Align OKRs with a Gallery Walk

After running an initial OKR setting session, but before teams start checking in, it’s important to refine & align those early OKRs.

An OKR Gallery Walk is a variation on the OKR Festival, and one of my favourite ways to align OKRs in person after the initial drafting workshops.

Combining elements of a traditional Gallery Walk and a more structured “Shift & Share” I run these in a speedy, informal variation and slower more structured one depending on the audience and the time available.

Here’s how.

Overview

• Prep: 30 min
• Workshop: 30-60 minutes
• Teams: 2-8
• People: 5-50

Preparation

Before the event, get each team to transfer their OKRs from their drafting board and into a shared document, perhaps using this OKR sharing template.

This creates a bit more structure and forces teams to make a few more adjustments and choices to the wording and targets, what makes the cut: what’s actually an objective, key result, health metric, or activity worthy of their attention in this cycle.

Print these “posters” in the biggest format possible with the largest type you can manage. Remember, we’re turning these into works of art worthy of display in a gallery. Also, it’s useful if participants can read them from several feet away and make a decision about whether to approach and read more. I recommend at least A3 but A4 will work in a pinch.

You can also invite teams to get creative and design their own poster to show off their draft OKRs. Teams may decide to include health metrics, dependencies, activities and/or other info but the focus should be on the OKRs.

Hang them up on the walls of a large room with plenty of space to move around and gather in front of them.

Invite as many colleagues as you can, certainly the members of each team but you can invite others as well. Participants don’t have to have OKRs displayed in order to offer valuable feedback! Everyone can be a critic.

The fast, informal version

Invite participants to wander around the room and take a look at each poster, stopping to chat with others along the way.

When everyone has had a chance to look briefly at all the posters, ask them to go and stand in front of the one which they find most “stimulating”. Perhaps it makes them excited, giddy, anxious, furious. Whatever emotions it elicits, tell them to go stand by it. They’re “voting with their feet”.

Look around the room. Starting with the largest cluster of people, ask them why they’ve paused here. What are they responding to? How have they interpreted this poster? What does it mean to them?

After a few minutes, move on to the next largest group, and so on until the feedback starts to feel repetitive or you run out of time.

Give poster owners a few minutes to capture any notes at the end. You can also invite reflections from the groups. What common issues or strengths did they see? What questions came up repeatedly? What was missing? What was unnecessary?

This version focuses conversation on the most controversial/interesting sets of OKRs and doesn’t necessarily give feedback to every team. The upside is it’s quick and easy to run and gets people up and moving around.

The more structured version

In this version, identify a team host or “listener” from each team to stand next to their poster. Their job is NOT to present or explain their OKRs but simply to be present and listen to the discussion as each group comes through. Split the remaining participants into as many groups as there are posters. Randomise groups across teams to create the most diverse conversations possible.

Decide how long to spend on the exercise, subtract 10 minutes for a debrief at the end and divide the remaining time by the number of posters.

Send each group to a random poster and explain that they should do the following:

1. Spend 1-2 minutes reading each set of OKRs in silence.
2. Ask the “host” any clarifying questions
3. Spend a few minutes discussing the OKRs with each other (while the host listens and takes notes).

Keep a careful eye on the clock, meander as required to help the conversation flow and at the end of the alloted time, get everyone’s attention and invite the groups to rotate while the host remains.

Tips & variations

• Play music (at low volume) to enhance the party/conversation vibe
• Bring wine & cheese to enhance the art-opening vibe! 😉
• Use the hands up for silence technique to rapidly bring the group back to focus when it’s time to switch groups
• Teams can rotate who plays “host” to give everyone a chance to see other team’s OKRs.

Questions for discussion

Here are a few questions groups of “critics” can use if the conversation gets stuck. You can even print these as well and put them around the room as reminders.

1. Are the OKRs clear on their own with out explanation?
2. Are the key results truly measurable outcomes with numerical targets?
3. Do key results have baseline measures where possible (e.g. current values)?
4. Are the objectives inspiring and concrete?
5. Can anything be made more concise?
6. Do you see any dependencies or issues this team will have delivering these?
7. Do they feel stretchy and challenging but not impossible?