OKR Coach

This concept course offers training in the popular business planning paradigm OKR (Objectives and Key Results). Learners explore the four ''superpowers'' of OKR writing (focus, track, align, stretch) and complete a case study that requires them to refine OKRs to make them more effective.

Roles: instructional design, e-authoring
Tools: Articulate Rise 360

Background and Learning Goals

This course imagines a business that is transitioning to OKRs but is struggling to support every leader in writing effective OKRs. One approach would be to assign them to read John Doerr's Measure What Matters. This classic text is an excellent anothology of OKR case studies but does not explicitly lay out a paradigm for improving OKR writing, despite its considerable length. To solve this problem, my course offers a concise introduction, and also reframes Doerr's  "superpowers'' as a tool for refining OKR writing (not just a raionale for adopting OKRs). After completing this course, learners should be able to evaluate the effectiveness of a given set of OKRs and suggest concrete improvements by drawing on the four  "superpowers." These skills should lead directly to improved OKR writing during quarterly planning processes.

Tools and Instructional Strategy

Articulates Rise 360 was chosen because it offers a balance between rapid development (with clean, adaptive web layouts) along with adequate interactivity. Short knowledge checks support the brief material introducting OKRs and the four ''superpowers.'' The bulk of the course is a case study which calls for evaluating OKRs in a given business context and progressively improving them to reach a final result. The focus on the four ''superpowers'' lent itself to a multiple selection format (rather than multiple choice), which reinforces a checklist approach to evaluating OKRs. The case study focuses on the rollout of an imaginary product, the Duolingo Pillow, which was inspired by a 2016 April Fool's campaign from the makers of the popular language app.