OKRs can and will transform your organisation when implemented properly, but many people are confused on how to get started and what pitfalls to avoid. This presentation will give you an easy-to-understand introduction of things to consider, and our top tips, from experience gained implementing OKRs for thousands of people.

1. Practical Tips -
Getting Started
with OKRs
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2. More about
Just3Things
The things we’ll cover today
Top 5 tips for
a successful
rollout
Practical
examples:
good + bad
What OKRs
are and why
use them
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3. What will I learn?
OKR projects will fail if not approached correctly
from the start.
Not another management fad - can transform your
org so everyone is clear on strategy and focused on
value creation.
Drive change, growth, innovation by being ambitious
in your OKR programme.
Not quite as easy as it seems on paper...but not as
hard as you might think!
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4. What OKRs are
and why use
them
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5. Meet Bob
Product Director at Ethical Homeware About Ethical Homeware
● Small enterprise organisation that creates
and sells ethical and sustainable furniture.
● They have decided to focus on their digital
offering as consumer demands have
changed and physical showrooms are
closed.
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6. “ 40% of global CEOs cite
failure to align as the single
greatest challenge to
executing strategy, and yet
over 90% of employees don’t
understand their company’s
goals or the part that they
need to play in order to
achieve them
Harvard Business Review 2017
What led Bob to OKRs?
● A need to align effort to the new direction.
● Historically the company has focused on output as success. Bob saw
the need to focus on outcomes.
● Product and Tech have been working for a while in cross functional
teams. There’s a need to demonstrate the effectiveness of this to the
rest of the org.
● Everyone is working remotely. More transparency is needed to
reduce duplication and give context.
● Previously goals were only reviewed once a year - in these uncertain
times there is a need to increase cadence of review.
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7. What are OKRs?
Strategies:
Longer term strategic pillars of the
company.
Example Strategy:
Become a digital first
company.
Example OKR:
O: Provide the same great
service to our loyal customers
digitally.
KR: Increase existing customer
online spend by 25%.
Example Initiatives:
1: Simplify log on process.
2: Simplify check out feature.
Objectives:
A description of what the team want to
achieve.
Key Results:
Success measures of the Objective - metric
measures of business value.
Initiatives:
What the teams will deliver to achieve the
OKR.
Long-term
outcome
Short-term
action
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8. Bob has established a compelling case
for OKRs… what’s next..?
Think Big. Start Small!
● Product, tech and marketing teams to pilot.
● Leadership team will craft top-level OKRs first.
● Team leads will use this information to create their own.
● Agreed launch in one month, giving time to plan and
prepare.
● Internal Comms being prepared to engage and explain to
trial group.
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9. Practical
examples:
good + bad
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10. Bob runs a session
with the Leadership
Team to create top-
level H1 OKRs
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11. Grow the business
This is too vague
Increase CLTV on digital sales
This has a lot of jargon
Maintain uptime of website
This is a KPI
Increase revenue from digital
platforms
Provide the same great service to our
loyal customers digitally
Personalise the customer journey to
provide a seamless omni-channel
experience
Objectives
Bad examples: Better examples:
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12. Launch new branding with PPC
campaign
This is a task
Maintain website uptime
This is a KPI
Increase in-app referrals
This is a lagging metric
Objective: Increase Revenue from digital
platforms
Key Results
Bad examples: Better examples:
Objective: Increase Revenue from digital
platforms
Increase click through rate on
digital marketing from 5% to
20%
Increase app downloads from
100 per month to 1000 per
month
Increase average website
session time from 60 to 120
seconds
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13. ● Team generated VS dictated by the
Exec Team
● Limiting work in progress VS
completely full roadmap
● Initiatives dictated by the OKRs VS
OKRs dictated by current initiatives in
progress!
● As much team autonomy as possible
VS dependencies like wading through
treacle
Initiatives - things to consider
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14. Top 5 tips for a
successful
rollout
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15. We checked in with
Bob again at the end
of H1 to see how the
roll out went...
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16. Bob had LT agreement to promote psychological
safety to increase innovation
● Everyone agreed that there would be no blame if things
didn’t work and that teams would record their learnings.
● There was a desire to make employees feel safe to
experiment and try new things.
BUT.. they didn’t decouple from performance
appraisals!
● People played it safe to protect bonuses/promotions.
● Undermined safe culture being promoted.
● Restricted the power of OKRs to drive change and
create value.
Keep personal performance separate from business OKRs
Tip 1
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17. Bob had defined a working structure and where to
go for support
● Defined Roles and Responsibilities - who is creating,
updating, reporting on etc.
● Identified OKR champions to promote internally and to
support those that need it.
BUT.. he didn’t agree company-wide cadence, e.g.
fortnightly or a review of OKRs
● OKRs were not seen as the source of truth.
● LT started turning to KPI pack again undermining
credibility of OKRs.
● People started losing interest.
Regularly review OKRs and establish a company-wide cadence
Tip 2
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18. Bob understood that communication is key
● Comms launch explaining why OKRs can help everyone
(not just the LT) to drive engagement.
BUT.. he didn’t think about how to continually
communicate
● Lack of praise and recognition for good efforts.
● Initial burst of excitement quickly falls off a cliff and
everyone drifts back to old behaviours.
● New starters not onboarded onto OKR programme.
● People feel like they are wasting their time on OKRs.
Communicate, communicate, communicate!
Tip 3
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19. Bob made OKRs Accessible
● OKRs were hosted on a platform to make them
transparent to all (even those outside product and
tech).
● Made it easier to say no to new pet project that doesn’t
fit in with OKRs.
BUT.. he didn’t clearly demonstrate priorities
● One of the LT priorities changed, wider teams weren’t
made aware of this.
● Confusion on key priorities led to dependencies and
working on the wrong things.
Make OKRs transparent
Tip 4
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20. Bob got the LT to commit to value-creation OKRs
● Everyone bought into the concept of cross-functional
teams owning value-stream style OKRs.
● They agreed to work toward OKRs which create value
for the business rather than within department OKRs.
BUT they ran the budgeting process per department
and LT meeting as a round-robin of updates per
department
● Departments started vying for budget for internal
projects not cross functional OKR activity.
● Therefore the focus shifted back to outputs rather than
outcomes.
Work toward a culture of outcome focused OKRs
Tip 5
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21. Key takeaways
It takes time, effort and patience. Be prepared to fail and try
again. One size does not fit all!
● OKRs should be collaborative - set the context with
outcomes and encourage team members to come up
with initiatives and teams to share OKRs:
○ Encourages engagement
○ Establishes accountability
○ Reduces duplication
○ Reduces silos
● A fluid plan needs to be created at the start of your
journey to maximise success, with regular reviews and
adjustments where necessary.
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22. Why
Just3Things?
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23. OKRs rolled out to OVO.
J3T software development started
within OVO.
2014
J3T software rolled out to 2,000
employees of OVO
2015
OKRs help OVO to become UK
Unicorn 2017
J3T launches as separate business
2018
Current clients include NatWest
Group, Deloitte, PayPoint, Travis
Perkins
2021
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24. Success Story: OVO
● 10% increase in productivity
● £3M saved in operational costs
● Moved from 172nd to 20th in the
Sunday Times Best Companies
survey.
● 91% of users voted that they felt
their work was a valuable
contribution to the organisation
● OVO has now acquired the Retail
arm of SSE, taking customer
numbers to over 5m, employees
from 2000 to over 6,000 and
establishing OVO as the second
largest UK Energy company.
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25. Just3Things
Set the direction:
● Share your strategic vision
● Align OKRs and activity
● Clear accountability
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Focus on what matters:
● Prioritise the 'top three things'
● Break down silos
● Increase productivity
Track, learn and adapt:
● Quickly update progress of OKRs
● See what's working and what isn't
● Reduce duplicated efforts

26. J3T aligns teams and activities across platforms
Our future plan is to provide an open marketplace for integrations

27. Get in Touch!
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