I’m a fan of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) when they are done right. But there’s often one thing missing. Research [1] shows that bringing a visual component to goal-setting significantly improves your outcomes. That’s why we started to use “Visual OKRs”; adding images to each critical #OKR.
It’s difficult to align teams around a common vision. Visual aids, doodles, diagrams, infographics, photos, images, drawings, cartoons, videos, or storyboards are a great way of conveying a vision to teams. And to stakeholders.
Ambitious Goal-Setting
“Visual OKRs” means adding a visual aid to an OKR. Visual aids supplement words with pictures, charts, graphs, or other visual information. They are important because they help teams understand and remember the ambitious goal. Increase interest. And act as reminders for stakeholders and team members.
In my teams, we add a visual aid to every critical OKR. It makes the whole process more fun and supports visual thinking.
What are OKRs
OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) is a method for defining and tracking objectives and their outcomes [2]. Objectives are ambitious goals. And Key Results measure progress towards the Objective. OKRs method is a collaborative goal-setting tool used by companies, such as Google [3], to set ambitious goals with measurable results.
A photo makes the objective more tangible, understandable, and rememberable for everyone.
Attach an image to the most critical OKRs that you think would benefit from having a visual aid. Sometimes this is an architecture diagram, a doodle, a cartoon, or a photo of something that is relevant to the ambitious objective, which you are trying to achieve as a team.
Stretch for Amazing
Your ambitious goals should be understandable and rememberable to everyone. So as you are writing down your OKRs, make sure to include a visual to go along with it.
Visual OKRs motivate our team to excel by doing more than we had thought possible.
Let me know what you think about visual OKRs? How does your team strive to achieve ambitious goals?
References
[1] Research done by the U.S. Department of Labor (OSHA Office of Training and Education) showed that “three days after an event, people retain 10% of what they heard from an oral presentation, 35% from a visual presentation, and 65% from a visual and oral presentation.” (Glebas 2009, “Directing the Story”, Elsevier Inc.)
[2] Google Ventures Startup Lab | GV partner Rick Klau covers the value of setting objectives and key results (OKRs) and how this has been done at Google since 1999. Video: https://youtu.be/mJB83EZtAjc
[3] Doerr, 2017. “Measure what Matters”. Penguin Random House, UK
