What are OKRs?

OKRs consist of Objectives and Key Results. Objectives are qualitative goals that describe what you want to achieve and Key Results are specific, measurable outcomes that indicate whether you’ve achieved your objectives. OKRs play a crucial role in Agile businesses by providing a framework for alignment, transparency, adaptability, and continuous improvement, all of which are essential for success in dynamic and fast-paced environments.

Configuring OKRs

In order to add Objectives and Key Results into Kiplot, you’ll need to set your Measures in the Kiplot Configuration page. You can also group your OKRs using the Objective Groups functionality.

• Measures play a crucial role in quantifying the progress and success of objectives. All measures should be added to the configuration. Once they’ve been added you’ll be able to add them to a Key Result on an objective.
• Objective Groups enable you to group your objectives depending on the specific needs, priorities and structure of your organization. Common approaches to grouping objectives effectively include: strategic themes, functional areas, lifecycle stages, customer segments, cross-functional initiatives.

Once you’ve added your Objective Groups and Measures you can use the blue toggle in the configuration page to manage whether they’re enabled or disabled.

Adding Objectives to Kiplot

You can add objectives to Kiplot in the OKRs page in the Strategic Portfolio module. To add an objective simply click on the blue ‘create’ button in the top right corner. Fill out the Objective Name and Description fields and then click create. Your objective will now appear on the OKRs page.

Assigning Objectives to Objective Groups

To assign an Objective to an Objective Group simply open up the Objective and select the Objective Group from the drop down list. Only Objective Groups that are added to the Configuration will show up in this list.

Adding Key Results to Objectives

You can add a Key Result to an Objective by clicking on the ‘Add key result’ button. You will then be prompted to select an action, measure and overall target value for the Key Result. You also have the option to add in a target date, which should be the date you expect to achieve the Key Result.

Tracking the Value Plan & Value Forecast

When you click into an objective, and its corresponding key result, you will find the page where you can plan and track the progress of your objective. In this page you can set up and manage both the Value Plan and Value Forecast, against the Target Value.

The Value Plan outlines the incremental steps towards achieving your objective, guiding you steadily towards the target value. This provides a method for estimating how the work you're undertaking will contribute to achieving your objectives. Entries can be directly added to this key result detail page, allowing you to specify the expected date for realizing incremental value. In the example above, this is represented by the blue line.

The Value Forecast helps outline the initiatives that are directly tied to achieving the objective through the key result, showing the expected value upon their completion. Initiatives can be linked to a Key Result right from the Initiative detail page (see more below). In the example above, this is represented by the grey bars.

The Target is the overall value the Key Result is setting out to achieve. In the example above, this is the 5000 value in the title of the key result and represented by the blue dotted line.

Linking Initiatives to Key Results

You can link an initiative to a Key Result:

1. Open the Initiative
2. Select the ‘Value Forecasts’ tab
3. Click ‘Add value forecast’
4. Select the correct measure and enter the forecast value that the initiative is expected to deliver
5. Once you’ve added your value forecast, you can attach it to the correct key result by selecting the correct objective from the ‘link to key result’ field
6. This initiative will now contribute to the Key Result in the OKRs page
7. You can adjust the estimated date realized if you do not wish for it to be the same date as the delivery of the initiative

If you have set milestones for the initiative, we’d recommend setting these up as separate value forecasts below.

Linking Outcomes to Key Results

In the same way that you can link an Initiative to a Key Result, you can link an Outcome. It’s worth noting that you should only add value forecasts to one or the other. This is because the value forecasts between the two are not linked and you can easily end up doubling your forecast.

If you choose to do this at the Outcome level, then when you look at your Value Forecast, all of the forecast items underneath an Initiative will add up to provide a total for the initiative. If you had 3 outcomes underneath an initiative with a value forecast of 1000 each, you would then see 3000 against the linked initiative in the value forecast.

If you were to add a value forecast against an 3 epics beneath an initiative with the value of 1000 each and had also added a ‘total’ value forecast with the value of 3000 to the linked initiative, you would then see a total value of 6000 against that initiative.

If you have the level of detail to add value forecasts at the outcome level, this is what we would recommend.

You can find more information on the Value Forecasts help page.