Tracking OKRs provides perspective on goal alignment during the planning process. Keeping track of progress toward your company goals serves as a motivating factor to achieve those goals while also uncovering which focus areas are falling short.
We surveyed Coda employees to learn how they were doing with the OKR process, and we got some interesting results. Over 50% of employees referenced their OKRs at some point during the last quarter. What was surprising was that a cohort of employees never looked at their OKRs—nearly 20%!
Why was this happening? Well, OKRs can feel like a disruption to daily tasks and work. When asked, 50% of Codans surveyed described their relationship with OKRs with this emoji response: 😐.
With the right adaptation, OKR methodology for planning and tracking are a natural extension of everything a team does—and the OKRs themselves serve as motivation for forward momentum. And that’s why Coda has invested in making the process transparent via data visualizations, accessibility to other tools we work with, and increasing visibility to progress with dashboards.
Here are four implementation tips and templates to show what we mean.
Track team goals—in one place.
Our central OKR docs are generally inserted into the staples of everyone’s schedule with
, including one-on-one and team meetings. We keep them straightforward with this template: two connected tables that measure progress on both objectives and key results. Then, we customize the tables using Coda’s building blocks, like views, charts, and Packs, to design a tracking system highlighting what’s important to that team or individual. Copy the team goals template from
Visualization plays a significant role in how people understand data. Timelines, otherwise known as Gantt charts, provide digestible snapshots of your timetable and signal when an OKR is “over.” And with a bit of conditional formatting, colors can quickly communicate when a project is overdue and highlight opportunities to adjust the plan. You can learn more about how our timeline template works with OKRs
Revamp our job descriptions to take into account DEI best practices
Plan virtual offsite.
Jul 1
Jul 8
Jul 15
Jul 22
Launch support chatbot.
Revamp our job descriptions to take into account DEI best practices
Plan virtual offsite.
Tasks
1
Title
Start date
End date
Status
Title
Start date
End date
Status
1
Launch support chatbot.
7/3/2019
7/8/2019
Done
2
Revamp our job descriptions to take into account DEI best practices
7/8/2019
7/19/2019
Active
3
Plan virtual offsite.
7/13/2019
7/17/2019
Pending
There are no rows in this table
Connect OKRs with everyday work.
Connecting OKRs to the other tools your team uses daily, like Jira, creates an instant feedback loop and adds visibility for any stakeholders who happen to peek into the doc.
For example, the template below pulls issues into a table with Coda’s Jira Pack and connects those issues to your OKRs in the goals table—allowing you to track your work with an automatically-updating progress bar. Learn more about seeing your
KPI, or key performance indicator, is an OKR-adjacent framework focused on short-term goals. Because OKRs are generally stretch goals, pairing OKRs with KPIs' granular measurements might show how much your team is genuinely accomplishing. Learn more about monitoring your short-term goals with