It’s important to use OKRs to find a way to set challenging objectives aligned with the business and that allow you to focus. It often happens that operations take precedence, and you don’t have time to evolve as a department.
5 Best Tools to Manage OKRs With Your Team
Before selecting the 5 best tools for managing OKRs, let’s briefly understand OKRs.
What is OKR?
OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results ; it’s a tool to help you focus on what you want to achieve. Google implemented it and made significant progress with it. Something I emphasize, and that’s mentioned in the training sessions, is that setting a challenging objective helps you step outside your comfort zone , while the key results section helps you define, quantify, and measure “how” you’ll achieve your objective.
Now that we know a little more about OKRs, I’m going to introduce you to 5 tools for managing OKRs, especially for teams of 5-10 members, so you can explore and innovate in your area with this way of achieving objectives and results.
1. Google Drive or Docs
Since OKRs are collaborative, we should consider an online tool. The simplest option would be Google Sheets in Google Drive (like the one we used for the Digital Giveaway ). I’ve created a template to help you track your OKRs, taking into account the theoretical framework listed above.
2. Kanban Flow (Trello or Planner)
KanbanFlow, Trello, and Planner are all tools designed for task management and are perfect for Kanban boards (To Do, In Progress, Done). However, we can leverage several of their features (alerts, assignees, reports) to manage OKRs. In this example, I’m using KanbanFlow because it’s free and I particularly like it.
The recommendation is to approach each objective by Key Reasoning (KR) and tag them as shown in the figure. Depending on their complexity, initiatives can be subtasks or managed on a separate Kanban board.
Keep in mind that every card must include an Assignee, a Date, and the associated Objective. An added benefit of the tool is the Pomodoro Technique, which consists of working effectively for 25 minutes followed by a 5-minute break.
3. I look
MIRO is a collaborative tool that contains multiple templates (it’s mentioned in a post as ” 5 Tools for Requesting Feedback “), and you can find several related to OKRs.
This tool has the potential to unleash your creativity. More important than the tool itself is consistency and following the OKR lifecycle to generate value.
4. Sugar OKR
It’s one of the tools I’ve used as a driver on my team, and it works quite well for me. It allows you to:
Enter OKRS annually and also quarterly (theoretically).
A fairly user-friendly interface where you can see the status and percentage of progress you’re at.
Each key result (KR) has fields that allow you to track progress.
In practice, this is quite good because you don’t have to search for emails or files; instead, you can centralize everything related to OKRs in the tool.
Areas for improvement would include the ability to copy an incomplete OKR to another quarter, support for attachments, and a user-friendly report design.
5. Perdoo (max 5 users)
It’s one of the most popular tools and allows you to use up to 5 users for free; however, to request access (up to 5 users), you must have a corporate account.
Among its main features:
- Integrated Management of OKRs and KPIs
- Visual Strategy Mapping
- Level-by-level alignment and visibility management
As a bonus, I’ll mention themost popular tools on the market, but they are paid and only cover up to 3 people, or their free version lasts 1 month:
- ClickUp
- Weekende
- VivaGoal (Pay with Microsoft subscription)
- Profit.co
- Forgive
Tips for managing OKRs
- I suggest being strict in the life cycle (1 week in advance you should plan, 1 weekly or bi-weekly meeting for follow-up and retrospective to see the feedback and if it is generating value in your area).
- Don’t overload yourself with OKRS or Key Results; havea few but well-focused ones.
- Remember that a KR is not a task, and rather initiatives arise from it that can be handled in a separate tool.
I hope these tips help youmanage OKRs, and above all, experiment to innovate!