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Viva Goals + Planner Integration - Planners don't show up.
Hello, I am using Viva Goals to track our OKRs, we also use the planner integration to have better tracking. But we have problems connecting viva goals to the planner. It's a little bit random: In the window where you chose your planner the ones I want don't show up. Some did in the past and vanished later. But I can see other planners as well, even new ones. Some of my coworkers have the problems, others not. The permissions on teams, planner, and viva goals are all set to "Owner". On the ones that vanished from selection we didn't change anything. We also tried to remove someone from the team and then added again. Or a planner without a team and viva goals. Does somebody has an idea how to fix it? Best, Erik
Users are unable to add Initiatives or objectives
My Team members in Viva Goals are unable to create initiatives or objectives or key results. They can update them. I've went so far as to explicitly include users under Admin -> OKR Model Dashboard for initiatives (I don't want to have to do that). They still can't create any of the three objects. From what I've read if you are a member of a Team in Goals you should be able to create objectives, key results and initiatives. What could be the problem?Join us for a Customer Event on Executing a Scaled Adoption!
When: Monday, October 30th What does it take to launch Viva Goals to large, complex, multi-tier organizations? What details support a healthy program roll-out at this magnitude? Viva Goals experts Liz Pierce, Jatone Wilson, and Preethi Vemu share their experience launching Viva Goals at Microsoft, what worked (and what didn't), and what the Viva Goals team is working on to simplify this process. We invite all Viva Goals customers to join us next Tuesday, October 30th for a conversation on how to successfully launch or expand Viva Goals adoption at the enterprise level. Click here to registerHow about a new topic group for discussing evolving the use of OKRs?
Now that OKRs have been around for a few years, and many of our clients have tried them in some shape or form (usually after reading a certain book), myself and my teams are being asked questions like "what more can we do with OKRs?" and "how can we gain more value from them?" That got me thinking that perhaps there's an opportunity for a new discussion group. I'd kick it off by asking what experience people have in measuring OKR maturity. This is something we have played with, and I've see the Viva Gols PDF on maturity, but I'd be curious to hear more about others experiences in their attempts to do this. Thanks!I used to think that OKRs were not for everyone...
So my response to a post from BrittHarper90 got me thinking about how my/our method at TBG has evolved over the years regarding that perennial question: how many OKRs should we have? I've worked with clients who called me in after having dived head-first into OKRs and mandated that everyone in the organisation should have their own. This didn't go well for several reasons: The amount of managerial effort needed to review & reset every quarter was huge, so the effort expended/benefit realised equation was way off in the negative People felt "forced" to develop their own OKR that directly aligned with Exec OKRs. The result: Over 1000 people tried to align with the CEO's OKRs. These had next to no value and caused significant anxiety for those who's work was more "transactional" and so didn't have a direct contribution to make to the growth and transformational OKRs the Exec had. The focus was on individual OKRs which did nothing to foster shared goals and stronger collaboration across the organisation. It's worth mentioning that each time I've seen this, it's been HR who have been leading on the OKR implementation. HR definitely have a huge role to play. Still, in my experience, implementations work best when led by those responsible for the strategic planning process across the organisation. If that specific function doesn't exist, then the COO or Chief of Staff are usually well-placed to lead. Based on those experiences, my opinion has since been: have as few OKRs as possible and think of them as a spotlight to shine on what will generate the greatest value for the organisation. Makes sense, right? I always thought so, and for a lot of clients, it works for them. However, I've shifted on this and I'd like to share how and why. Let me introduce to my concept of "hard" and "soft" alignment. Hard alignment is when you have a clear parent and child relationship between two OKRs. You believe that the child OKR (eg. a 3 month OKR) can make a direct contribution towards the parent OKR (eg. often a 12 month OKR focussed on a strategic priority). These are governed by a recognised cadence of check-in and reporting back up to Exec teams. Soft alignment is when you have an OKR which you believe will have a less direct and more general contribution to a strategic priority or theme. The governance around these is less formal and they don't need to be reported back up to Leadership. By making this distinction, I've found that it helps open up OKRs to those teams who are not in a position to directly contribute towards a strategic priority but can still do their bit, albeit indirectly. Lets look at an example: If the organisation had a strategic priority to improve the quality of its service, it could have one or two specific transformational OKRs which will help to drive that (hard alignment). Also, for a team who's work is more transactional like a logistics team, might still have their own ideas about how they could contribute and so could develop a team OKR to test out their ideas but these are in line with a strategic "theme" (big move I like to call them) rather than a specific parent OKR (soft alignment). By making this distinction, I've found that OKRs can be for all, and not at the expense of creating a bureaucratic beast of a process that buckles under its own weight.How do you solve a problem like OKR chaos?
Not all OKR implementations have the luxury of starting with a blank sheet of paper. Now that OKRs have been around for a while, it's no surprise that progressive managers and leaders have started to make use of them. While it's great to see this energy and enthusiasm, we end up with many variations in how they are being used, and the organisation ends up with no one "speaking the same language" when it comes to OKRs. Inevitably, this results in inefficiencies, and people can start to lose faith as they are not seeing the mystical benefits some sell OKRs as having. This is exactly the scenario I have recently been working within a large multinational, so I thought it might be useful to share some reflections on the experience. This “organic” growth of OKRs over the period of a couple of years had meant that leadership were now faced with a key decision: do we allow this to continue as is, or do we go all-in and invest in making OKRs part of our organisational operating system? Their brief to me was to find out what they already had, assess their level of maturity, report on the value OKRs were delivering thus far and provide them with options for how they could gain more value from them if they wanted to. Over a series of interviews and focus groups, along with an analysis of OKR artefacts and cultural data, I built up a very interesting picture which revealed some great insights: Everyone I spoke to was in support of using OKRs for defining and tracking transformational goals Varying levels of maturity existed. This was based on a wide range of factors ranging from how the OKRs themselves were written to agile leadership & culture, routines and systemisation. Those areas with the highest maturity scores were the ones with the strongest routines (“heartbeat” as they call it) The lack of an OKR system was making tracking & reporting harder than it needed to be and goal data more difficult to access There were attempts to work cross functionally but this was made difficult by the lack of a consistent OKR approach. Cross-functional working was flagged in engagement data as a major opportunity for improvement Some elements of their aspired culture were now at odds with what they wanted to see OKRs help to stimulate – a tradition of excellence and perfectionism didn’t sit well with rapid experimentation and iteration There was widespread confusion about how OKRs fit into the landscape of what goal-setting and performance-tracking methods were already in place, such as MBOs, KPIs, scorecards etc. As for the value seen from OKRs after up to a couple of years use (in some areas), this was reported as: Clarity – a rise by 11% in 6 months in people reporting having an understanding of what’s expected of them Connection – a rise by 10% in 6 months in people reporting how closely they feel their work contributes to company priorities Discipline of execution helps to keep up momentum Outcome focus developing Focus maintained on value-building activity Improved ability to pivot Cross-functional working beginning to improve So, plenty of opportunities to optimise their use of OKRs further and clearly, there’s the energy to do that. With this in mind, my recommendation was to focus on designing the right OKR framework and governance to help support and guide the whole organisation. I can stress how essential this is. Even when working with smaller businesses, it was part of our approach to help them develop a “Playbook”, so everyone had the same understanding and approach. In a larger and more complex enterprise, something more comprehensive than a Playbook is required but the fundamental need is exactly the same. Without this, you end up with exactly the same challenges as I listed from 1 to 6 above, and more. While the temptation might be to form a small working party to do the design work swiftly, my guidance was to take an inclusive approach to it by inviting input from those in the areas who have already been using OKRs. They have built up experience and learned from doing so and it’s both important not to waste this and for them to feel like they are contributing to the design, as the final framework is likely to require them to change some of their working approaches to OKRs. While this will mean that the design work will take a little longer, it is time well spent as it’s likely to help enrol more support for the changes it will require some to make. So, have you encountered the “OKR governance” challenge? If so, what did you find, and how did you work through it?Identifying biases in your goal setting process
Outside of my day job as a Viva Goals Advisor, one of my passion projects is related to finance. For the past 5 years, my friends and I meet quarterly to talk about finance topics. This year we have been exploring cognitive biases and how it affects our behaviours and decisions as investors. As I prepared for our next meetup in September, I realised how some of these biases might show up in an organisation’s goal setting processes, hampering our ability to full execute on the objectives we set out. Biases are simply mental shortcuts, unconscious and automatic processes we use to make decisions quickly. Some biases might show up when launching a goal setting framework like OKRs, and others during the execution phases. Here are some examples: 1. Status Quo Bias Definition: Resisting change due to fear of loss or attachment to the familiar, a preference to leave things as they are. Example: When launching a new goal-setting process like OKRs, status quo bias might manifest as resistance to adopting the new framework because the team is comfortable with their existing goal-setting methods even when there is a need to improve strategic alignment and transparency in the organisation. Tip: Change is hard! Frame the change in a way that highlights potential gains and benefits rather than losses. A change management process like Prosci’s ADKAR model can be used to help employees understand why the change is needed. 2. Confirmation Bias Definition: Seeking information that confirms existing beliefs while ignoring contradictory evidence. Example: Imagine a team is working on setting key results for a specific objective. They have an idea of how they want to achieve their goals and start looking for information that supports their idea. They focus on data and examples that confirm their initial beliefs while ignoring information that might suggest a different approach could be more effective. Tip: Encourage your teams to actively seek different perspectives and data that challenges their initial assumptions. Avoid groupthink (Another bias). 3. Hyperbolic Discounting Definition: Prioritizing short-term rewards over long-term gains. Example: A team might decide to prioritize executing on key results or initiatives for quick wins and that provides immediate satisfaction even if initiative does not contribute as much to their long-term objectives. Tip: The dopamine hit we experience when we achieve a goal can be a good catalyst for motivation, encourage teams to set key results and initiatives with both short and long-term wins to fully achieve the objectives set. 4. Sunk Cost Fallacy Definition: The tendency to continue investing resources in a failing strategy or endeavour due to the resources already committed, rather than objectively evaluating its viability. Example: In a goal setting process sunk cost fallacy could lead a team to stick with a failing project simply because they have invested a lot of time and effort into it. For instance, if a team's OKR involves launching a new product feature that is not meeting user needs, instead of pivoting and reallocating resources they might continue working on it to recoup their investment. Sunk cost fallacy causes the team to make decisions based on past investments rather than evaluating the current situation objectively. Tip: It is important to regularly assess the progress of your goals and make data-driven decisions. With Viva Goals, you get real time data on the progress of your OKRs with our robust data integrations. If an objective is not yielding the expected results, it is time to pivot. 5. Anchoring Definition: The tendency to rely heavily and make decisions based on the first information we have, using it as an ‘anchor’ or point of reference to evaluate any new information we receive. Example: In a goal-setting process, anchoring bias might occur when a team member suggests a specific target, like a percentage increase in sales, during discussions. Other team members might adjust their targets around this initial suggestion, either raising or lowering their goals based on the anchor, rather than independently evaluating what is realistic. Tip: While setting key results, encourage the team to independently produce their own target suggestions before discussing them as a group. This can help prevent the team from fixating on the first suggestion and allow for a more diverse range of targets that are well-considered and aligned with the objective. Just as biases can impact our financial decisions, they can also impact an organization's ability to effectively execute its objectives. They are mental shortcuts we often take unconsciously, so awareness is key. Recognize biases, challenge assumptions, seek diverse perspectives, and regularly assess progress when setting goals for your organization.Viva Goals Webinar -- What to do in your first 30-days in Viva Goals!
Hey I'm Jake Singer, Viva Goals expert on the Viva Goals team, and next week on August, 23rd at 8am PST/11am EST I'm going to be walking through some tactical actions you should take in Viva Goals in the first 30 days to put you on the road to successfully leveraging the software! Want to learn more? Register here: https://aka.ms/AugustOH/socialNew on the blog: 3 things you need to do in your first 30 days of Viva Goals
If you're just getting started with Viva Goals, you might be wondering exactly where to begin. We recommend the following three things: 1) Get to know the Viva Goals software 2) Learn about Goals and OKRs 3) Enter your first Goal View our blog post to see resources that will show you exactly how to get up to speed on each topic quickly and easily. 3 things you need to do in your first 30 days of Viva Goals (microsoft.com)
