How can OKRs improve business agility?

by Carly Clyne | Apr 20, 2022

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It’s common for organisations to shift their strategies in response to change. A competitive advantage can be gained over time by those who effectively manage these cycles of transformation. Successfully implementing OKRs can improve business agility, which ensures that your organisation remains ahead of competitors and continues to grow through periods of change. 

Most organisations have faced some form of challenge over the past couple of years, primarily due to such unprecedented times. The conditions in which businesses operate have been completely reshaped, customer behaviours have changed, and supply chains disrupted. The evolution into remote working has meant that demand for digital technology advancements has increased like never before. 

Some organisations have been impacted so extensively that they’ve had to fundamentally change their business models to make it through and survive. For others, the pandemic has increased brand awareness, growth, and demand for their products or services. 

It has become increasingly crucial for all businesses to plan, track and implement an agile strategy to reach their business goals. 

 

Business agility and OKRs

One practical infrastructure that organisations can use to navigate the changing environment is OKRs. Implementing a goal-setting framework like OKRs can help organisations ensure their teams are better aligned and focused on executing an agile business strategy. 

Organisations are using OKRs so that they are sufficiently equipped to execute their strategy at pace. 

OKRs play a momentous role in improving business agility by helping to reduce the gap between goals that need to be achieved and outcomes to be measured. 

Using robust OKRs, leaders can convey goals to various teams and track progress towards overall goal achievements. As a result, this enables the whole organisation to pivot everyone around the same mission, vision, and strategy, even those working in remote environments. 

Using the OKR framework, those in remote locations can still engage, align, and collaborate while staying inspired and productive.

Agility is one of the superpowers of a successful OKR framework, enabling organisations to realign their goals or strategies whenever there is a business change. OKRs should be flexible enough to be used by leadership in providing strategic clarity and individual teams to drive progress toward core business outcomes. 

 

Greater business agility through OKRs

While each organisation is different and has a unique setup and level of maturity in its ability to drive a strategy forward, there are numerous essential steps to take on the road to success.

  • There needs to be total commitment and complete alignment within leadership to spend the necessary time and resources to adopt OKRs effectively over time. 
  • Understand that it takes expertise and leadership to bring everyone along on the journey. The organisation must recognise where the business sits across crucial areas, culture, leadership, processes, strategy, data, and people.
  • Getting the right level of support in expert OKR coaching prevents common pitfalls and maximises adoption. We see time and time again organisations that fail to implement OKRs internally, so they seek external support to rectify this. 

Organisations that are not embracing the concept of business agility will find that they cannot be flexible to market changes or have the ability to adapt as quickly as they need to. They will find themselves left behind as agile organisations can pivot and adjust. 

If you want some support or advice on how your business can become more agile, have a candid chat with one of our experts.