Introduction – Management challenges.

The OKR Management framework establishes a strong management culture that helps managers boost their skills to lead their staff to achieve at the highest levels  It significantly improves on existing management systems.

If you are a manager in a Taiwan Tech company, maybe you’ve experienced these challenges:

• project delays
• personnel problems
• coordination problems
• poor planning
• lack of direction
• bickering, blame and conflict
• and other surprises

Managing is tough!

Because a lot of companies don’t focus on management culture or training, you end up with different managers doing their own thing.  It’s bound to lead to departmental conflict, unfulfilled expectations, and frustrated employees.

The OKR management system is a training platform for Managers.

OKR (Objectives and Key Results) management methodology brings a framework for good management practice.

It was developed by a tech company, Intel, and is used by other important companies like Google and Microsoft.  It addresses the problems I mentioned earlier.

OKR brings just the right combinations of management strategy and discipline, while engaging staff and enhancing their quality of work.

New to OKR?  Please visit our article “What is OKR?“

OKR makes you a better planner – Setting Goals and Expectations

OKR is a goal-oriented system that emphasizes good planning  – it teaches you as a manager to establish clear, attainable objectives, and devise measurable key results, that you can track and monitor, to give you the best chance at achievement.

Quarterly planning forces you and your team to refocus 4 times a year.   With a shorter planning period, it’s much easier to visualize your goals on the near horizon.  And tasks are easier to detail for a shorter period, which means expectations are concise and clear.

When the quarter starts, everyone knows their place and what needs to be done.

OKR teaches you to be an agile and responsive manager

During a tech project, parameters are bound to change, even with well thought-out planning.  With OKR, more frequent planning, progress monitoring, and one-on-one meetings, uncover project anomalies early, allowing timely adjustments to be made.

In short, OKR is designed to be agile and responsive.

OKR allows you to easily track staff progress without micromanaging

Nobody likes to be micromanaged, but how do you ensure staff work is getting done?  OKR is a progress-based system where staff members track their progress on a company-wide forum.

It’s easy for managers to monitor progress records – no need for meetings, emails or micromanaging.  Also, when staff understand their progress records are public, their motivation to stay on track is raised significantly.

OKR management makes you a better people-oriented manager

One-on-ones are periodic manager-subordinate meetings to promote dialogue and allow members to speak candidly.    CFR or Conversation, Feedback, and Recognition gives managers a basic framework to practice communication skills.

Staff members have opportunities to talk about challenges in a safe venue, which allows the manager to identify and address problems in a timely manner.  It also minimizes the chance for surprises as the planning period ends.

These meetings build relationships and trust, leading to enhanced staff engagement and motivation.

With OKR, everyone manages, which makes your job easier.

Planning is no fun for a manager.  It takes time and energy to map out a plan for your team and your staff.  

With OKRs, everyone down to front-line staff is encouraged to participate in building their own objectives and key results. This means planning and scheduling.

When the quarter begins, they record, monitor and track their own progress.  Essentially everyone is managing, and that means more time for you to do other meaningful work.

OKR management inspires you to push your team to grow and improve.

OKR is aspirational by nature, and it gives you the green light to push your team to grow and improve, using “stretch” concepts and quarter-end self-scoring.  It fosters introspection and critical thinking, which are the keys to growth.