Get started with OKRs with ease 

Objective and Key Results
Objectives and Key Results

Objectives and Key Results (OKR):

 This OKR methodology, popularized by John Doerr by his book “Measure What Matters” helps for a cultural shift at your organization to an environment that is a goal-oriented, with your Objectives driving day-to-day work. For this to happen, leadership must be bought-in to the program and drive decisions and execute with goals top of mind. To know more about objectives and key results (OKRs) visit our website.

Find samples: https://okrstars.com/resources-okr-examples

Objectives:

Objectives are memorable qualitative descriptions of what you want to achieve. They should inspire and challenge. For example: “Double the revenue to create a profitable and sustainable organization”.

Key Results:

 The metrics that measure progress towards the objective, and tell us if we’re getting there. For example. “Increase revenue from 10m to 20m USD”.

Refer our other article related to this topic: article

Types:

Type can be organization, team or individual ones. Type indicates the level at which the goal and key results (metrics) are at priority.

Time period:

They are timebound. Time periods help you plan, check-in and review the goals and its metrics at the right cadence. The goals and metrics (KR / KPI) have 4 Quarters time periods in a year and followed with Annual overall employee performance cycle.

Owner:

Owner is the person accountable for the success of the objectives. It is good to have a clear owner even for a team or organization level objective.

Progress:

You can measure progress as a percentage (0 to 100%) or as a KPI. Select KPI, if you are looking to move a metric from a starting to target number. For example, increase revenue from 10m to 20m USD.

Average Score: 

When the the goals are closed at the end of the quarter and the score is generated. Those un-closed Objectives and Key Results can be cloned and cascaded to next quarter based on the decisions.

Alignment: 

OKRs Alignment

Alignment is one of the most powerful features of OKRStars. By aligning your Objectives at an individual, team and organization level, strategically aligned Objectives and Key Results rapidly get everyone on the same page, working towards results that matter.

Goal Transparency: 

An employee can see the goals of anyone in the system, including the CEO, managers, and peers. Transparency promotes openness and eliminates work conflicts and redundancies. Employees can see how their work connects to the organization’s overall strategic goals.

Dashboard:

The summary of the over all goals appear on the OKR tool as shown below. We will write more details in coming blogs about it.

OKRs Dashboard

How can I ensure OKR (Objectives and Key Results) success at MY company?

  • OKR Champions: Quite often, it’s the effort of one key person in an organization (it could be you!) that takes initial ownership of a project and ensures its success. It could be a Chief of Staff, operations lead, or the most organized person in a given department. We love our OKR Champions and strive to give them all the support they need.
  • Leadership Support: While the energy of the OKR Champion is key, we’ve found that most successful rollouts also gain support from upper management / CEO. Thus, it’s critical that senior leaders educate their organization on the value of OKRs, explain why they are being implemented, reflect on their current culture, and identify key stakeholders.
  • Use the right SaaS tools: We believe OKRs are the best way to set goals, and that OKR Stars™ is the best tool to manage your OKRs. Why? Unlike spreadsheets or manual processes that quickly become unwieldy, Ally scales with your business and provides transparency across your organization.

Why have OKRs lead to success at so many companies?

Modern business moves at breakneck speed, and entire industries are being disrupted through new customer behaviors, aggressive competition, and changing market dynamics. 

OKRs provide a framework to allow companies large and small to set goals, stay agile, and make sure employees are on board with the latest strategy through the 5 superpowers mentioned in this video.

  • Focus: Because OKRs focus on just 3-5 goals per quarter, it forces organizations to focus on only the work that matters — and make hard choices to eliminate the tasks that don’t matter.
  • Alignment: Research shows that only 7% of employees understand their company strategy. OKRs help align company goals from top to bottom so that everyone is rowing in the same direction.
  • Tracking: OKRs are driven by data. Gone are the days when a manager and employee would set an annual performance goal. Today, agile companies use data to inform action and guide strategic decisions.
  • Transparency: A core tenant of OKRs is that anyone can view the goals and progress at any level of the company, from CEO to individual contributor, fostering accountability and collaboration.
  • Stretch: When employees are encouraged to set stretch goals to achieve what might not seem possible — and receive support when things fall short — amazing things happen.

Integration steps and summary of OKR framework implementation:

  • O and KRs (OKRs) setting with time periods (example: quarterly plans: Q1, Q2, Q3 & Q4)
  • CFR Automation (integration with      Microsoft Teams,      Slack tools & mobile apps) for instant goal updates visibility on team collaboration channels
  • Manual or Automatic Check-ins through KPI data source software integrations (example:      Jira Software). You can update progress of an O and KRs automatically by Jira as a data source or via rollup from children.
  • Continuous Performance Management options: Private & Public CFR automation, Check-in activity trends (goal status & metric)

Read more: Google Story, Scale Agile, Moonshot OKRs for VCs, CFR (Conversations, Feedback and Recognition).

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Everyone gets a share of the Limelight with OKR (Objectives & Key Results)

OKR

Bonuses, increased pay and out of cycle salary increases is often seen as common motivators used by companies to retain their talent. But does this work long term? The answer is “No”.

A new research by Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Ashley V. Whillans shows that using cash as a carrot may not always be the best answer. He highlighted this in his 2019 article

Feeling appreciated

As managers we have the responsibility of making every individual in the team feel valued and appreciated for their work. This can be the biggest inspiration to come to work and produce their best work.

As coaches we often come across disgruntled team members who despite their best efforts at doing quality work are frustrated because their boss does not recognize their work. Some who are really talented leave the organization. At the end of the day, the organization stands to lose.

Feeling appreciated makes people feel safe in a way which no pay hike can do. Lack of appreciation does not just impact their productivity at work, it can also be a cause of stress and anxiety leading to health issues.

John Doerr in his book “ Measure What Matters”  talks about how weekly check-in meetings during the OKR cycle are meant to review and celebrate success. Transparency and employee recognition is the key to the OKR journey for any organization. To understand this ,read the article on how Ending the week with a Win with OKR is done at Apartment Therapy.

Conversation and Feedback

“A conversation can make (or break) a relationship. It can spark a new idea, it can be the catalyst for change… This is particularly true when it comes to a feedback conversation.” – Sarah Rozenthuler, Clinical psychologist.

Conversations and feedback in the workplace can make or break relationships, but without them, it is difficult to stay connected with your team members. Having a good or difficult conversation is a skill required for giving or receiving feedback. Many managers ignore this and lack the necessary skills to engage in open dialogue with their team members.

The OKR methodology requires CFR (Conversation, Feedback and Recognition), which is an essential part of the process.  To make OKRs a success, having a conversation with every individual and the team is crucial for the bi-directional feedback. It also provides an opportunity for the managers to mentor the teams.

OKRs methodology is gaining popularity because it promotes Agility and transparency in an organization, which improves individual performance and increases productivity. When the CFR component is completely ignored, the real reason for an OKR initiative to fail in any organization.

Some of our prospective customers of OKR Stars have shared with us on how they have not been able to motivate their staff to adopt OKRs. For any change program to succeed , communication is important . Most change programs fail because the leadership fails to communicate the purpose for the change. Transparency makes organization objective very clear and encourages individuals at all levels to contribute towards them.

According to John Doerr, a key difference between OKRs and traditional management systems, is that OKRs demand that every what and how must align with the very important question: Why are we doing this work?  Such questions encourage dialogue. Company cultures that encourages such questioning  and dialogue , include CFR in their process.

When objectives are clearly defined and widely communicated, everyone understands the purpose of the CEO’s most important goals. This inspires the teams. This is, in essence, the secret sauce to effective execution.

I have personally been a part of many such change programs. While communication, conversation, feedback are key, allowing everyone to get their share of the limelight and giving them time to celebrate their success makes them more involved in the whole process. By shortchanging celebrations, you miss the opportunity to recognize employee hard work and prevent them from taking up audacious goals.

Achieving success in OKR is lot more than setting objectives and tracking key results. It is also about building a culture that involves, reviews and recognizes employee’s hard work.

To know more about our Full OKR Services you might want visit our website

Best Regards,

Vaidyanathan Ramalingam

OKR Consultant, Founder & CEO

OKR Stars™ and Skills2Talent™

https://okrstars.com/

https://skills2talent.in

Read more: Get started with OKR, Moonshot OKR, Top 4 Performance Management Strategies

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OKRs – Google-story

Google Ventures Startup Lab | GV partner Rick Klau covers the value of setting objectives and key results (OKRs) and how this has been done at Google since 1999. Understand the key attributes of effective OKRs and how to apply them in your own organization.

Why CXOs Choose OKRs?

The OKRs methodology is appealing to many CEOs because it is one of the few that encapsulates the organization both top-down and bottom-up. Unlike traditional goal setting methodologies, the company vision and long-term strategies are being converted into quarterly objectives with clear key results. The key results are then assigned to your management team and eventually to each team member.

OKRs and CFR (Conversations, Feedback and Recognition) together provide a clear path to setting and achieving the most inspired to the most trivial goals businesses and teams pursue.

——————————————————————————————————————————

 “Our mission is to galvanize leaders to set and achieve audacious goals—through inspiration, education, and application“

John Doerr

– John Doerr

Co-Founder & Publisher, © What Matters

Ref. Measure What Matters, World’s 1st & #1 Book on OKRs

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OKRs:

  • Publicly available to the entire company.
  • Not directly related to performance evaluation.
  • Set, reviewed, and revised quarterly (and annually).
  • Need to be supported by leadership, (simple) tools, and (lightweight) process.
  • Speaker recommends simple, open-source tools such as Wikis, Google Docs, etc.

Objectives:

  • May or may not be measurable but must be strategic (ex: accelerate revenue growth).
  • Must link to (i) the OKRs at the next level up (ii) what the individual wants to work on .
  • Top 5 objectives
  • Mostly (60%) set by the individual .
  • Objective score is the straight, equal weighted average of the key results grades (avoid weighting).

Key results:

  • Must be measurable (ex: launch a new product or feature; achieve win rate of x%).
  • Should be a little uncomfortable so that you are always striving. 
  • Self-graded quarterly (they should average 0.6 or 0.7 so there is room for improvement; 0.4 or below is bad, but a learning management system will help to improve).
  • Limited to 4 key results per objective.

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Scale Agile. Integrate Jira Software with OKR and CFR tools (with easy 3 steps tools demo video).

Scale Agile. Integrate Jira Software with OKR and CFR tools

Scale agile and Integrate Jira Software with OKR and CFR tools. Why would you want to combine Jira with OKR Software and a Performance Management System (PMS)? Data integration is a method of connecting teams and people all over the world to the company’s top priorities and accelerating growth. Productivity Data can help you manage your own results objectively, accurately, and continuously. Measure what matters in real time to reduce the cost of poor quality, meet SLAs, and increase revenue.

How does it help?

Dynamic Key Results: Track progress in real-time by automatically updating KRs and KPIs from your Jira account(s). Course Correction: Link Jira JQLs to Track & Course correct what matters the most at any layers of OKRs hierarchy or SMART goals. Agile at Scale: Fit your KPI framework using Jira data of Scrum, Kanban, Mixed methodologies to scale software Agile delivery.

How does it work?

Getting Access to Your Critical Data: Our REST API data integration connects directly to your Jira and, using JQLs, gathers key data points relevant to your business requirements. Epic, story, task, and bug are all terms used to describe a piece of writing. Integrate Jira to automatically track progress, the number of tickets opened, the amount of time spent, and the estimated time remaining (both original and remaining). Progress Monitoring: Because the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that matter for Key Results are linked, the integration auto-updates in real time the KPIs that require attention.

Jira Dashboard

Zero Installation, No coding, and only Configuration. Login to OKR Stars™ or Skills2Talent™ and add your Jira account(s). Add Jira Cloud Server URL, email ID & API Token of Jira account(s). Link your OKRs / SMART Goals with Epics, Stories, Tasks, and Bugs. Select Jira as a data source per connection. Add JQL queries from Jira account(s) to fetch the filtered data automatically to update OKRs / SMART Goals.

What are the ready-to-use KPIs?

Progress: KPI value (Starting metric vs. Target metric) and the percentage of tickets that have been completed: This is how you measure progress. A KPI value is the number of tickets and the number of tickets that have been completed. % The amount of time spent: As a KPI value, I put in how long it took me to log in (Starting metric vs. Target Issues) and how many tickets I finished: Ticket count as a KPI (Starting vs. Target) and percentage spent: Time is estimated as a KPI value (Starting metric vs. Target metric) and as a percent of that value. As a percentage and as a KPI value, the Remaining Estimate (in hours) shows how long it will take to finish the project.

Why should my company integrate our enterprise Jira tool with your PMS (Performance Management System)?

For CXOs: Enables leaders to monitor progress towards company priorities, accountability, and alignment.

For CIO: Integrate your OKR / Performance Management System (PMS) to maximize Jira’s ROI ($, Knowledge & data).

For CHRO: Digitize KPI tracking, drive people engagement & recognitions and promote continuous performance.

For Agile Team: Fit your KPI framework using Jira data of Scrum, Kanban, Mixed methodologies to scale Agile delivery.

For Engineers: Track progress in real-time by automatically updating KPIs by Jira account(s) and timely course correct.

We hope you found this blog on Scale Agile. Integrate Jira Software with OKR and CFR tools useful

Read more: Get started with OKR, Moonshot OKRs for VCs, Types of PMS

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Recognize for Moonshot OKRs, Aspirational OKRs, and OKR Champions (HR) Achievements

Implement CFR in your Organization

OKR empower you to implement CFRs (Conversations, Feedback, & Recognition) and drive employee engagement. OKRs and CFRs are often referred as sibling to each other. Together with OKRs and CFRs combine to become Continuous Performance Management solution in one software integrating the human side of aspirational OKRs.

  • Regular Performance Conversations, Private 1:1 Feedback & Coaching
  • Goal alignment dialogues towards contributing impacts on business
  • Frequent goal check-ins, status updates with comments for visibility
  • Social recognition by peers, management for remote engagement
  • Manager’s recognition transparently to team members (Public/Private)
  • Realtime KPI escalation, mitigation, course corrections before it is too late

Measure what matters (OKR)

Enable your managers with right orientation about CFRs during OKR cycle to include goal-setting, reflection, and ongoing progress updates during 1:1s with reports. Encourage highly constructive feedback. Establish clear criteria to recognize people for actions and results. Institute peer-to-peer feedback as a culture.

Engagement, Experience and Collaboration

Continuous Performance Management to enrich employee engagement, elevate your employee experience and make team collaboration as a priority. With tools like OKR Stars™ you can easily schedule 1on1s and solicit and receive feedback. Thus alignment, transparency, collaboration and recognition become reality for your team..

OKR guide managers and employees to have regular lightweight performance conversations with feedback and continuous employee development. The platform make everyone to give and receive feedback transparently for a job well done. Remember better employee experience drive better business results through their continuous performance.

Engagement, Experience and Collaboration

CFR on OKRs by Team collaboration tools

OKR Stars™ is integrated (Data, SSO) with Microsoft Teams and Slack which are leading, powerful and advanced tools used globally for Team Collaboration. So, enable CFR on-the-go using mobile/tablet also on your desktop/laptop, 24/7/365 days and perform instant Conversations, Feedback and Recognition (CFR) about OKRs remotely using public/private channels.

A “simple HRMS mobile app” isn’t enough for companies, HR, managers, employees, and the IT department after the Covid-19 crisis. These market-leading tools for comprehensive, 360° communication types with video/voice meetings, chat, digital badges and file attachments are better than a simple HRMS mobile app because they have all of these tools.

You can do this by having your team communicate with each other about their OKRs on a daily basis across your organization, department, teams, managers, and employees. Then, you can use CFR for OKR management. Take a look at the pages for Microsoft Teams and Slack on this site for more information.

Let’s see a short video to see how the aspirational OKRs are connected in a start-up context along with problems, investors recommendation towards Measure What Matters book and CFR practices, team’s OKRs commitment and till its successful execution results.

Read more: Get started with OKR, Google Story, OKR limelight

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Recognize for Moonshot OKRs, Aspirational OKRs, and OKR Champions (HR) Achievements

Implement CFR in your Organization

OKR empower you to implement CFRs (Conversations, Feedback, & Recognition) and drive employee engagement. OKRs and CFRs are often referred as sibling to each other. Together with OKRs and CFRs combine to become Continuous Performance Management solution in one software integrating the human side of OKRs.

  • Regular Performance Conversations, Private 1:1 Feedback & Coaching
  • Goal alignment dialogues towards contributing impacts on business
  • Frequent goal check-ins, status updates with comments for visibility
  • Social recognition by peers, management for remote engagement
  • Manager’s recognition transparently to team members (Public/Private)
  • Realtime KPI escalation, mitigation, course corrections before it is too late

Enable your managers with right orientation about CFRs during OKR cycle to include goal-setting, reflection, and ongoing progress updates during 1:1s with reports. Encourage highly constructive feedback. Establish clear criteria to recognize people for actions and results. Institute peer-to-peer feedback as a culture.

Engagement, Experience and Collaboration

Continuous Performance Management to enrich employee engagement, elevate your employee experience and make team collaboration as a priority. With tools like OKR Stars™ you can easily schedule 1on1s and solicit and receive feedback. Thus alignment, transparency, collaboration and recognition become reality for your team..

OKR guide managers and employees to have regular lightweight performance conversations with feedback and continuous employee development. The platform make everyone to give and receive feedback transparently for a job well done. Remember better employee experience drive better business results through their continuous performance.

CFR on OKRs by Team collaboration tools

OKR Stars™ is integrated (Data, SSO) with Microsoft Teams and Slack which are leading, powerful and advanced tools used globally for Team Collaboration. So, enable CFR on-the-go using mobile/tablet also on your desktop/laptop, 24/7/365 days and perform instant Conversations, Feedback and Recognition (CFR) about OKRs remotely using public/private channels.

Post Covid-19 crisis, companies/HR/managers/employees and IT Dept. realizing that a “simple HRMS mobile app” is not sufficient compared with these market leading tools for comprehensive, 360° communication types with video/voice meetings, chat, digital badges, file attachments, storage and document management tools with powerful OKR content search options.

So, bring your team together with various day to day OKR communications across organization/department/ teams/manager – employee and enable CFR for OKR management. Check out our Integration pages (Microsoft Teams & Slack) on this website for more details.

Let’s see a short video to see how the OKRs are connected in a start-up context along with problems, investors recommendation towards Measure What Matters book and CFR practices, team’s OKRs commitment and till its successful execution results.

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My OKR experience at Intel

In Photo: Vaidyanathan Ramalingam, Founder & CEO, OKR Stars™ and Skills2Talent™ SaaS companies, Bengaluru, India.

This blog is about my personal experience as an individual (Vaidya). Having worked for global programs at Intel I was under a matrix structure with multiple functional divisions that were distributed across USA (Chandler – Arizona), India (Bengaluru), Malaysia (Penang, Kulim and Cyberjaya), China (Chengdu and Pudong), Costa Rica (San Jose).

Happy to share my hands on experience on OKRs & CFR in global programs while working at Intel R&D Center, Bengaluru, India (Dec 2004- Mar 2007).

Let’s start with History of OKR

In 1975, John Doerr, at Intel, attended a course by Andy Grove where he was introduced to the theory of OKRs, then called “iMBOs” for “Intel Management by Objectives”. In 1999, Doerr, introduced the idea of OKRs to a start-up Kleiner Perkins had invested in . Doerr published Measure What Matters in 2017. Larry Page, the CEO of Alphabet and co-founder of , credited OKRs within the foreword to Doerr’s book: “OKRs have helped lead us to 10× growth. Since becoming popular at , OKRs have found favor with several other similar tech start-up organizations including , LinkedIn, Twitter, Uber and Microsoft.

Ref:  Wikipedia ©

What are OKR and CFR and their relationship in Goal management

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) drive ambitious goals of companies to achieve. While Conversations, Feedback and Recognition (CFR) enable continuous performance and people engagement.

Guidelines for “Managers Basics” and it’s importance of Intel Core Values alignment

As part of mandatory training programs, I got the training on Intel Core Values at Bengaluru, India and also attended several training programs at Intel University at Malaysia, US locations. Be it business decisions, day to day email communications, display at meeting rooms, workspace, ID Card (core values printed on rear side), or during performance appraisal conversations everywhere Intel Core Values is often used, mentioned and encouraged to demonstrate.

Transform Strategy

Our OKRs (iMBO) approach helped us to translate the strategies in to actions across programs. Otherwise it would not have been possible considering the complexities of the R&D, manufacturing and global workforce.

True Alignment

So much of travel for F2F meetings across worldwide facilities to meet internal customers, cross functional stakeholders to build personal yet official rapport to ensure alignment at Objective, Key Results, Projects and at Tasks levels.

CFR Practices

Conversations, Feedback and Recognition was very visible considering the # meetings held, culture of 1:1s (matrix / direct reporting), awesome recognition practices with heavy budgets perhaps!.

Differences between OKRs Vs the earlier popular goal management practices.

Many of us have the question, why Intel’s so called iMBO (Intel Management by Objectives was the origination of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) and how is this different than the earlier goal management. You can quickly watch the below quick video to know the differences between SMART Goals Vs OKRs and practical examples from OKRstars SaaS.

Transform strategy into action – Best known methods

Organization OKRs: Any strategies always had their vision, mission and values alignment. CEO -1, -2, -3 … etc i.e., Divisions/Groups aligned their vision and mission statements which eventually became OKRs with their scope with quarterly priorities and followed Intel Product Life cycle processes etc.

Department OKRs: Since I was working in R&D, my role was systems engineer and My JD was to align with internal customer’s OKRs (charters/roadmap/project plan) and do check-ins every 2 weeks. So many meetings 24/7 used to be there but, depending on time zone we join to clarify check-ins.

Individual OKRs: At an individual level the OKRs were typically at project and task levels and not as strategic OKRs. They had traceability to which OKRs they were aligned. Also the individuals had liberty to own stretch goals to support others’ (skip level) OKRs after mutual discussions.

True alignment & initiatives – Best known methods

Alignment as a culture: Actually the alignment is there everywhere, whether it is the organization OKRs alignment or Core Values alignment while mentioning the achievements in recognition/awards, map day (alignment meeting) sessions to discuss Strategic OKRs to Projects to Tasks alignment etc.

Risk and Dependencies: Every OKR planner and tracker known as charter plan, program tracker, project plan, integration plan etc. always include the Risk, Dependencies and their mitigation plans. So that the confidence level grading during check-ins will be clear and transparent to all members involved in that SoW.

Initiatives showcase: Intel recognize and celebrates the engineering excellence from initiatives/innovations/stretch goals at USA every year known as IMEC. I was fortunate to be selected for my program’s abstract/paper to showcase at Hyatt, San Diego, California on June 25-28 sponsored by Intel TMG.

CFR practices – Best known methods

CFR: “C”onversations:

I would re-call that everyone knows everyone and could possibly recognize by Face as well. So many meetings, clarity on decisions, 1:1s, townhall meetings, weekly team updates and the global travels/con-calls etc. As OKRs are always transparent the progress, the grades, and check-ins status were available across the team.

CFR: “F”eedback

Feedback in public, private or in a joint meetings were very normal. When it comes to quarterly OKR priorities, annual OKR plans (road-map) or tactical project or tasks, the feedback culture was there. I would also say, more number of 1:1s I had was at Intel for programs, platforms, projects, and personal i.e., Focal (PMS at Intel)

CFR: “R”ecognition

Any recognition always had aligned to Core Values. The recognizing culture and budget to managers were in place. CFR is the human part of OKR (or) known as twin sisters by John Doerr. Be it an instant award ($10 USD), group / division or at corporate award it was like you are encouraged to stretch and deliver with aspirational OKRs.

You may refer our detailed information with examples on our repository.

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Mitigate Regulatory Risk with Training Management System for Covid-19 Government Compliance at Workplace

Instructor-led Training Administration and Enable Team at On-premise, WFH and Remote locations

Skills2Talent™ TMS provide a single platform where business objectives can be met through user learning. It centralizes both administrative and educational requirements, giving trainers and other stakeholders one place to achieve their roles.

  • Satisfying new compliance rules and requirements
  • Onboarding new employees related to Covid-19 Government Compliance, Upskilling teams
  • Introducing new products/services or training soft skills
  • Familiar with Training & User Management Automation, Reporting

Nomination Management to meet 100% Compliance Attendance

Skills2Talent™ TMS drive your trainees nomination process simplified with various best practices. Powered by time duration based reminders & email alerts reduces manual followup processes. Nomination approval rules options give flexibility to implement.

Improve training development & delivery through structured formal training (instructor-led) courses using best training management digital tool kit to engage learners and extend learning impact.

Trainees Attendance Records to support Internal/External Compliance Audits

Skills2Talent™ TMS provides multiple convenient options to track the training participants attendance details either by excel upload or mark directly on the software application, including collecting details about reasons for absence. Thereby the nomination can be initiated during next time.

Thanks to training alters with time bound email/reminder notifications that sit on learners email calendar and also on training calendar on application. Thus, making sure that there is enough proactiveness in planning the participation to maximize ROI for training initiatives.

Training Program Feedback for easy Business Continuity

With Skills2Talent™ TMS, create custom training feedback forms and digitally collect from/about trainees, trainers and training administrators with ease. Supported by feedback follow-up email alters/reminders makes data collection easy for training/HR department to improve training effectiveness.

Ref (Indian Government Regulatory Compliance Form) : http://www.mca.gov.in/Ministry/pdf/Car_22032020.pdf

Schedule a free 30 min. consulting/demo: https://skills2talent.com/register-page.html

OKRstars@skills2talent.com | http://www.Skills2Talent.com | +91-78996 50575

Follow us for latest offering and updates: – Website: https://skills2talent.com/

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Types of performance management system with tips and templates

employee performance management software
performance management system

Various employee performance management approaches for 2020 and beyond

When getting started with PMS (Performance Management System), the most frequently asked questions are how to choose, implement and adopt a suitable PMS. To help our customers we are glad to share various PMS approaches with examples, so that you can get started easily and implement a suitable PMS. Don’t worry our Full PMS Services such as Workshops, Coaching, Training and Consulting retainership provide all these artifacts custom developed to help your organization. Moreover, we have made examples for these re-usable PMS artifacts library available inside our software application as well, to make it more convenient to adopt.
For CFRs (Conversations, Feedback and Recognition) we provide guidelines, templates and best practices including inside our Skills2Talent™ Software/Add-on modules, which will make easy to orient, train and institutionalize PMS & CFR. Most popular PMS approaches that are adopted widely across organizations are listed below;

OKR based PMS: “OKR” (Objectives & Key Results). Objective: Where do we want to go?, Key Result: How do we know if we are getting there? –> Checkout our OKR Stars™ Full OKR Services – OKR Examples.

OKR was popularized by John Doerr, USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Doerr

Our earlier blog on OKR by our OKR Coach: https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post/skills2talent.blog/534

SMART Goal based PMS: Goals should be straightforward and state what you want to happen. The goal has to be specific and define clearly what you are going to do. Use action words in goal such as direct, coordinate, achieve, complete, deliver, organize, lead, develop, plan, accomplish etc. For more details on SMART goals you can visit our other blog

Company Core Values Alignment Based: Core values often reflect your organization’s ethical standards, culture, or mission statements. Evaluating on core values reinforces the organization beliefs and ensures every employee demonstrates the same standards during the employment.

Job Specific & Behavioral Competency Based: Competencies in the context of Performance Management System is they are qualities that employees get rated on. Competencies can be mapped to R&R (Roles & Responsibilities) / JD (Job Description) and used as part of their development path (SMART Individual Development Plans).

Multiple Content Sections Based (with Weightage): Although performance reviews can be planned to include sections tailored to the needs of the organization, the best practice performance review includes four main content sections (A, B, C and D). These contents cover objectives (SMART goal plans), core values (alignment with the organization’s vision, mission, and value system), job specific competencies, and behavioral competencies (approach/ indicators/ attributes/ components). The organization must use at least one section, if not many/all. If any content section has “zero” weightage, it will be hidden from the performance management form (template) in Skills2TalentTM PMS. Each content section receives a weightage of 100 percent of the overall performance score. These content sections can be different for different groups of employees based on business needs (i.e., the percentage can be different based on work groups’ business requirements).

Exclusively Competency Based (Mapping & Assessment): An important part of Competency Mapping is making sure that the competencies that are important for an organization and/or a job are used in a lot of different ways by the organization. The mapping process includes figuring out which skills are important for each job and mapping them with their proficiency levels (rating scale). Employee and manager competency assessments (Target Vs. Actual) can be done as part of the assessment framework, which can then show the skill matrix and where there are gaps. It can also get input from other people in the group, the programme office, and people who know about the subject. Meta competencies can also be given weights to help people figure out which skills are important, and which aren’t. Evidence and references can also be used to show that these skills are important (soft copy attachments). Matured organizations can use a focused competency-based assessment to deal with the biggest issues that affect their PMS (Performance Management System) through data that helps decision-makers and links to Learning & Development initiatives, such as the People CMM Ver 2.0.

Questionnaire Based: The questionnaire-based assessment, like performance conversation-based assessments, helps to approach differently but in a meaningful and structured manner. The questionnaire can be designed to cover a wide range of topics, such as job, work output, role, stretch goals, agility, culture fit, feedback based, employee satisfaction, aspiration, soft skills, leadership capabilities, and personality, among others. To obtain unbiased 360° views, the same questionnaire can be re-framed to collect feedback from specific target people such as matrix managers, programme office, peers, cross functional team, or internal/external customers. Weightage can be assigned to categories in a prioritized questionnaire to make a balanced assessment while providing evidence/references (soft copy attachments).

For more tips to implement various PMS (Performance Management System) approaches that suits your organization you can check out our website for the detailed content.

For details contact us!

Vaidyanathan Ramalingam | vaidya@skills2talent.com | https://skills2talent.com/

Read more: Get started with OKR, Scale Agile, Top 4 Performance Management strategies

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Importance of frequent conversations and feedback in the OKR framework.

okr framework

Importance of frequent conversations and feedback in the OKR framework.


During the course of my regular coaching sessions with clients on OKR framework, weekly check- ins stand out as a biggest concern for many managers. The success of OKR implementation , to a large extent, is dependent on how frequently the manager and the team members engage in one on one meetings and regular check-ins.

Weekly Check-in process

Many managers fall into the trap of assuming that one on one meetings are not important and don’t figure in their list of priorities

These meetings are the first to get knocked off from the calendars if the manager is looking to free up his calendar. But the cost of cancellation of these meetings can be very high.

Three major concerns that I often hear from the managers,

  1. I have too big a team to do weekly or regular one on one’s
  2. Isn’t weekly check-in equal to micro managing
  3. Why have a conversation, when the status can be updated in the OKR tool

The weekly check-in practice in the OKR framework is expected to be brief , to ensure that each key result is on track and if the individuals require any support incase they see any show-stoppers or they raise any red flags. It also indicates progress in real time. The one on one conversations are therefore indispensable to the success of your OKR implementation. One on one meetings cannot be substituted by the OKR tool or OKR template. The tool or the template can only be used to make the meeting more focused and brief.

It is the responsibility of the manager to ensure that the individuals feel safe during these conversations and do not allow the individuals to get defensive as the prime purpose of such conversations is not just feedback but is also to build relationship and trust by listening and providing support.

If built into the daily work routine this process can cause real transformation in the team dynamics.One on one conversations is a non negotiable feature of the OKR framework.

If implemented correctly the weekly check- in process improves the performance of the individuals. There are six main Benefits to the one on one meetings.

Managing the weekly check in process more effectively

The process can be implemented more effectively by following some basic methods,

  • Request the team members to update the tracking document before the meeting
  • Make a list of all issues that require the managers support
  • Make a list of all challenges the individual is facing or likely to face .

By doing the above, your meetings can be more effective and time can be spent on solving problems and answering the questions.

Are you soft pedaling the feedback process?

Are managers holding back negative feedback with the fear of losing their people? They are afraid of losing resources from the team. But it is not fair to the resources. By doing so, you are neither advancing them nor helping them to develop their potential.You fail to see the upside of what a good goal management framework can do and deliver.if you want your team members to feel good and motivated about what they are doing, they need reinforcement in both directions. Both positive and negative feedback will help them grow . Feedback encourages forward movement.

Every individual wants their work to be meaningful. They would like their managers to be caring about them and be invested in their development.

Managers also need coaching and training in how to give feedback. This is a skill and not everyone is comfortable giving feedback.

Here is an interesting post by Arianna Huffington, Give Compassionate feedback while still being constructive . The post talks about the importance of correct delivery of the feedback .

Gallup research shows that only 26% of employees strongly agree that the feedback they receive helps them do better work. If the feedback is poorly developed then it makes team members disengaged.

For making OKR initiative a success turn your digital exchange with your team members into an in person conversation that helps to build the trust. Be a coach to your team and encourage them to receive and give feedback.

Check out my other article about OKR

Best Regards,

Vaidyanathan Ramalingam

OKR Consultant, Founder & CEO

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