Training: OKRs Essentials

Duration and language:

Onsite / online training - 8h - 1 day (including breaks).

Training is provided in English. A Polish version is also available.

Target group:

The training is intended for:

• specialists, members of operational teams,
• change agents, agile coaches, Scrum Masters,
• department/team leaders and managers,
• organization management board,
• members of HR/People teams,
• everyone who wants to improve the quality of cooperation and communication in teams working with goals.

Those who want to grow the organization according to Agile, Lean and Management 3.0 principles.

Training preconditions:

There are no formal prerequisites for participation in the training, however based on our experience we recommend a minimum knowledge in the field of product development, services and project management.

For online training, it is required to be computer literate and meet technical requirements: https://valkir.pl/en/online-training/.

Price includes:

• Preparation and training performed by an expert, accredited Management 3.0 facilitator, Agile and Lean experienced consultant.
• Effective training in a small group - on average 6-12 people.
• Training materials, requisites and a certificate of training completion issued by Valkir Academy.
• Lunch and catering (drinks and snacks). Not applicable to online training.
• Trainer’s travel and expenses (T&E). Not applicable to online training.

Certification:

The price of the authorial training includes certificates of training completion issued by Valkir Academy (in English).

Training description:

What is the OKRs Essentials training?

OKRs Essentials is an authorial program dedicated to people looking for a modern approach to co-creating organizational goals. Goals that inspire, allow you to align and synchronize multiple work streams, and most of all engage colleagues. This program is based on the compilation of knowledge from the accredited Management 3.0 Foundation training and the hands-on experience of our experts as an OKR Consultant, OKR Champion and Agile Coach.

The proper use of the Objectives and Key Results concept, commonly known as OKRs, allows to build transparency of organizational objectives, enabling setting priorities and minimizing the risk of conflict or exclusion of organizational goals, which, paradoxically, still takes place in many organizations. On the other hand, proper following of planning, monitoring and review meetings cadence allows for dynamic adaptation of the scope of activities (initiatives), without redefining the objectives. This minimizes the overhead of creating an endless collection of report slides, increases the teams’ focus on the essence of goals and as a result - enables the achievement of the organization’s business goals.

Are you fed up with dry theories and silver bullets that supposedly would magically solve your problems with achieving organizational goals? Do you want to gain practical knowledge, learn valuable methods and best practices of co-creating and aligning objectives? We have something for you!

Who is behind this?

The concept of OKRs - Objective and Key Results has its roots in the Intel organization, where the concept has been developed and disseminated since 1975 by Andy Grove, based on a modified MBO approach, which was developed even earlier by Peter Drucker. Then John Doerr (participant of Grove’s seminar) applied in 1999 the concept of OKRs, among others, in Google, highlighting that it was OKRs that allowed them to achieve global success and scale from 40 to 50,000 people.

Currently, new OKRs experts and consultants are appearing all over the world, but it is worth noting that not all of them follow the idea of modern Agile Leadership. To fill this gap, in 2015 OKRs also became part of the Management 3.0 concept developed by Jurgen Appelo. OKRs in Management 3.0 are based on 12 principles for building a system of goals and measures in such a way as to engage colleagues and give them a sense of agency.

Training agenda:

1. Restart: (re)definition of the concept of organizational goals
   • Goals means what? Organizational, strategic, tactical, development goals?
   • Change in approach to goals setting over the years.
   • The genesis of the Objectives and Key Results concept.
   • Bird’s eye view of OKRs: Structure, Events, Principles & Values.
    
2. Why are organizations introducing OKRs?
   • Popular organizational pains.
   • How have OKRs contributed to the success of both corporations and startups?
   • Iterative and evolutionary change introduction - The Essence of Lean Change Management.
   • Exercise: How can we model a lightweight business case for the introduction of OKRs?
    
3. OKRs Foundations
   • OKRs and the aspect of Intrinsic Motivation - Meaning, Higher Purpose.
   • Overview and discussion of the 12 principles of the metrics ecosystem according to Management 3.0.
   • Structure, semantics and examples of basic OKRs.
   • Exercise: Identify what is the objective, what is the key result and what is the initiative.
    
4. Design, Planning, Monitoring and Review of OKRs
   • Overview of processes and events: Cadence and iteration in the implementation of OKRs.
   • Exercise: Determining the alignment and potential dependency risks.
   • Do we have any predefined responsibilities/roles in OKRs
   • Exercise: Designing OKRs in the context of participants’ topics and challenges.
    
5. The process of introducing OKRs in the organization (examples)
   • What do we need to make teams independent, enabling co-creation of goals?
   • An exemplary events timeline based on the experience in introducing OKRs.
   • Recommended supporting tools.
   • Dead ends when introducing OKRs.
    
6. Training summary

Training goals:

What are the challenges we address?

• How can I involve people in co-creation of organizational goals?
• How can I design objectives at the organizational level, and how should teams develop them?
• How can I explain the differences between an objective, a key result and an initiative?
• How can I visualize the relationship between objectives at the organizational level?
• How can I design ambitious goals (the so-called stretch), when to do it and when not?
• How can I effectively facilitate objective planning, monitoring, and review sessions?
• How can I analyze what is needed for teams to self-organize within the goals?
• How can I start introducing the OKRs concept in the organization and what dead ends to avoid?

What benefits do you get?

Training enables participants to better understand their organization, the challenges it faces, and to effectively steer its growth. It contains theoretical knowledge and practical methods taken from the idea of leadership, agile management, entrepreneurship, business analysis, psychology of motivation, self-organization, change management and many other topics.

As a result of this training, participants from different areas of the organization will:

• know and understand aspects needed to engaging people into co-creation of transparent and aligned organizational goals,
• acquire skills necessary to apply mentioned methods in practice,
• understand how and why new methods can positively affect their work.

Whenever possible, topics presented during the training are explained through a game/exercise that allows to apply the learned practice or principle in the business context. Exercise or game usually ends with a debrief and discussion on how to adapt the presented practices to the participants’ context.