Setting crystal-clear priorities via OKRs @ a hyper-growth startup

Situation

• A hyper-growth startup set OKRs each quarter

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• People viewed setting OKRs as an administrative task that they had to do vs. wanting to do and most "phoned it in"

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• As a result, the OKRs did not resemble to what people actually worked on in the quarter

Task

• Revamp the OKR program from scratch and make it a framework that people want to use vs. have to use

Action

• Validated that the OKR framework made sense for the company to use

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• Customized the standard OKR framework to meet the needs of the company

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• Included more people in the quarterly development processes

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• Created the narrative that OKRs are how people can prioritize their work and the benefits of that to employees

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• Created training materials on the framework, benefits and processes and trained the whole company on them with scalable training processes

Result

• Mindset change for people wanting to set OKRs each quarter vs. "having to"

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• Stronger alignment of execution given that everybody's priorities ladder up​