Are you struggling to align your team around the same set of goals?
As a startup founder, you’re balancing many tasks - ensuring your product is on track, acquiring customers, and growing your team.
One of the most critical aspects of your success is keeping everyone focused on the same objectives.
So, you might be wondering:
Do all your team members need their own OKRs, or should the focus be solely on team and company OKRs?
In this article, we’ll break down the pros and cons of both approaches and help you decide whether personal OKRs are necessary in your startup, especially if you're still in the early stages of growth.
Why OKRs Matter for Your Startup
Before diving into whether each team member should have their own OKRs, let’s first cover why OKRs are essential for your startup.
OKRs are a goal-setting framework that helps you define and track your objectives and key results, ensuring that your team is aligned and working toward the same priorities.
For a startup, alignment and focus are essential
OKRs help you keep everyone, from founders to new hires, on the same page. They allow you to set measurable goals, track progress, and make sure that everyone is contributing to the same vision.
But should you have company-wide OKRs or individual ones?
Let’s explore.
Team and Company OKRs: The Core of Alignment
In the early stages of your startup, company and team OKRs should be your primary focus.
These OKRs are the big-picture goals that align everyone across departments toward achieving your mission. With a small, fast-moving team, it’s important to stay laser-focused on a few key objectives to avoid spreading yourselves too thin.
Why focus on team and company OKRs?
- Alignment: Keeps everyone focused on the same big-picture objectives.
- Clarity: Reduces distractions by setting clear, measurable outcomes.
- Collaboration: Encourages cross-departmental teamwork and communication.
Example of Company OKRs:
Objective: Achieve product-market fit
- KR1: Reach 500 active users
- KR2: Achieve 80% retention rate
Example of Team OKRs (for the Marketing Team):
Objective: Increase brand awareness
- KR1: Increase social media engagement by 30%
- KR2: Generate 200 leads from content marketing in 3 months
By aligning your team and company around these common OKRs, you set yourself up for success with clear focus and shared accountability.
What About Personal OKRs for Team Members?
Personal OKRs can be a great tool for tracking individual performance and growth.
However, at the early stages of your startup, introducing personal OKRs might not be necessary. Instead, it’s better to concentrate on team-wide OKRs to make sure everyone is aligned with the broader goals.
So when do personal OKRs become useful?
- When your team is growing: As your startup expands, personal OKRs can provide more structure and accountability for individual team members.
- For performance tracking: You’ll be able to measure specific contributions and provide feedback.
- To foster individual growth: OKRs can align personal goals with the overall vision of the company, helping employees see how their work contributes to the startup's success.
If you’re a small team, you may not need to set personal OKRs right away. Instead, your team should focus on collaborating to hit company-wide OKRs and then gradually introduce personal OKRs as your team scales.
When Should Personal OKRs Be Introduced?
Personal OKRs become more relevant as your startup grows and your team matures.
Once you’ve passed the early stage of getting product-market fit and have started scaling your team, it’s time to consider individual OKRs.
When to introduce personal OKRs:
- As the team grows: Once your team size surpasses 5-10 people, personal OKRs can help bring clarity to individual responsibilities and goals.
- When focusing on specific performance: As team members specialize in their roles, personal OKRs can help them take ownership of their tasks and contribute more effectively to the company’s objectives.
- For career development: Personal OKRs can help team members focus on personal growth areas and skill development aligned with the company’s needs.
Example of Personal OKRs:
Objective: Improve customer onboarding experience
- KR1: Increase onboarding completion rate to 85%
- KR2: Conduct 5 user research sessions
- KR3: Achieve 80% customer satisfaction score during onboarding
As you can see, personal OKRs help individuals hone in on specific outcomes tied to the overall success of the team and company. But, until your team is large enough to benefit from individual OKRs, stick with team and company-wide goals.
Conclusion
For most startups, focusing on team and company OKRs should be your priority.
These OKRs ensure that everyone is aligned on your most important goals. Personal OKRs can be introduced later on when your startup has grown, allowing individuals to align their own goals with the larger company objectives.
Personal OKRs aren’t a must from the beginning - what matters is that you’re all working together toward the same shared goals.
Start simple, focus on the big picture, and when your team is ready, introduce personal OKRs to empower individuals to contribute more meaningfully to the success of your startup.
Ready to align your team with OKRs? Start today with OKRs Tool - designed for startups like yours to help you set, track, and achieve your goals with simplicity and efficiency.
