Objectives & Key Results
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      OKR Retrospectives

      How to wrap up the end of the period and plan the next period.

      Towards the end of the OKR period it is useful for individuals and teams to review the current period, reflect on the learnings and use this to plan ahead for the coming period.

      See the article What to do in the TG App with OKRs at the end of the period which tells you how to use TG to capture the learnings and if you choose to, to carry over Objectives into the next period.

      This article will walk you through the activities to do within teams at the end of the period. 

       

      Retrospectives

      This shows how Retrospectives, Planning and Check Ins fit into the OKR period.  Here the period is a quarter.

      Q1 timeline

      Teams run a retrospective to reflect on the OKRs and then use this information to plan ahead for the upcoming period.

      Why run a Retrospective?

      At a high level, retrospectives enable you to answer several questions about the progress of your OKRs throughout the period:

      • What did we accomplish?
      • What didn’t we accomplish?
      • Where did we make progress?
      • What were the reasons behind our progress
      • If we didn't make as much progress as we planned, why was that?
      • What did we learn?
      • What should we change going forward?

      Pre-work before a Retrospective workshop

      • Consider using Digital Facilitation
        • You can simply ask the team to deliberate on the above questions 

      A suggested agenda for a Retrospective workshop

      • Review the outcomes of the Digital Facilitation
        • Recognize the successes over the past period.
        • Discuss on top level how you have made progress, where the challenges have been and what you have learned. What should you change?
      • Review each Objective in turn using the questions listed in the next section below
      • Capture the learnings for each Objective
      • Summarize the outcomes.
      • Agree next steps and actions with owners.
      • Document the learnings into your Game Plan before you start the planning for the next period.

      Specific questions to review each Objective

      There are two key questions to ask for each Objective.  

      Firstly, did we achieve the Objective and secondly, do we wish to continue the Objective in the next period?

      Both of these questions have a couple of additional questions to ensure you get the most from the retrospective process.

      1. Did we achieve the Objective?


      YES

        • Did the Objective contain the right amount of stretch?
        • Was it the right Objective?
        • Were the Key Results the right ones?
      NO
        • Was it the right Objective?
        • Did we achieve the Key Results?
        • Were the Key Results the right ones?
        • Did we need to change focus during the period?
      For both YES & NO
        • What are the learnings/key takeaways?
        • What are our next steps with this Objective?

        2. Do we want to continue the Objective into the next period?

        YES

          • What will the new Key Results be?
          • What do we need to start doing?
          • What do we need to stop doing?
          • What do we need to continue doing?
        NO
          • What specifically got in the way of us achieving the Objective this time?
          • Did we have a lack of understanding/resources or capability?
          • Do I need to give anybody feedback?
        For both YES & NO
          • What are our next steps with this Objective?

        To add a reflection and/or continue the Objective into the next period, see the article What to do in the TG App with OKRs at the end of the period.