As a startup, setting clear objectives and tracking your progress is essential for achieving your goals.
While specialized OKR software offers advanced features and automation, you might not always be ready to invest in such platforms.
Fortunately, there are several alternatives you can use to implement OKRs and keep your team aligned.
In this article, we share five practical alternatives to OKR software that can help startups and small businesses track their objectives, set goals, and stay aligned.
1. Spreadsheets (Google Sheets, Excel)
If you're looking for a cost-effective solution, spreadsheets like Google Sheets or Excel are great for DIY OKR tracking.
You can easily create custom templates to manage your OKRs and have full control over the process. It’s simple, accessible, and doesn’t require a large investment.
However, while spreadsheets are flexible, they lack automation, advanced progress tracking, and collaboration features that a dedicated OKR platform provides. As your team grows, you may find it challenging to scale and manage your OKRs effectively with this approach.
2. Project Management Tools (Trello, Asana, Monday.com)
If your team already uses project management tools like Trello, Asana, or Monday.com, you can repurpose these platforms to track OKRs.
These tools let you create boards, assign tasks, and monitor progress, which can help you align your team’s objectives and key results.
The downside is that these tools weren’t specifically designed for OKRs. While they are great for task management, they might not provide the deep insights, automation, or real-time tracking that OKR software offers, making it more challenging to keep track of long-term progress.
3. Manual Tracking (Whiteboards, Post-It Notes)
In the early days of your startup, a hands-on approach like using whiteboards or sticky notes can be an easy and effective way to track your OKRs.
This method keeps your goals visible to the whole team and can facilitate collaboration.
However, as your team expands, this approach can become impractical. It’s difficult to track progress over time, and the physical nature of this method means you can’t easily make updates, store data, or review insights. It’s not scalable, and the risk of losing track of key results is high.
4. Internal Wiki or Notion
Many startups use internal wikis or tools like Notion to manage OKRs.
These platforms offer flexibility, allowing you to create custom OKR structures and keep everything organized in one place. They also enable easy collaboration across the team.
While it’s a more structured approach than paper or manual tracking, an internal wiki or Notion doesn’t provide the advanced tracking, reporting, or AI-driven insights that OKR software can offer. You’ll need to manually update your progress, which could become time-consuming as your team grows.
5. Paper-Based OKR Tracking (Notebooks, Printed Templates)
Some teams prefer a physical method of tracking OKRs, such as notebooks, printed templates, or large charts.
This tactile approach can be a straightforward solution for small teams and helps keep goals front-and-center in a visible, easily accessible way.
However, like manual tracking methods, paper-based OKRs lack automation and are difficult to scale. As your startup grows, tracking everything on paper becomes inefficient, and it’s hard to measure long-term progress.
You also lose the ability to track real-time adjustments and insights effectively.
Bonus: Nothing at All (Mental Tracking or Ad-Hoc Slack Messages)
Some startups choose to go without any formal system for tracking OKRs, relying instead on mental tracking or informal communication via ad-hoc Slack messages.
While this approach may work for a while, it lacks the structure and accountability needed to ensure long-term success.
The downside is that as your team grows, it becomes harder to keep everyone aligned and track progress efficiently. Without a clear framework, important objectives can easily be overlooked or forgotten, leading to a lack of focus and misalignment.
This method may be acceptable for a small, early-stage team, but as your startup scales, it’s important to transition to a more formalized approach to goal-setting.
When to Use OKR Software
While DIY methods can work for the early stages of your startup, there comes a point when managing OKRs without specialized software can hold you back. Here are a few scenarios when it's time to switch to dedicated OKR software:
- Your Team is Growing
As your team expands, tracking OKRs manually or in spreadsheets becomes more complex and time-consuming. If you’re struggling to manage multiple OKRs across teams or need a central place to track progress, it’s time to invest in OKR software. This will help keep everyone aligned and ensure consistency across your organization. - You Need Real-Time Tracking
If you need real-time visibility into your team’s progress toward key results, OKR software is a must. Manual methods or project management tools can’t provide the level of tracking or insights that software designed specifically for OKRs offers. With real-time updates, you can make adjustments on the fly and keep your team moving forward. - You Want Automation
The more your startup grows, the more important automation becomes. OKR software helps you automate tasks like progress tracking, reminders, and performance reviews, saving you time and reducing the risk of human error. If you’re manually checking progress and sending reminders, OKR software can significantly improve your workflow. - You Want AI-Powered Insights
Dedicated OKR software often comes with AI-powered features that offer data-driven recommendations for goal-setting, resource allocation, and team engagement. If you want to take advantage of these advanced capabilities to streamline your goal-setting and improve performance, investing in OKR software can provide a strategic edge. - You’re Ready to Scale Your Startup
As your startup moves from small team dynamics to a more complex organization, scaling your OKR process becomes crucial. OKR software provides the tools to scale efficiently, track progress across multiple teams, and ensure everyone stays aligned as your company grows.
If you find yourself in any of these situations, it may be time to consider upgrading to OKR software to streamline your goal-setting and tracking process.
Conclusion
While these alternatives can work in the early stages of your startup, they each come with their own set of limitations.
Whether it’s the lack of automation, difficulty in scaling, or missing advanced tracking features, these methods may not be sustainable as your startup grows.
Investing in OKR software like OKRs Tool can help streamline your goal-setting process, provide deeper insights, and ensure that your team stays aligned with your most important objectives.
If you're ready to take your goal-setting process to a new level, explore the full features of OKRs Tool and see how it can help your startup reach its goals more efficiently. Sign up for free and create your first OKR in 30 seconds.
