OKR Retrospectives

[Vivian_Ajetunmobi]

I spoke about using the power of storytelling to showcase achievements and learnings at the end of each OKR cycle at our Viva Goals Office Hours session in March. The ability to tell the story behind the data allows us to contextualise the facts and help our colleagues connect the dots and co-create solutions together. 

Here is a link to the recording.

Two critical activities mark the end of each OKR cycle: Reviews and Retrospectives.

Closing and scoring your OKRs occurs during the reviews, and retrospectives provides an opportunity to reflect on the highlights, lowlights, and learnings. These activities are some of the powerful benefits of the OKR framework helping organisations operationalize learnings.

Our customers shared their experiences and challenges with OKR retrospectives during the session. I shared some best practises, such as planning retrospective sessions in advance and being intentional about creating psychologically safe environments.  

As the philosopher and educational reformer John Dewey so aptly stated, "we do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience."

How have retrospective sessions helped your organisation?

[#2]

I would also like to share some key takeaways from the breakout room discussions during the March Office Hours highlighting best practices for retrospectives from different organisations:

1. Conducting weekly or bi-weekly check-ins, including reflections on what went well, lessons learned, opportunities, and next steps. This regular check-in commentary makes the retrospective process easier since the week-to-week reflection is already available in the tool. The reflections can be aggregated with overall themes for conducting comprehensive retrospectives.

2. OKR owners or DRIs should not wait until the scheduled retrospective or end of quarter to highlight risks or changes in priorities. If a pivot is required, it should be brought up with relevant stakeholders as early as possible, and adjustments should be made to the OKRs without delay.

3. For organisations already following an agile methodology and conducting retrospectives for projects, it's important to ensure that projects are properly aligned with the key results. If they are, it might be beneficial to skip project-level retrospectives and instead focus on retrospectives for the objectives only. This can emphasise storytelling for both the team and upward cascading.

4. If the organisation's strategy direction and priorities are undergoing frequent changes, it's a good idea to review the OKRs being tracked. Avoid using operational KPIs as key results and instead focus on strategic metrics that align with the overall goals.

5. Organisations may prefer to conduct retrospectives, which primarily focus on identifying challenges in larger groups and come up with solutions in smaller groups for efficient decision-making, or vice versa, depending on the demographics and dynamics of the organisation.

@Vivian_Ajetunmobi Can you also shed some light on best practices to take intentional steps towards creating psychologically safe environments for effective retrospectives?

[#3]

Thanks for this post Vivian. I especially liked the idea of what to include when making the final check-in on the OKR. Covering highlights, lowlights, areas of improvement is crucial when self-reflecting on the quarter. This tells the full story of what worked well, but also being able to highlight areas of improvement that might need to be addressed in the coming period. This is where the true learning occurs.

[#4]

@aarushiarora  Great question! 

Creating a psychologically safe environment is a process that should be practised on a regular basis, not just during OKR retrospectives. 

Here are some best practises examples.

• It is important for organisations to have a common language when discussing goals. Reframing failures as learning opportunities helps in the development of a growth mindset.
• Provide different channels for employees to share feedback before, during and after the session. The use of anonymous feedback forms allows for candid feedback without fear.
• When responding to questions from the audience, meeting facilitators should be aware of their verbal and nonverbal cues. Listening with curiosity fosters open dialogue and collaboration
• Leaders should model the behaviour they want to see in their teams and be transparent about their learnings.
• When discussing learnings, keep the focus on the issue rather than the individual. 
• Run effective meetings with a clear agenda, and where possible, provide a pre-read. For Viva Goals customers, ask employees to review the dashboards and come prepared to contribute to the retrospective session.