Let’s discuss the role of different tools in your organization to understand how they relate to the OKR process and business-as-usual operations.
Which tools you need to run a successful business
Businesses use different tools for different purposes.
| Business Tool | Example | Purpose |
| Task management tools | Trello, Asana, Monday, ClickUp, Jira, etc. | to plan out projects, assign plans, and establish deadlines |
| Function specific tools | CRM (SalesForce, Pipedrive, etc.) or ERP (QuickBooks, Oracle, etc.) | to organize and access our business-as-usual responsibilities |
| Data management platforms | Google Analytics or MixPanel | to monitor business metrics (Key Performance Indicators) |
| OKR tool | Weekdone | to set improvement focused goals and align the teams |
Most companies implement OKRs when they are already using some other tools for KPIs monitoring and task management.
But some teams approach OKR implementation as a way to get organized with no prior experience in managing their workload with digital tools.
Let’s learn how to start using OKRs with other business tools to organize and improve your business.
If your business is young, and you are implementing OKRs as a means to organize chaos, you should know that OKRs are not going to solve all of your problems.
There are different tools and processes that you will implement to become more efficient and organized.
💡 Learn more about different business terms and their place in the goal-setting process.
In broad strokes, here is what you may need: tools for data monitoring, business-as-usual task management, and a tool to set and manage improvement goals (OKRs).
Data Monitoring
- Data collecting platform (if you have a digital product): Google Analytics, MixPanel, HubSpot, or any other that fits your needs.
- Specialized CRM to record and manage your customer data.
- Spreadsheets for manual data tracking.
You can use all of them or one of them depending on your current needs. For early-stage companies, even spreadsheets with manual data input would work.
You need to set up different dashboards to track your health metrics and understand how your work impacts those metrics over time.
Business-as-usual
- Executional tools for managing tasks (to-dos and projects)
- Functional tools for different teams (accounting, sales, marketing will all use different tools to access their business-as-usual responsibilities).
It should come as no surprise that sales and finance teams, for example, would have different tools to manage their day-to-day work. That is because their workflow is different, as well as their deliverables.
Your sales team might be using a CRM system to manage and analyze customer-related data, keep track of conversations, notice trends in customer behavior, analyze outgoing messaging and effectiveness of different communication channels.
Their day-to-day work would be primarily concerned with contacting potential customers, having meetings or calls, and closing more deals. And all of the information required to complete their daily tasks would be stored and organized in a dedicated CRM tool.
Since the finance team has to keep track of the company’s expenses and incoming payments, file tax reports, and predict financial performance, their deliverables would be financial reports, balanced books, and processed payments. For their day-to-day operations, they might be using a tool like Oracle or QuickBooks.
Improvement goals (OKRs)
- Weekdone
This one is easy as you already know how to use it. If you are just starting out, here is a good overview of Weekdone features and how to use them.
There are a few points that are easy to miss, so we’d like to highlight them one more time.
KPIs should not be used as Objectives or Key Results
It is extremely important to understand that OKRs do not replace KPIs. In fact, OKRs and KPIs co-exist and serve different purposes. That is why you are using different tools to manage them: spreadsheet or data analytics platforms for KPIs and dedicated software like Weekdone for OKRs.
You can enter your KPIs to the KPI block on Weekdone as well to communicate the updates on your most important numeric targets throughout the company.
💡 You should read more about KPIs and how they work with OKRs in a dedicated section in our Learning Center.
Check your knowledge with a quick quiz.
Don’t use OKRs to manage business-as-usual
OKRs are not just another way to manage everything that you do. Their main purpose is to better your business by singling out improvement areas for the quarter. You can either identify what needs fixing or brainstorm ideas for doing things in a new way.
💡 Learn how to write good Objectives and Key Results in our Learning Center.
The role of Weekdone in your weekly workflo
Besides OKRs, in Weekdone you can track and manage OKR related activities:
- Add Team Initiatives that will drive OKRs forward
- Assign personal plans and organize progress reporting
- Add Weekly Summaries to cover the most important updates
- Present progress during weekly OKR check-ins
💡 Learn more about using Weekdone in your OKR process.
Weekdone is a platform for OKR goal-setting and high-level reporting, and it is not a task management tool for business-as-usual operations.
The purpose of OKR goal-setting is to change and improve your business situation. And you should use OKR software to set and align these improvement goals, track progress towards them, and communicate top priorities throughout the organization.
This way you can build trust and create an environment for different pieces of information to connect and produce great ideas.