Being a Great OKR Champion topics

Error message AadGroupCrudService::GraphError

mlnic — Mon, 03 Jun 2024 15:15:11 GMT

Hi. I'm trying to remove owners and members from a team. I deactivated the user and then tried to remove them from the team. When I remove them - I received an error that "something went wrong. We are looking into it." When I try to switch them from owner to member (thinking this would be a good step, I receive "AadGroupCrudService::GraphError".

Is there any way to reset this team other than deleting?

Thanks!

Viva Goals - Accessibility Options

Jag_Arora — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 11:33:01 GMT

Hi, i've noticed that there are no accessibility options within Viva Goals unlike some of the other MS products like Word, Excel, Teams, Outlook etc - is this something you intend to add in the future?

User unable to acquire a Viva Goals trial license

Evan_Hindman — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 19:47:06 GMT

I have a colleague who is looking to start using Viva Goals. I am in the process of buying him a new Viva Suite license.

In the interim, he is trying to start his free 60-day trial of the service, but is getting an error message that the system will not assign him a trial license. The error message just reads "We couldn't acquire a trial license. Please try again in a little while." Please see attached screenshot.

Can anybody help resolve this issue? Thank you!

How to Drive Team Performance and Results with Viva Goals

EmilyPerina — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 17:44:18 GMT

Join us tomorrow for the How to Drive Team Performance and Results with Viva Goals at 9:00AM Pacific!

In this conversation with Jeff Kotz, Director of the Microsoft Channel Alliance at McChrystal Group, and Kevin Cole, Implementation Program Manager, McChrystal Group will share their experience driving team performance with customers by improving strategy and goal alignment across teams, including real-world examples of how implementing Viva Goals is driving performance for organizations around the world.

RSVP and add your questions now!

Help? OKR Functionality

JoryH — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 19:51:58 GMT

I'm relatively new to the OKR platform so forgive me if this is old news! I have a few questions I can't find answers to.

1) Is there a way to attach documents to OKRs (example, for each goal, we have a word doc we like our team to complete that outlines potential cost, who all would be involved, etc). Don't need this to integrate per-say but would love if it could be attached to the goal for management review/oversite.

2) Once an OKR is closed/complete - how do we remove it from the view? Is that possible without deleting entirely? I tried filtering by "Active" and it was still on my OKRs.

3) We have goals that reoccur each year (ex. we run a preschool and the director has an Enrollment Marketing plan she works through each year - doesn't want to spend time recreating, would rather edit accordingly) - is there a way to copy old goals/initiatives for a new period without losing old goal info?

I appreciate the help!

Fast 5 Questions about OKRs w/ OKR Coach Ryan Lowdermilk

Ryan Lowdermilk — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 18:14:34 GMT

Team, I was recently asked "5 Questions" internally here at Microsoft regarding OKRs. I thought I would share them here. Hope they are helpful.

1. Tell us about yourself / team and role at Microsoft

I’m in the GPS Americas Tech Team org. We are a group of 200+ technical people who help our Partners build, ship and sell solutions that make money!

2. Why Viva Goals for your organization? How has Viva Goals helped transform your organization?

Our leadership team chose to implement OKRs because we believe it’s the most loving and thoughtful act leaders can do. By that we mean, ensuring our leadership team has put our people in the position, every day, to come into work and know WHAT they are working on together on and that it MATTERS. We want our people to know that their work has profound impact.

3. What do you wish you'd known earlier on your journey?

Be patient. It’s about direction, not perfection. Learning how to do OKRs well takes time. The journey of doing OKRs well can be optimized but not microwaved. People need real time to make mistakes, learn, and grow.

4. What gets you excited about Viva Goals?

OKRs have the power to galvanize and unify. Bringing people together to achieve audacious and aspirational goals is potent. When people accomplish great things together, it builds wonderful and meaningful human connections and relationships.

5. What feature or capability would you like to see next in Viva Goals and why?

Viva Goals is already wonderful to work with. It makes it easy for our teams to visually see their alignment and track their progress. A feature I would love to see is integration that provides suggestions on how to better write an Objective or a Key Result. Words matter. Communicating ideas in a lucid and succinct manner is a powerful way to lead. Writing great OKRs is an art and a science. Using ChatGPT or otherwise, would be helpful.

5 Questions & Answers about Viva Goals

JennaButler — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 20:16:38 GMT

Hey there! I'm a researcher who recently rolled out Viva Goals to my organization. I wanted to share about about what they looked like, Q&A style! So.. here we go!

Who am I?

Hi, I’m Jenna, and I’m a Principal Applied Research Scientist on the Engineering Systems team at Microsoft. We build the tools that developers use to build Office, and I study our tools and processes to help make developers more productive.

Why did I decide to use Viva Goals for my org?

One of the biggest challenges in my team is that we work with people all over the company and the world, and each team does things in a slightly different way. It was really hard for PMs to use so many different planning tools, reporting mechanisms, etc, and it was hard to keep track of what everyone was doing and where they were in the journey. As a researcher, I had done a study on how our organization sets goals and how we measure against those goals. One thing we found was that it would be really useful to have a common tool that everyone could use and see – voila! Viva Goals! Now we all speak the same goal setting language and it is easier to understand cross team work.

What do you wish I'd known earlier on your journey?

I wish I’d known two things: Firstly, I wish I’d know it’s okay to be a little unsure when you start, and to learn as you go. I know every OKR book tells you to do this, but I still wanted to do it perfectly right off the bat. It doesn’t always work like that. Once we actually got data in the tool and were able to see how teams used it, then we could make some tweaks and changes to get it working just the way we wanted. Secondly, I wish I’d known how helpful the Viva Goals team are! They are an amazing resource when getting your organization onto the OKR framework.

What gets me excited about Viva Goals?

I feel empowered in my work knowing exactly where to look to understand what my teams are working on and how it’s going. I don’t feel as confused and I can look up other teams or people in the organization to get myself familiarized with their work. I love that!

What feature do I wish Viva Goals would add?

I want to see Viva Goals proactively identifying teams of people I should work with. I imagine there are other people in the company working on work that is similar to mine and it would be great to connect with them! If Viva Goals could tell that their work and goals sound similar to mine and connect us together, that would be awesome.

What about you? Why are you using Viva Goals, and what would you like to see in it? I'd love to learn more!

Possible to reorder Team grouping in Viva Goals dashboard?

Evan_Hindman — Wed, 09 Aug 2023 19:35:06 GMT

Hi everyone - I am creating a dashboard in Viva Goals, and I am grouping my organization's Initiatives (we call them Functional Priorities) by Team. I would like to be able to reorder the order in which the Team groupings appear - does anyone know how to do this? See screenshot below - for example, I would like to move "Legal and Compliance" to the bottom of this list. Thanks all!

PODCAST - "What Makes a Great OKR Coach" w/ Roger and Joanna from There Be Giants

Ryan Lowdermilk — Tue, 08 Aug 2023 17:37:44 GMT

Team, I thought this podcast would encourage those who are or are thinking about being an OKR coach. Roger and Joanna from There Be Giants for this great conversation.

What Makes a Great OKR Coach? (substack.com)

Thanks all,

Ryan

Past Event Recordings

Rosina_Chadwick — Mon, 07 Aug 2023 18:26:52 GMT

I am looking to access past event recordings relating to Viva Goals. I am part of the Viva Customer Connection Program on the Teams site and have searched the calls and recordings folder but unable to locate them. Can someone please point me in the right direction. Thank you.

Admin search functionality not working for users that leave

claireba9 — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 21:01:19 GMT

Anyone else having issues with searching for people in Admin and not seeing them? If I get out of Admin and use the regular search area, I can find people and their current OKRs. Opened a ticket. Just wondering if it was just us?

Stay in the loop with Microsoft Viva Goals

BrittHarper90 — Tue, 23 May 2023 14:42:17 GMT

Want to hear about upcoming features, get tips for a successful deployment, or get early sign-up for upcoming events? Join our new Viva Goals email list, launching in July!

Here's the link to join: https://aka.ms/vivagoalssubscription

REVIEW DASHBOARD IN VIVA GOALS

rajrahul993 — Thu, 18 May 2023 15:16:33 GMT

In Microsoft Viva Goals, a review dashboard is a feature that provides a consolidated view of an individual's goals and progress. It serves as a central hub where users can track and review their goals, key results, and overall performance. The review dashboard offers valuable insights and metrics to help individuals stay on top of their goals and make informed decisions about their progress.

Here are some key aspects and functionalities of the review dashboard in Microsoft Viva Goals:

1.Goal summary: The dashboard provides a summary of the user's active goals, including the goal name, description, due dates, and associated key results. This summary allows users to have a quick overview of their goals and the progress made.

2.Progress tracking: Users can track the progress of their goals directly within the dashboard. It displays the completion status, progress percentages, and other relevant metrics for each goal and its associated key results.

3.Metrics and insights: The review dashboard offers visualizations and metrics to provide insights into goal performance. These metrics can include data such as completion rates, time taken to achieve goals, and other relevant performance indicators. Such insights help users evaluate their progress and make data-driven decisions.

4.Alignment with organizational objectives: The review dashboard can show how individual goals align with broader organizational objectives or team goals. This alignment helps employees understand how their work contributes to the overall success of the organization.

5.Collaboration and feedback: Users can collaborate and seek feedback from managers or teammates within the review dashboard. They can share updates, request reviews, and receive feedback directly within the platform, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and accountability.

6.Notifications and reminders: The review dashboard may include notifications and reminders to keep users informed about upcoming deadlines, overdue goals, or important updates related to their goals.

The review dashboard in Microsoft Viva Goals aims to enhance goal management, improve transparency, and provide individuals with a comprehensive view of their progress and achievements. By consolidating goal-related information and offering actionable insights, it helps individuals stay focused, track their performance, and drive productivity.

How can you create a Review Dashboard?

Select the entity level (Org, Team or Individual) for which you want to create the dashboard.

As shown above, Select the expander arrow next to the title of your dashboard to choose and existing view, or select New Dashboard to create a new view.
Review Dashboard offers users to create the view using different widget options under different panels if needed.
Below is the multiple widget option from which user can choose to create his view/presentation in Viva Goals Dashboard.

User can choose to use these dashboards for presentation. To present a dashboard, select the Present button.
Each panel displays on its own page, and you can use the left and right arrow keys to navigate through your panels. The data within the panels is interactive, so you can select OKRs, perform check-ins, leave comments, and more.

How to choose the right rollout plan for you...

DonSCampbell — Tue, 16 May 2023 17:25:09 GMT

If you have central planning…Leverage OKRs as a mechanism to drive leadership alignment and tops down communication on organizational strategy. Enable organization wide availability and adoption of OKRs within a prescribed framework.

If you have an executive sponsor… License a cross functional department and choose OKR functional Superchamp /program owner accountable for program success. Leverage to enable org wide availability and adoption of OKRs within a prescribed framework based off successes and learnings.

If you lack an executive sponsor… Allow individual teams and departments of various sizes to explore and adopt Viva Goals given their interest and business needs. Highlight on-demand Viva Goals training resources. Ask teams exploring OKRs and Viva Goals to share their findings broadly across the organization to educate and evangelize.

Refer to Office Hours on this topic:

https://adoption.microsoft.com/files/viva/goals/office-hours/Viva-Goals-Office-Hours-October-2022.mp4.

Two different check-ins type in Viva Goals

rajrahul993 — Tue, 02 May 2023 15:15:40 GMT

Two types of Check-ins that Viva Goals offers:

Manual Check-ins: User can make a manual entry of the latest values into their OKRs to track the progress in Viva Goals.
Integrated Check-ins: OKR progress is automatically updated by integrated platform such as Azure DevOps, Online Excel, etc.

MANUAL Check-Ins:

How to make a Manual Check-ins?

Navigate to the respective OKR or Initiative on which you want to make a Check-in.
Click on the check-in button
Enter the latest value and select the status of your OKR progress. User can also make a comment in the note section with highlights of the latest check-in.

INTEGRATED Check-ins:

How does Integrated Check-in work?

Note: Integrations are enabled by Global Admin

Users can update progress of the OKRs and initiatives through different type of Integrated platform (Messaging, 3^rd Party Data Source or Collaboration app) offered by Viva Goals.

Once the Integration is enabled, user can select the specific Integration by opting for Progress mode as “Automatically from a data source”.
Once the user opts for above, viva goals provide option to select the integrations available under your organization.
Select the needed data source and establish the connection with your OKR. Once connection is made, Viva Goals will automatically pull the progress from the established integration.

4. Progress from data source would sync every hour. Also, if the user wishes to update the progress anytime manually from the source, they can click on sync button and the system would automatically pull the values in time.

How I did it: 4 real world tips from OKR Champions

jimhopkinson — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 16:26:35 GMT

If you or your team are in charge of rolling out an OKR program at your company, you might want to check out my article "How I did it: 4 real world tips from OKR Champions to drive long term success."

With more than 4,500 views, the reason why I think it's been resonating for people is that it features real world examples. There's a quote from the OKR Champion at Roambee, who provides supply chain visibility and intelligence. When discussing closing out OKRs, I spoke with Michael Davis, who not only was an OKR champ, but also has worked with 100s of clients on their OKR programs. And lastly, we got some great tips from Liz Pierce, who led Microsoft's rollout to forty thousand employees. 40,000!

What are your Goals?

kevmcdonk — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 16:26:51 GMT

As an OKR Champion, you should hopefully be following the great advice that you are offering to others and not just pushing what you don’t follow yourself. So, given that, what are your own OKRs that can inspire others and how are you tracking them?