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Picture this: you show up to work Monday morning, and you’re assigned four seemingly unrelated tasks by your manager. You have no clue how they’re related to your job, how they help the company make money, or why you’re putting in all this effort. If you’re the manager in this situation, it might feel like your team is working on numerous separate projects without a common goal in mind. We’ve all been there and felt a little lost. Team members aren’t working as a team. They’re just working around each other more than together. This can create a lot of confusion, a lack of motivation, and overall hinder the team’s ability to do good work.
Spoiler alert: there is a better way to get your team working as a whole. It’s time to level up your team’s processes, and it doesn’t have to be complicated. There are several frameworks you can implement to help achieve this goal. Marketing and revenue ops are usually the center of process change in an organization. So, if you’re an operations person, this is for you. Here, we’ll be going over our two favorite frameworks: OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) and EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System). Let’s get into it.
Before we get into the weeds with the two frameworks we recommend, let’s talk about why you need a framework in the first place. Every person on your team works differently. They’re each motivated by different things. Having a steady framework in place can help everyone come together on a common goal, regardless of their work processes or motivations. You want everyone on your team to understand their work tasks, how they relate to each other, and their contribution to the goals of the organization as a whole. Not only will this help to improve team motivation, but also help you stay on track and actually reach your goals.
The framework you choose doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. The most important part of implementing a framework is to get everyone involved and on board. Great businesses win and lose as a team, so your team(s) need to be moving in the same direction. Both of the frameworks we’re going to talk about have a similar ideology. They are both based on effective goal setting and empowering your team to work together cohesively. EOS is geared toward entrepreneurs, while OKRs are more universal, but they can both be used effectively to scale a business. The right one for your team might not be obvious without a trial. We recommend you use whichever framework you choose for at least six months before shifting. You want to give it enough time for everyone to fully understand and utilize it before changing.
OKR stands for “objectives and key results”. Objectives are the goal or what you want to achieve. Key results are the measurable outcomes that show you’ve achieved the objective. OKRs help keep everyone aligned on the organizational goals. The idea is to clearly lay out the goals, how to attain them, and how they will be measured. Usually these are set on a quarterly basis, but can also be set more or less frequently depending on the structure of your organization. We’ll walk you through the basics of this framework, but if you need more help, we recommend reading “Measure What Matters” by John Doerr to get started.
The first step to using the OKR framework is to identify your goal(s). Usually, these come from the top. The executives of the company should have yearly goals for the organization. As this trickles down through the company, each department and team needs to find the ways they can help to reach those achievements. You want to set ambitious but achievable goals based on the needs of your organization. These can be based on anything, including revenue, customer retention, or improving your product. Another important thing to remember is that you don’t want to overwhelm people with countless OKRs. Try to keep it to five or fewer, each with no more than four key results.
The next step is to identify how you’ll reach that goal. Find the issues that are preventing you from reaching that objective. Then you’ll need to identify what would be a success in those areas. This can range from improving churn rate, getting your star rating above a certain point, or improving response time to customer inquiries. Key results aren’t mini-objectives. They’re stepping stones that take you to the big-picture goal.
Let’s look at a few examples of quarterly OKRs:
Objective: Improve product quality
Key Results: Improve star rating to 4.0+, decrease product defects by 15%, and implement feedback from 80% of customer surveys.
Objective: Improve team effectiveness
Key Results: Conduct monthly check-ins with every employee, provide training to improve skills in identified areas, and increase employee engagement scores by 10%.
Objective: Increase revenue
Key Results: Reach 20% increase in sales from last quarter, acquire 100 new customers, increase average order value by 10%.
OKRs are extremely versatile. You can even use OKRs to help you reach goals in your personal life. The key things to remember are to keep the goals challenging but reasonable, as well as measurable. If the key results aren’t measurable, how will you know when you’ve hit them? Need help getting started? Check out our OKR framework template. If you need more guidance, let us know at hello@gomodulr.com.
EOS stands for “entrepreneurial operating system”, but you don’t need to be an entrepreneur for this framework to level up your business. EOS is a complete system for managing a business. It helps clearly lay out your vision and execute it as a strong, cohesive team. This framework also helps you improve processes, establish clear roles and responsibilities, and solve issues at the root. EOS also works to improve communication and accountability within an organization. We highly recommend checking out “Get a Grip” by Gino Wickman before getting started on this framework, as it can be a little overwhelming at first.
To set up your EOS scorecard (the spreadsheet where you’ll track your progress), start by listing out the activities you need to track to reach the organizational goals. You want to be specific, but don’t go crazy. Make sure every metric you’re tracking has a direct, measurable impact on goals. If you’re trying to track fifty different areas and half of them don’t necessarily impact your bottom line, people will only get confused and overwhelmed.
As with OKRs, EOS goals should be built around goals from the executives. Each team can then make its own EOS scorecard with its contributing goals and responsibilities. A great thing about this framework is how simple it is to see every step toward reaching goals. You can measure progress weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly. This framework is highly adaptable to whatever makes the most sense for your business.
Some common areas to track are monthly recurring revenue (MRR), new leads, open deals, closed deals, average sales price, churn rate, and expenses. Put each of these items in the first column. Then track each item by whatever time period you choose (weekly, monthly, etc). For example, if the organization has a goal to increase revenue by a certain amount, each department needs to look at what they can do to make that happen. Sales will make goals around the number of deals they’re closing, and marketing will make goals to get a certain amount of new leads (among other things, of course). This framework is a great way to keep everyone focused on their team goals while also being able to see the contribution to the overarching achievements.
To help get you started, we’ve created a free EOS scorecard template for you to use.
After reading through each of these frameworks, pick one that aligns best with your organization and department. Once you’ve picked a framework, commit to it for at least six months. You need to give it time to see how it’s working. After six months, if you don’t feel like you’re making progress, try the other one. You’ll be amazed at what your team can accomplish when you’re working together and not just around each other. If you want to learn more about how MODULR can streamline your processes contact us at hello@gomodulr.com.
