What are OKRs? - Coffee Talk by CertiProf with Antonio Polo - English

[Music] hi my name is gina gillin and i want to welcome you to coffee talk by sort of prof this is a space to share and discuss educational topics with guests who have a passion for teaching and an interest in learning in this episode we're going to talk about okrs what they are what are the benefits and how to implement them today we have the pleasure of talking to antonio polo he's an okr expert and agile coach hi antonio how are you welcome to our coffee talk hi gina hello i'm good and how about you

thank you very much for the invitation of course doing really good um antonio can you um start by giving us an introduction about yourself yes my name is antonio polo people used to call me paulo it's my surname and then i work in and i live in work in brazil i am an agile coach here in brazil for big companies the main banking common companies in brazil so my my focus is on business agility and also i am a mentor of okrs in several companies in brazil and also i'm a trainer okay trainer in brazil

i have the the main training uh events in brazil which is okay butch camp that's awesome um so let's start from the basics can you explain sorry let's start with the basics can you start by explaining what okrs are sure okr is a framework which was created in the 1970s in a competition context and more it's a framework focusing on critical thinking to create discipline in the teams to ensure that everyone works together in the same direction so it's known in the market as a goals target methodology but it's more than it it's related to

collaboration team team focusing and uh and and also performance competitive performance and there's a strong relation of ocrs with explanation growth as well so it's a complete management system and culture system as well that's awesome um so can you explain also what the benefits are of implementing uh objectives and key results yeah the the first uh benefit we have is to it is the alignment so when you have the strategic goals of the company tactic goals and operational goals so you have all those goals aligned not only the vertical alignment the hierarchical alignments but also

the horizontal alignment okay so the first benefits is to have clear goals and also and always aligning with the company we have the clear direction for the teams for the individual also when you when you have goals oriented the performance improves as well so you have performance improvement clear performance performance improvement of the companies okay and us also okrs brings the company to to be more data-driven because when you set an objective and you don't have data you you are encouraged to to to find a way to get the data from from from the market

from your products to your company so okrs helps the compass to be more objective less less based on judgment right so but more based on facts and and quantitative information so there is a lot of benefits also transparency is a good benefit of ocr communication so it's a methodology that when we we adapt in the company the communication improves in the company so we have several cases in brazil for example companies for construction building constructions in brazil real estate right and this kind of sector has low communication models and when we implement talk here the

communications incl increase the communication channels start being used by the teams so it's kind of magic when you use your care for that so there's a lot of benefits not not only about related to objectives but also to in entire company collaboration that's a good thing for okay yeah one of the things that i like about okr is that like as you just mentioned that it doesn't matter um the industry or the size of the company like anyone can use it and then it also brings productivity and accountability for all the departments within the organization

um and what you just mentioned like it gives it is transparent it gives the the team clarity it lets the team focus on something because um it comes and i mean they're supposed to be set up for all the companies so like everyone should know what everyone's okay ours are so i think it's a really good thing because everyone is like working towards the same goal and and then each different department they're doing like their own okr so everyone can um keep their goals so i think that's really good yes so um okay so let's

say that somebody's uh listening or seeing these and they're like okay i love the idea of okrs uh those are great benefits i want to implement that so like if i want to start implementing okrs right away what should i do yes that's a a very good question gina because uh i think when you start thinking about using okr you should start by the the purpose by the starting by the wise yes simon's next says so there's a several reasons to think about okay as a good tool to manage objectives in your organization the first

one it's an uh an academic information which is com it's very known in academic uh scenario which is companies that are managed by objectives has better performance than companies that are not okay this is very information very very common and and common sense in in academic okay so just think just think about to to have goals oriented in your company the performance we will increase even though if you had don't don't beat those those targets at the beginning takes a long time to to to reach those targets those objectives but for the the simple fact

that you have the culture of objectives we're improving the the performance of organization okay um thing that you should start doing is to is to read some good books like measure what matters from john dawar which is considered the father of okrs okay the the guru of rocky hours this guy implemented okr in google when google had a party for the employees okay and and the market says that google grew up exponential especially because they were cares okay and myself myself i dubbed doubt of this information i questioned the question at this and after that

i started reading some comments from the google uh founders okay right page and say give me and there i sent there are sentences from them saying that okiyas was the main main thing that helped them to help them to to grow exponentially okay so it's not uh only a myth it's something that came from the from the founders okay so read these books understand uh other thing that should be good to do is to to see your your your market scenario your competitive competitors okay or even more competitive mark more competitive in industries for example

financial service telecom okay and get some case studies in your region in your country uh which which companies are using nokia and what in and what's how they are implementing what what are the benefits why why big companies for example in brazil the the for the first bank in in latin america which is itau is moving strongly moving to okiars okay why why why ah a huge bank with this we decide to move to okay right so there's a lot of strategic discussions on that okay so get get case studies in the market and start

building the reasons to to to think about okay okay another thing would be would be good is to get some kind of pilots kind of kind of experiments on the organ organization you you don't need to to shift the the key to our organization you can get you can get the more innovative structure in organization teams directory and then start doing a pilot for okay an experiment okay and get the results if it's good then you scale to to the entire organization okay so think think carefully and about okay one of the things that i

read is that it took google three to four quarters to become good at writing okrs so one of the things that uh people should know that is that you need to stick with it and stick to them until at least uh for three to four quarters because i mean it's going to take you some get getting used to it and also one of the secrets that i read about creating okrs is to have the right culture motivation and knowledge because first of all obviously you have to know about um what okrs are and also the

company because okrs are based on transparency so everyone in the in the company have to have to keep that in mind that um everyone needs to uh uh work towards the transparency and then one of the things that i like about okrs that i read was to be ambitious ambitious as possible because it's better for you to achieve maybe 70 or 80 percent of your um okrs instead of like uh putting a and some okrs that you know that you're going to achieve so be as ambitious as possible because that's what's going to drive you

to have better results that's correct yes it's like a personal trainer right you don't have an exercise that will hurt you right but you you also also don't don't have to be an exercise that that's too too easy to do right so there's a balance and you you increase the the the ambition right gradually so that's the point on okay okay yeah and then also i read about this uh cfr conversation feedback and recognition how it's also very important to um to recognize that we have to have those conversations uh provide those feedback to the

people that we see that may be having some problems with the okr so i read that too that we should keep in mind this uh cprs and and then let me ask you something so um do you need a tool to implement okr wow i would not say that we needed to right i saw i worked in in several financial companies in brazil for example that have uh 1000 employees right and they use excel to to manage okrs okay okay but of course they start using excel in the first cycles right and that there's a

key point that we need as a software that to manage more the to manage bet to better manage the the information to get more clear reports and [Music] check-ins and status reports for for the the the executives right so it's not it's not you you don't don't have to have a softer at the beginning but sometimes that will help you but it's not not mandatory right because okay should be simple right should be few per per departments barraria per heads per team so again you can start with a good excel file and then you go

you move forward to test software software is more beautiful right and more collaborative if you have a huge organization i think you should have should think about the software okay one thousand people it's okay i work at the in brazil in a case we which have uh one thousand and eight hundred people so in this case i think we should should have a software at the beginning it depends depend it depends on the size of the company okay but keep it simple software brings complexity right so maybe you can start more simple than bring the

software so going back to the secrets i i mentioned uh that you should have the knowledge about what okrs are and understand the weekly monthly and quarterly process of okrs um so do you think that you need an okr coach to help implement okr that's an excellent question question you know very good question uh there's a book that in i think i think it's in english it's from canaan the economy nobel he the name of the book is uh fast and slow some something like that okay it explains how how our our brain works okay

and then uh if you don't have a stressor right something to to make us a checkup we will not work well with with objectives okay objectives objectives are counterintuitive to to humans right we we as humans genetically we are design it to to work and to to to live as we as we are right not having objectives okay so the the situation that that you should have a coach saying with your guardian okay and something like this champions it's very important to to keep the discipline okay at least especially in the beginning the first cycles

to create discipline uh ensure that the data is monitored the team is focusing on rich jokey hours okay so i think it's very important to have uh codes uh so you can have a couple of codes and you can create a relation for example one coach takes care about one department one team so relation coach versus teams and these people we will help you teach okay also metadata methodologies support it's important as well so this guy these people should study your cars know about the cars train the peoples the people in okie are okay but

also have the what we say we say checking meetings which is weekly nokia ensure that they occur that the information is clear transparent if the if there's no progress in nokia the the code should uh align a an action plan to to to cover the the late on these okay so it's crucial it's very important to have uh codes okay on instagram in this process there's a situation that the the same department updates his its own information okay but i think it should we should be work bad works better with codes antonia thank you so

much for the tips that you just provided us but what are the things that we need to avoid when starting setting up okay arts good question the first thing to avoid is to have a short term short term expectations about results right as you well mentioned uh it's not the first cycle in the first quarter you bring the result results from rookier you should run the literature the bibliography says the book says that you should run at least four cycles which which means one year okay four quarters trying okay hours improving quarter per quarter quarter

after quarter and then you start having the the results okay so it's a cute euro approach not only i need objectives and if they they don't come they don't be rich in the first cycle so i don't like okay let's stop doing that okay so long term expectations that's the first thing uh another thing that's important to adapt to chia is to follow case studies okay companies that were successfully working with tokyo i recommend also to bring consulting companies to support the adoption or even even training the transformation team typical teams that should be trained

in okay in your company pmo team project management team project manager office teams agile teams transformation teams rail codes scrum masters so those those roles typically uh are good uh careers adapters are good okay as leaders okay another another one that i forgot is uh [Music] a human resource right you may research should be strongly involved in the care to bring the cultural care the developmental cares so we have a balance between deliverables or cares and also the people development okay so there's a good balance right deliver and protection right so bring good people bring

transformation people train those peoples and and also use consulting companies that have experience on this okay and then what what do we need to avoid so when we're trying to implement the okrs uh we should we should keep it simple we should have have few okrs okay so one or two per department one of one or two objectives per department and each objective should be three maximum four key results so it's a mistake to have ten keys out sixteen results okay you have troubles to to monitor this to to bring the results okay so keep

keep it simple feel okrs uh think carefully to have uh coats people to support metadata methodology supports okay so i think it's a good start do not do not expect short-term results and then you you have a lot of success with okay okay yeah one of the things that i also read going back to transparency is not including your whole team in the okr saving process because um i mean everyone in the company should know um then great so somebody is watching this and they're like okay how do i get the team to buy into

okrs how can i do it so they can adopt it question as well the first thing that i say is the the the team they know they know about ocr okay they are in social networks they are linked in they are in uh other it's mainly linked in english as the same brazil uh so they know okay okay is in the hype moment so we have a momentum so we need to use the momentum to to adopt tokyo so i think it's not a problem the team the teams are engaged in in adapter care so

if you do it right you have you you have the team uh collaboration but keep it simple right i think the team should not think that it's one more boring thing to do right so it's important it's strategic we we adapt this to long term okay so it's it's as cute or adoption you should start not not without res not resistance okay now not blocking the resistance but but uh moving away from the resistance okay so it's a continuous improvement adoption okay start at the beginning and then you have improvement each quarter right that's the

the main point but the team they are motivated to to get the kr to get certifications the market is requesting that okay so it it get use the momentum we okay isn't the hype now right our companies are looking at to work here so i am i'm the team i would love to work with tokyo because it you to improve my career as well right yeah one of the things that i read is that you should just explain the benefits take the team's feedback explain the process and again going back to the transparency set the

objectives with the employees i think that's that's what what's going to help you motivate the team to start implementing okrs yes the transparency is it's very very important as well because when you have the transparency you you as as the time goes those goals forward you have few meetings because house is transparent i'm i'm watching my my peers my departments which are my peers and and i'm looking what they are doing in their occurs so there's a organic alignment that occurs vertically horizontally okay so it's kind of magic in our cart okay there's a ted

tad not sure how he's saying but but tng talk in youtube that you have from john daugher where when he explains how bonovox used okr to tour to in his charity organizations okay so he's it's a beautiful talk everyone should uh watch this in in youtube again take talk that talk yes it talks about transparency and the magic when you have this this transparency okay so we must must watch yeah we we we're gonna link it um in our description so everyone can watch it so should i set uh the okrs from the top to

the bottom or vice versa well okays are more bottom up i'm more focused on bundle up we should ensure that at least 60 percent of the okrs our bottom up bring comes from the the teams right but when you when you have a strategic adoption of okr it should start in the ceo it should start in the in the high high levels of the companies or even in an experiment should start with a director vice president high levels okay so they set the more long terms objectives okay long term okay strategical care and and work

yes and then there's a an alignment work that that goes uh to the teams right but the there's a pitfall in in nokia's when you don't you don't reach the teams okay because when you are writing your chaos the time is counting you are so you lost one month you lost two months and there's a there's a a pit for that okay let's finish here in the management team between the management team and not progressing these two to the teams to to create two cares but the magic to reoccur when the teams think about the

objectives always alignment to align it with the top objectives okay but it's very important to to reach the teams and to get them the opportunity to create two cares uh you as you as a manager you should validate those you can approve you can reject okay but the team should have should have the opportunity to create okay that's the magic of okay okay you bring engagement with that right you have engagement exactly so what about kpis versus okrs what's the difference between those two well the the ok the okr formula you have the objectives which

which is more qualitative right and you have the key results that are quantitative they have numbers okay so if you have a kpi maybe he he should be a candidate to be key result okay but how how he he can be a key result if you have a kpi which is actionable which moves the market moves your market market competitiveness okay that's a good kpi that should should be bringing you you should bring that to to a kiwis out okay but there there are other kinds of kpis it's more to keep the the business income

under control okay so those ones should be worked you you not just disregard them they're those okay you work with that but they are not good key result candidates okay so let's say the kpi the kpis support the cue results okay but the key results they should be actionable they should move the markets that's the the difference between one and another okay i i think that okay ours are are where you want to drive growth like innovation and change you know um they're like the ones that set the direction of the whole so the company

can focus on it and the kpis are more like business metrics that tell you if your company are running on all of the cylinders definitely yes so okay can you provide us an example on how to set up okrs well there's a there are some roles to allow the teams to do that okay you can start by writing the key results first and then you you after discussing the key results in a brainstorming session you create clusters move the key results to groups prioritize this and then you you go to the objectives and and at

the end of this you you write the objectives okay and there's the opposite you start defining the objective and after that you write the key results so there's no uh there's no a best practices on this okay i think you should practice you you should expect create experiments try with the team in the model one first results after objectives try with other teams they are the other context the opposite and understand which is better for your company it depends on the the company culture the pace of the meetings and discussions okay uh so there's that's

the the war the boats model okay and you can choose one and start uh if i avoid to ha ha about to have too many brainstorming okay the the the tip would be to make a homo work with the team bringing three or four or four okays from from this homie work work home work and then start discussion okay do not start discussion with open mind okay that's the the tip that you do we do okay so like for example if a sales team um their objective is to grow their uh corporate um through increasing

transactions value and retention what could be like an uh a kr that could complement the objective well the the selling teams they use a lot okrs about uh revenue revenue is a good care for selling team which is supported be by amount of of orders to to sell so that's a balance that you're doing in selling teams okay so you don't not only sell a lot but also balance with what you watch are you selling what is the the the average ticket you are selling okay so those are typical okrs that we see in commercial

teams at the same brazil right so if you do you think that if the objective is to increase the transaction value and retention that maybe one kr could be increase the company's average steel size from 300 to 400 dollars yes those are are very common nokias in commercial growth of revenue and 10 billion as well that's uh so with the example that they have yeah there's actually a really good um a really good website i believe is uh okr examples.co where you can go and then you can pick uh your department and then it gives

you like some ideas of what the okrs could be for your departments you mean for for a website company yeah for like you go to okay our examples that co and then like you can check by department and then they give you like some examples on what okrs you can um do for your department so yes yeah it depends on which department is okay we have for example human resource okay okay good examples we have perform 101 meetings that's a good car for human resource uh amount of training amount of hours 20 hours per per

employee it depends on the department right there's a lot of a lot of good examples from rookiers it's good to think about the examples because it could it give gives good ideas to start writing okay for someone that doesn't know how to set up an uh okay r it's it's it's good to see what other companies are doing too so that can help them right so talking about companies like we already mentioned and google implements okr they use okr but then other content other companies such as amazon dropbox gopro yahoo airbnb so based on your

experience what other companies in your industry implement all krs well here in brazil we have a hype in two industries we have financial services very strong in brazil and also in telecom okay so telephonic in brazil has okay as strongly okay as adoption telefonica from spain right which is in brazil as well it's the biggest one here and another one as well and the financial services we have big big banks and also fintechs at the same brazil that's uh technological banks as you say in brazil so and also in brazil which is curious we have

a uh real estate using a lot of okay in brazil so it doesn't matter the industry anyone can implement them yes the more competitive is the market the better okayers fit that's the point so financial service in brazil is competitive we tell you i don't see much in brazil but it should be it should have but they are not retail they should organize the process before okay okay but if you are in the intercom in a competitive sector you should think about okay because the the history of of okiyas tell us about it okay okay

uh started in the 1970 years okay with any groove in the intel company to compete with motorola so that that explains a lot of things right great so competition the batch competition should have should use okr to to grow the company to come to compete awesome so okr and scrum how can you connect sure it's a good question uh from one year ago until now uh the market is is thinking about okay sorry for products okay so you have uh waze waste company not sure if you know waste from from rizal israel from the driving

uh and they created the hoshkier with a combination focusing on the careful products okay so when you take care of about a product you have several teams that work in the same product same value stream we can have okrs uh which is a little bit shared between the teams to to take care about one product and when you deliver product you use kanban use chrome to deliver that or even if you use the traditional method pmi method to deliver okay but when you talk about scrum a good approach to have okrs is to use it

as a prioritization to okay prioritization logic okay so you have a huge backlog several things to do and if you have your rookiers very well define it you can compare your backlog with your your okrs and if if a work does not talks about an okr does there's no nokia related to this work you should not do this work okay so you just you just consider disregard this work then you focus in on on things that are more aligned with your your care okay so it's very simple to do in scrum uh the main sprint

tools like gyra and not sure brazil would say jira which the i think is in in english is gyre uh atlassian gyre and another combined tools you can uh associate an okr with a a ticket okay and so you work with this ticket to start working or not depending on on nokia and more than it when you finish the ticket when you finish the the work you can move this to the to a last column on your board and wait for this wait at least one month to two months here and to ensure that the

customer loves your product okay so the okay you insure that okay so if you deliver a a work don't move though your ticket to dawn okay with your ticket to waiting for your your car okay validation so you see the market you bring the the feedbacks and then you check your success on your product okay so it's uh it's a branch of focus that will grow a lot in in this next year for example okay okay for products so you can combine this with chrome and you can use for example the screen review to ensure

that your products going is going to the right direction so you use the nokia okay to do that okay so it fits a lot it's chrome antonio what's the number one advice that you can provide to your live learners who want to implement okr well okay cars are good to to career and are good to companies okay so they will bring your company to the higher level and they will bring your career as well to a higher level okay so the the market opportunities the employment opportunities they are looking for okay experts okr coach coach

you can be also consultant you can provide service to organizations that are willing to adopt okiyas okay so in our knowledge work we sell knowledge right so it's a it's another it's a new knowledge that you get and you can sell to in your business okay exactly so i strongly i strongly recommend thank you so much antonia thank you so much you're welcome sharing your knowledge and experience with our lifelong learners you're welcome gina thank you so much for the opportunity antonio where can we find you if you want to know more about yourself you

can find me in the linkedin okay you can link it in social network antonio awesome well antonia thank you so so so much for your help you're welcome regina thank you very much thank you we thanks those who choose to be here and we hope that this space has been an inspiration to promote the professional growth of our community if you want to know more about okrs visit us at surtoprof.com you can also follow us on linkedin instagram facebook twitter at zortoprof let us know in the comment belows what other topics you would like us

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