review and analyse

When you´ll review your initial list of KRs what may happen is that you will revise your objectives. If you´re very confident that you´ll hit your KRs, that means you´re not being ambitious enough. To get out of your comfort zone, try increasing your target one level up.

Step #5: Ask for feedback

Getting feedback is crucial, especially for those who will be involved in the execution. Listen to the feedback, some people might give you great suggestions to improve your OKRs.

Step #6: Scoring

A critical aspect of measuring KRs is scoring. If you´d like, you can use scoring that Google uses. They use scale of between 0 and 1.

Extraordinary Qualities of OKRs

OKRs have distinctive qualities that help transform many organisations across various industries. List below indicates some of them:

OKRs give a sense of purpose and direction – the company objectives are cascaded to individual team members more clearly
OKRs help an organisation to focus on the success of the business and allow to focus on everyone´s effort
OKR allows everyone in the organisation to align their goals with company goals
It measures and tracks the performance in a way that helps to motivate employees to do better
Regular assessments and progress check-in help with better execution
OKRs are focused on results and outcomes, not on tasks
Creating OKRs means involving the group, not only selecting individuals or key people
Helps managers measure the performance of team members and allows more targeted feedback
Brings transparency to the company because everyone can see what others are working on
OKRs foster collaboration across teams and between team members

Summary

Committing to a goal helps to drive performance among employees, some studies have shown. Setting challenging goals motivates your employees to perform well.

OKR is a goal-setting system that helps organisations to set ambitious goals and achieve them through measurable actions. OKRs should be set quarterly or annually. It´s important to focus on objectives that can be achieved within a certain time frame.

Setting OKRs gives every leader like you a clear guidance on what to focus on during a given time frame. By adopting this popular strategy, you can tremendously foster growth and success within your organisation.

If you are interested in implementing OKRs in your company please take a look into my OKR Training and OKR Consulting pages.

ORGANISATIONAL MASTERY SCORECARD

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Are You Doing Backlog Grooming? Here’s why You Should Do it

What do you do when you notice that you have a lot of items or user stories in your product backlog and some of them are no longer relevant or necessary? Simple. You do some grooming or cleaning up.

The best thing about the Scrum methodology is that it is very adaptive to change. Otherwise, it wouldn’t fit the ‘agile’ work concept. This characteristic makes Scrum a perfect framework for developing various products and processes in as little time as possible and with a high level of efficiency.

In this post, let me explain a very important process that helps your agile team on stay on track with your backlog items – backlog grooming.

Backlog grooming, also called ‘refinement meeting’ or ‘story time session’, is when the Product Owner reviews the items in the product backlog to ensure that all of them are still appropriate and relevant, and all the items listed on top are prioritised and delivered by the end of the sprint. Think of it like cleaning your computer. You’ve got a lot of files and folders, but not all of them are updated or still working. Worse, these unnecessary items are taking a lot of space in your hard drive, making your computer slow and inefficient. So instead of getting things done in no time, you are just wasting time and effort.

By now, you are convinced that backlog grooming is an essential Scrum process. Your questions now might be – how does it take place? Who facilitates and takes part of it? How often should you do it? Are there rules that should be followed during the backlog grooming? How do you do it right?

Backlog Grooming vs. Sprint Planning

To get a clear idea of how backlog grooming works, it is best to distinguish it from sprint planning.

During the sprint planning, your Scrum team agrees on a goal for your next sprint and the Product Owner determines a set of backlog items, ensuring that everyone in the development team understands every user story, epic and task and their expected turnaround time. Planning is the first meeting that the Scrum does in preparation for the sprint. And it’s more than setting requirements. It’s also about learning together, considering options as a team, and making decisions. During the meeting, the Scrum team prioritises backlog items, agree on the delivery time based on the team capacity. The sprint planning is attended by the entire Scrum team.

The backlog items are not fixed. Along the way, as the product development progresses, the Scrum team may realise that some items should be scrubbed off the backlog, resorted, rewritten, or split into smaller items. Unlike the sprint planning, the backlog grooming is not an official Scrum meeting. However, it is deemed as a valuable process that leads to a more productive sprint-planning meeting.

When does backlog grooming takes place? Since the agile team faces time pressure, it is a must that they maximise the value of backlog grooming and minimise the need for lengthy discussions so as not to affect the team’s productivity. As a rule of thumb, about 5 to 10% of the sprint effort should be spent on backlog grooming. And unlike the sprint planning, not everyone in the Scrum team can participate.

The main person involved in backlog grooming is the Product Owner (PO). He does the refinement of user stories and product backlog items together with the Scrum stakeholders or the customers before discussing it to the entire team. During the ‘clean-up’, the following things are done:

Remove user stories that are no longer relevant to the delivery of the final product increment.
Re-assess the value of user stories.
Create new user stories based on newly discovered needs.
Split bigger stories into smaller, more workable items.
Redefine acceptance and testing criteria.
Add new product features as necessary, estimate and prioritise them.

How to Maximise the Value of Backlog Grooming (Best Practices)

Again, backlog grooming should make the Scrum team more focused and efficient, and not less productive. In order to facilitate an effective backlog grooming meeting and maximise its value, below are the best practices that successful Scrum Teams swear by:

Timing is important. There is no defined rule as to when, exactly, should the backlog grooming take place. Some teams do it 2-3 days before the next sprint, others – a week before. When deciding on the schedule, take note that your goal is to update the backlog items before the new sprint begins to lessen the risk of taking the product in the wrong direction. This should be done before your next sprint planning session. However, if it isn’t possible to wait until the end of the current sprint to have some changes in the product feature or functionality, you can have a backlog grooming continuously and incorporate them in one of your daily meetings.

Keep it organised. Since time is of the essence, you want to keep the refinement meeting as short as possible. You can do that by showing up prepared, giving participants a brief beforehand to set their expectations, and encourage everyone to participate. As they leave the meeting, participants need to have a full understanding of the what is left on the backlog items for completion and product delivery. Having a well-organised backlog grooming meeting greatly saves your Scrum team time and valuable resources.

Have the right people. The backlog grooming should be done by the PO, customer point of contact, the stakeholders, and key individual development team members, if needed.

Final Words

There is no denying that backlog grooming is vital to the successful implementation of the Scrum process. It ensures that the backlog items are relevant, up to date, and prioritised. Even if it isn’t considered an official Scrum meeting, it still has to be incorporated in the Scrum events so that the team stays on track and focused on their goal. Remember that the product backlog items are at the core of every sprint. They have to be executed properly so that a completed product of the highest quality is achieved in the end.  

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Creating a Highly Effective Scrum Team: Everything You Need to Know

Implementing the Scrum methodology is easier than it seems. In my previous blog posts, I’ve shared with you the basics of this framework and its foundation, particularly the Scrum Pillars and Values that should be observed at all times. And now that you have a pretty good idea of how Scrum works and why it’s the best framework for your agile team, let us go into the composition of the Scrum Team. What makes up a Scrum team? Who does what? And how can you strengthen your team so it gets to ‘Done’?

Who Constitute the Scrum Team?

The Scrum team is a well-structured team dedicated to delivering quality results or products to the customer. They work in a certain time frame that is comprised of several sprints (time-box duration of less than 30 calendar days). After each sprint, the Scrum team should have completed a product increment until the very last sprint, in which they should have delivered a complete product that meets the customer’s expectations.

As you can see on the image above, the Scrum team is made up of the following:

Scrum Master

Product Owner

Development Team

The stakeholders are the people outside the Scrum Team but have a specific interest and knowledge in the product. We will discuss their role in detail later.

The Scrum Master

This person is primarily responsible for promoting and supporting Scrum. As the name suggests, they have the expertise and knowledge on Scrum methodology – its theory, rules, practices, and values. If anyone has questions about the Scrum process, they seek help from the Scrum Master. This person also works with external people (such as the stakeholders) to understand which of their interactions are helpful and which are not.

The Scrum Master has the following very important roles:

Facilitate Scrum events, such as the daily meetings, reviews, and retrospective.
Ensure that everyone understands the Scrum goals, scope and product domain.
Help the Product Owner knows the way to arrange the backlog items to maximise value.
Coach the Development team how to practise cross-functionality and self-organisation.
Help the organisation and stakeholders to understand the Scrum’s empirical approach to product development.

To be a Scrum Master, one has to undergo training and certification.

The Scrum Product Owner

The Product Owner has the sole responsibility of managing the Product Backlog. He has the expertise and knowledge about the product that has to be delivered and closely works with the stakeholders and the customer in order for the Scrum Team to understand the specifics of the project and the results they need to achieve. The product owner has a solid understanding of users, the marketplace, the competition, the client’s desires and expectations, and the future trends of the system or product being developed. To sum it all up – the Product Owner does whatever is necessary to build the best product possible.

The Product Owner has the following very important roles:

Write the product backlog items.
Ensure that the product backlog is clear to everyone in the Scrum team, particularly the development team who are in charge of implementing the backlog items.
Optimise the work done by the Development team.

The Development Team

The development team is composed of professionals who have the skills, background and capability to carry out the items from the Product Backlog so the Scrum Team could deliver a potentially releasable product increment at the end of each sprint. It is important to note that the development team is are self-organising. Meaning, neither the Scrum Master or the Product Owner can instruct them on how to perform their task or carry out the backlog items. They are also cross-functional, possessing all knowledge required to deliver a working product. As to the size, the development team is small enough to stay agile but big enough to complete the sprint.

The Stakeholders

Again, the stakeholders are not directly involved in the Scrum Team. But they have a specific interest and knowledge over the product. The stakeholders are represented by the Scrum Product Owner.

The Stakeholders are usually composed of the following:

Users – the people who actually use the product (or software) under development to help the organisation save time or money.

The External Customers – the people who pay to use such product. This only applies to products meant to be sold outside the company.

The Internal Customers – the people who make the funding decisions over the product, usually from the business management team. They may also be the CEOs or CIOs.

What an Ideal Scrum Team Looks Like

The three components of the Scrum Team have to work together to get to ‘Done’. Each of these three roles, while remaining independent as to the tasks and scope, should synergise. After all, they are a team.

Taking into account the following qualities and characteristics should help you establish a highly efficient Scrum Team:

The Scrum Team members share the same norms and rules.
They are empowered. It is only when the team is empowered could they work with the highest level of motivation and performance.
The team is small and has no sub-teams. During the sprint planning, a very important matter that the Scrum Team discusses is the capacity of the development team. They should have enough people to perform the tasks/backlog items.
They should be co-located. The Scrum team revolves around collaboration. Ideally, they should meet daily, face to face.
The members work full time as the sprint has a very limited time period.
They take time to learn to work together, learn together, and make changes together.
They are transparent.
The Scrum team is cross-functional. They have to be multidisciplinary. The members of the development team are not differentiated by their skills or profession. They are all called “Scrum Team Member”.

By now, you should have a complete understanding of what the Scrum Team is like, how it works, what constitutes it, and what is necessary in order to make it highly efficient. Continue reading my blogs for more detailed discussions on the Scrum framework and how it can propel your team towards a successful agile product development.

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Do you really need to have Sprint Goal?

At the end of every sprint is a goal that the Scrum team looks forward to achieving. After all, it’s what all the hard work, effort, time and commitment are for. As a rule of thumb, teams should work on a single goal at a time to ensure that everyone is focused and moves in the same direction.

Why Sprint Goals Make Sense

You might be wondering – do you really need a sprint goal? You already have a product backlog after all. Why does it matter? The straight answer is YES. Software development, which is the basis of Scrum methodology, is a complex process. Even after creating the sprint backlog, there is a possibility that changes and revisions will happen along the way.

How Sprint Goals Empower Your Agile Team

The sprint goal enables your team to focus on the objective.  Furthermore, having a sprint goal promotes effective teamwork and commitment, makes it easier to gather feedback, and helps with stakeholder communication. The sprint goal also facilitates prioritisation especially when there are a lot of user stories and epics involved in a sprint. Additionally, it allows for an effective sprint planning session.

So what is a sprint goal and how does a Scrum team determine it? What if your team has multiple goals to achieve? How can you create an effective sprint goal?

Sprint Goal and Scrum Team Challenges

In a nutshell, a sprint goal is the objective of the sprint – the time-box period in which a potentially releasable product increment is created. Put simply, it is the what the Scrum team plans to achieve at the end of each sprint. At a glance, determining the sprint goal is easy. However, it’s one of the few things that most Scrum teams struggle at. You’ve probably experienced this before – you and your agile team have come close to the end of the sprint planning and everyone is excited (and a little pressured) to start working on the Product backlog. And then all of a sudden, someone asks “What about the sprint goal?”. It seems like you’ve just had a reset button. Everything has to go back to step no. 1.

Then imagine this. Your team sprint contains stories for a number of clients and your products. At the same time, you take care of maintaining your company’s internal development tools. What if you have around 10 stories per sprint. How do you set a sprint goal that encompasses all stories?

Let’s try to settle these issues first by understanding what a sprint goal should look like.

Qualities of an Effective Sprint Goal

A sprint goal is a short description (one to two sentences) of the Scrum team’s objective. Like any other goal, it must be S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound). When the sprint goal is vague, it can be difficult for your team to determine whether you have been successful in achieving it. A well-defined sprint goal has the following patterns:

The sprint goal is not repeated over the course of many sprints.
It may consist of several user stories.
It should promote coherent function or functionality.
Setting the goal is the primary responsibility of the Product Owner.
The sprint goal should promote teamwork, technology, and quality.
It must be aligned with customer expectations. Furthermore, it must develop value-driven mindset in the development of a team.

Apart from being clear and concise, the sprint goal should be measurable. This reduces subjectivity among the Scrum team members. Another important purpose of the sprint goal is that it provides motivation for running the sprint.

Let’s take a look at what vague and clear Sprint goals look like for an eCommerce website:

Vague Sprint Goal
Clear Sprint Goal


Improve site performance
Reduce site downtime by 75% and eliminate unnecessary or redundant pages.


Enhance user experience
Streamline ordering process and add more payment options.


Develop the checkout process
Add shipping order form, request for order gift wrapping, and COD.



Getting to Done: How the Sprint Goal is Met

At the end of each sprint, the Scrum team determines whether they have met their goal. However, the team needs to talk about the progress during the daily meeting to keep the goal visible to everybody.

Here are some tips to get to the ‘Done’ and meet your Scrum goal:

Make the goal relevant and meaningful to the team.

For a successful project, your scrum team has to go through several sprints. A lot of things can happen along the way – changes in the PBI, learning a new technology, sprint re-planning, iteration, and so on. Keeping the sprint goal relevant and meaningful to your Scrum team will keep everyone motivated to deliver high-quality work.

Align sprint backlog items to the goal.

Many Scrum teams get confused with sprint backlog and sprint goal. Well, the sprint backlog items are what’s needed to reach the goal. Remember that.

What if your Scrum team can’t reach your goal?

Frustrating as it may seem, it happens. Again, during the course of the sprint, you might realise that there are user stories that you cannot implement or PBIs that no longer make sense. There are some things that you can do when things are not going as planned. One is to remove stories. Adding stories only makes the sprint more complicated. The only way possible is to remove stories. Check the stories that your team has not started yet. These are probably the least necessary and can be moved to the next sprint. Another thing, consider changing your ‘Done’ criteria. If you have a large story, consider splitting it into two or more stories.

As the Scrum Master, you may feel the need to interfere when your team doesn’t seem to be reaching the goal. However, failure is healthier than a forced success. Taking a retrospective analysis of the failed sprint might be a more meaningful step. There’s no need to be ashamed when you fail. Work hard with stakeholders to create a tolerance for failure. This should prevent your Scrum team from deviating from quality and adding technical debts.

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What’s Epic, User Story and Task in Scrum Work Hierarchy

The moment you start using Scrum, you will encounter a lot of technical terms that you have to be familiar with. But that’s fine. As you continue incorporating Scrum in your agile team, you will realise that this framework is the best way to complete a project and develop a product that your customers want.

Three terms that you will be using in all your Scrum activities are epic, user story, and task. It is important to fully understand what they are so your team can overcome big or small challenges in delivering the product that meets the expectations of your customers.

Epic

An epic is a large story that cannot be simply achieved in a single sprint. Usually, it takes months to accomplish an epic. It typically refers to a set of requirements that have not been rationalised into user stories yet. Think of it as a big goal that is yet to be simplified and divided into several tasks for your agile team to work on them.

Epics are usually broad in scope, lacking in details, and are meant to be split into multiple, smaller stories before they can be worked on. Epic is usually regarded as the ‘top tier’ or a work hierarchy. Breaking it down into daily tasks, called ‘user stories’, helps an organisation achieve its overall business goals.

Important guidelines when creating an epic:

Create epics that managers and executes would want to track.
An epic could be a product feature, customer request or business requirement.
Let your organisational culture dictate the size of your epic.
Epics should not take too short or too long to complete.
Burndown charts can be used to measure epics and give an actual and estimated amount of work to be done.

Examples of Epics:

As a bank, we want to extend our services by offering life and health insurances.
We want to add a biometric recognition to increase security without hassle.
As the marketing department, we want to create an interactive app to cater to more customers.

User Story

The User Story is simply the list of items that need to be done within a project. Think of it as a to-do list. This is owned by the Scrum Product Owner. The Scrum master, stakeholders and the scrum team contribute to the completion of the backlog items. The idea is to break down a product into shippable pieces so that the large project can be done successfully. Epics can involve multiple teams and multiple projects, and can be tracked on multiple boards.

A user story is very high-level definition of the project requirements. It contains just enough information to give the Scrum team proper context as to what the final product should be like, and for them to calculate an estimation for the completion. It is an agile approach that helps shift the focus from writing to talking about them.

Important guidelines when writing a user story:

User stories are short, simple descriptions written throughout the agile project.
Although it is owned by the PO, anyone can write the user story.
It is expressed in plain language so the customer can understand what the final product is all about (in case of software, what it should accomplish).
It answers the ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘why’ of a project in a simple language.
User stories are regarded as the “heart of Scrum” because they serve as the ‘building blocks’ of the sprint.

Template for writing a user story:

As a < type of user >, I want < some goal > so that < some reason >.

Examples of User Stories

As a user, I want to migrate all my data backup in a cloud system to free up my device.
As a student, I can order official transcripts online to save time.
As a consumer, I want to shop grocery items from a mobile app so that I could skip the lines in the store.

Task

Below each epic is a more detailed set of user stories. And for those stories to turn into workable components, the Scrum team has to identify and sort tasks.

Scrum tasks are detailed pieces of work that are necessary to complete a story. Tasks can range from a few hours to several hours (usually up to 12) and are assigned to team members who have the skills or expertise to do them. Take note that a story is not considered complete until all tasks under it are done.

Tasks are placed on a Scrum Board for easy tracking. Generally, the Scrum Board is composed of the following categories:

Stories
Not started – the tasks that are yet to be worked on.
In progress – tasks that the Scrum team are doing.
Done – tasks that are completed.

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The Scrum Board serves as a very useful visual tool that lets your agile team easily keep track of the sprint. The board should be updated on a daily basis. This does not only help your team sustain momentum but also gives you a clear idea of where you’re at in a particular sprint (whether you are lagging behind or just on time) and make adjustments as necessary.

It is usually the Scrum Master who creates the task board but it is the responsibility of everyone, particularly the agile team members to update it.

Summary

For a successful Scrum Sprint, learning how to write epics, stories and tasks is essential. Basically, these three are the foundations of a sprint, giving your agile team a crystal-clear picture of what needs to be done, who needs to do it, and why it should be done.

One unique characteristic of the scrum methodology is that it very time-sensitive. It is designed to accomplish goals in less time, with less error. To do this, it all starts with creating a high-level goal for the project or product development, known as the epic. To achieve the epic, there has to be a more detailed use story, followed by a set of tasks that are specific and time-bound. Of course, there are tools that can be used to simplify these processes and make the agile team work efficiently and productively.

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