What is an OKR Software and How to Use It

30 of August, 2022

As an organization grows in size and ambition, so does the need to keep goals organized and people accountable to them. This is where the idea of the OKR system comes in. But, what is an OKR Software? OKR stands for Objective, Key Results. Around these three words, a system was ready to set and reach business goals. In an organized, quantifiable, trackable and obtainable way. Keep reading and find out the origins of this system.

Origins of the OKR system

Entrepreneurs dream to change the world with new products and services. Their inspired thinking attracts other people to believe in their dreams. But building a business takes more than a great idea. It takes the careful orchestration of lots of individual instruments. Sales, finance, product development, human resources, and leadership all have to work together towards shared goals.

The idea of OKRs came from the computer chip company Intel. In the 1970s the setting and monitoring of goals became paramount to Intel’s growth. The company implemented a system where they set a goal (objective) and defined three or four different ways (key results) to achieve the goal. Then, they’d set a timeline and responsible parties and monitor progress. The framework was simple enough to replicate. Soon, tech companies like Google, LinkedIn and Microsoft were setting their own OKRs too.

OKR Software: Easily track your objective, key results

At first, the objectives and key results were just written on a white board and copied onto a paper form. But soon, OKR software was developed. The software allows collaboration on setting the OKR. But more importantly, manages the timelines and responsibilities of the people who are driving towards the key requirements. The software allows any person on the team to see where efforts are moving forward or stalled. 

For example, if your objective is to improve diversity, inclusion and belonging in your organization, you would create three or four ways to move towards that goal. Let’s select salary equity as our first priority. Your key requirement would be: In one year, achieve pay parity so people get the same salary for the same job, no matter their gender, orientation or cultural background. This KR would be assigned to a person, likely in the HR department, who takes charge of the key requirement. 

Key requirements need to be quantifiable and easy to verify. In our example, the responsible person has a year to gather data on all salaries, see where there are inequalities and remedy them. Over the year, they can update the larger team as they progress every month or every quarter, as agreed to by the team at large. 

The best OKR Software in the market

In a large organization with multiple OKRs established for the year, it may be hard to accurately keep track of progress. This is where OKR software becomes indispensable. Sesame’s task tracking software makes it easy to centralize tasks, send alerts to remind team members of milestones, and see status immediately. Cataloging and updating objectives is easy to input and keeping key results organized and tracked by Sesame’s project tracking feature.