2022 Beginners Guide to OKR and other Management Tools

Getting promoted and becoming a manager or setting up a business and hiring people is a big step. Being in charge and leading is a daunting proposition. Especially given the fact that very few people receive any leadership training before taking on such a role. Fortunately, there are tools out there that you can use to help you to bridge that knowledge gap and lead your team or employees effectively.

The benefits of goal setting tools

There are many different types of management tools available. All of which can help. But, by far the most important and effective for new managers are the ones that enable them to set clear goals and objectives, communicate them to their team, track progress, and tweak them, as necessary.

Tools that help your employees and team members to better understand what is expected of them. As well as providing you with a way to measure their performance. Enabling you to reward excellence and use the positive results to build your team up and inspire them to perform even better.

That is why this guide focuses on the different kinds of goal (objective) management tools that are currently available.

Objective and Key Results OKR frameworks

The OKR framework is the one that Google adopted during their first year and have continued to use ever since. IBM was also an early adopter. So, there is little doubt that it is effective.

To use it you set objectives that are clearly defined and ideally include the reason you want to achieve them. At the same time, you identify how progress is to be measured. Ideally, you will use hard data to measure the results, rather than something that is a subjective measurement.

Having access to a decent OKR app makes it extremely easy to communicate the objectives to every single team member and outline what they need to be doing to contribute to the achievement of that goal. The best ones enable you to share progress as well. It is also possible to host meetings to discuss tweaking the methods that are being used, update objectives and refine how things are measured. This feature is particularly useful for someone who is managing a remote team. Or one that involves freelance workers who are more likely to come and go.

SMART goal setting

The S.M.A.R. T project management framework has been widely used since the 1980s. It is a mnemonic acronym that stands for Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant Time-bound, which perfectly explains the types of goals you set when using this method.

Locke’s goal setting

This framework is based on 5 principles that the researchers Locke and Latham uncovered after carrying out extensive research. The goals set need to be clear and challenging, but not overwhelming. When setting goals, the complexity of the task needs to be considered. This helps to avoid setting a goal that is perceived as so easy to achieve that people do not fully engage or make much effort. Something that makes failure more likely. You can read about this phenomenon here.

The fifth principle is that everyone in the team needs to commit to achieving them. Teams must be open to accepting feedback and tweaking their approach as needed. The principle of feedback is what makes this approach so powerful, but it must be done in the right way.

If you want to try this approach buy Locke and Latham´s book and use an OKR style package to capture everything and stay in control.

BSQ – Think Big Act Small Move Quick

For quick wins, the BSQ approach is fantastic. You set a big goal, then identify fast and simple things you and your team can do to move the needle quickly.

It sounds great for little projects but it is also extremely effective for achieving big changes. For example, you could have the big goal of building a new SaaS program. You and your team then take that goal and break it down into small goals and set challenging timeframes for each of them. This moves you very quickly towards achieving big things. Tools like ClickUp, Zokri, and Databox can all be used to manage this process effectively.

Equip yourself and your team for success

Becoming a new business leader or manager is daunting. But with the help of the right management tools, you can quickly make a positive impression, demonstrate that you know what you are doing, win team members over and start to get impressive results.

Particularly, when you focus on goal setting and management tools. If none of the above suggestions appeal to you, click here to learn about even more ways to effectively set and achieve goals in a business setting.