Toward the end of every OKR period, every individual and team must review the current OKR structure and period, reflect on learning from past mistakes to avoid them in the future, and use this to plan for the coming period.
As 2022 draws closer, many leaders are either beginning or actively participating in their strategic planning processes. Because it is impossible to know where you are going without considering where you have been, those who use Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) also have the additional responsibility of holding OKR reviews and retrospective meetings.
Some of you may be familiar with the term Retrospective, “To look back at the works that we produced”
But why do we need to look back at our work? What can that accomplish?
At a high level, retrospectives enable you to answer several questions about the progress of your OKRs throughout the period:
- What did we accomplish?
- What didn’t we accomplish?
- Where did we make progress?
- What were the reasons behind our progress?
- If we didn’t make as much progress as we planned, why was that?
- What did we learn?
- What would we change going forward?
These questions can be answered while retrospect. But How does OKR come into play? To understand more about the OKR retrospective, let us dive deeper!
But first, we need to understand what OKR is.
What is OKR?
OKRs, also known as Objective Key Results, is a straightforward yet effective framework for goal setting and goal alignment that gives employees a completely new understanding of how and why goals are achieved. Teams of all sizes use the OKR goal management system to work together and reach ambitious goals using a framework that calls for frequent check-ins, feedback, ongoing learning, collaboration, and problem-solving.
An important purpose of implementing OKR in the company is to ensure that the employees are aware of the organizational framework and goals, and everyone is aligned and working together to achieve them. When a workplace uses OKRs, employees are encouraged to set aspirational and ambiguous goals. A key aspect of the software is that it allows all employees to see everyone else’s goals in the organization. The employees are also awarded and recognized based on their performance and not biased.
Retrospectives are usually every quarter but why? Let’s find out!
Why Quarterly OKR Retrospective?
The OKR cycle is an agile and repetitive process that is followed and implemented every quarter. The quarterly Retrospective provides your team with enough time to meet the set goals and objectives and identify the problem areas. The quarterly retrospective acts as a platform where you can access your team’s performance every quarter and not wait for the full year. It is less about the end card and more about learning and improving for the next upcoming quarter.
Organizations, departments, teams, and individuals can achieve great success in implementing OKRs, drive results based on the lessons learned from the previous quarter, and plan for the following using quarterly retrospectives. As a result, you become more adept at predicting the ideal result for the following quarter.
Advantages of Quarterly OKR Retrospective:
1. Priorities and vision of management become clear:
Every quarter, the management tends to conduct a meeting with the term team to discuss the previous month’s OKR and explain their updated priorities and vision for the next quarter so employees can align their OKRs accordingly to company OKRs. Since it is a quarterly based retrospective, the priorities can be changed to meet with the upcoming quarter.
2. Effective Retrospectives Facilitate Transparency:
Effective retrospective creates a platform for your teammates to address any issues that they have faced in the previous quarter. By having effective retrospectives every quarter, employees can align their goals with their team members. A transparent and open OKR retrospective meeting can act as a beacon to help the teams to achieve in the next quarter and can improve employee engagement within your team.
3. OKR Retrospective Questions:
To make sure your organization is moving in the desired direction, it is crucial to identify the answers to specific questions when you reflect on the quarter. You can direct your OKR strategy for the upcoming quarter by using the right questions and the right answers.
The following inquiries should be answered:
- Did our predetermined goals adequately reflect the team’s intentions and course of action for the quarter?
- Were we able to accomplish our main goals?
- Were the expectations set too high or too low?
- Did we accurately measure our outcomes?
- Were we well-organized to accomplish and carry out the results week after week?
- Have there been any changes to the internal and external dynamics over the quarter?
- Will this impact the outcomes for the upcoming quarter?
Conclusion:
As you can see, holding a retrospective meeting gives you access to untapped information about the challenges your business is facing, enables you to pinpoint your strengths and weaknesses, and gives you a strong head start on the following quarter.
Schedule a free consultation with us to learn how OKRs can affect your business and how effective retrospectives can pave the way for better results. To have easy and transparent OKR software, leave us a message and we will get back to you.
