Closing an OKR in Ally.io marks the beginning of the process of reflecting on how well an Objective or Key Result was accomplished. Scores in Ally.io equal the numeric value assigned to this assessment. It is typically based on the progress of the success metric or progress of the key results. Users can also take into account other things (unexpected challenges, for example) and choose a different score.
In this Article:
Closing OKRs: A brief guide on how to close your OKRs for your respective time periods
Scoring OKRs: Learn how Ally.io automatically scores your OKRs
Customizing your scoring: Learn how org admins can customize the default ranges for color schemes
Postponing OKRs: A guide on postponing your OKRs to another time period
Closing OKRs
In order to score your OKRs for your time period, you first have to begin the process of closing them. At Ally.io, we recommend closing all KRs that roll up to an Objective, before closing the Objective. To begin the closing process for your OKRs:
Navigate to the Key Result you would like to close
Select the "More Actions" drop down
Select "Close"
After selecting Close, a side panel will appear where you can begin the scoring process for your OKR.
Towards the end of each time period, you can save yourself from the hassle of closing your OKRs one by one, and close them all in one go. Here's how you can easily close and reflect on your OKRs:
Navigate to your OKR page.
Right above all your OKRs, click on the Close Objectives button. This will open the quick view window.
Start reflecting on your OKRs, and assign a score to the objective if you're closing them. In case you're postponing the OKRs, determine what needs to be cloned, how the progress needs to be cloned while rolling over the unfinished objective.
At the bottom of the quick view window, you'll find a checkbox that's ticked to enable the chain check-in experience of all your objectives. Here, you'll find a summary of how many objectives have been closed, or postponed, and how many are yet to be reflected upon.
You can continue closing, or postponing each objective as you see fit, until you reach the last objective.
Scoring OKRs
Scores in Ally reflect how well an Objective or Key Result was accomplished on a scale of 0-1. It is typically based on the progress of the success metric or key results, but users can also take into account other qualitative factors and manually override the suggested score. At the end of the relevant time-period, a score in the range of 0.6 - 0.8 is a healthy place to be.
Scores are not meant to be a performance review: they typically signal whether the right Objectives were chosen. If an Objective gets consistently low scores, consider re-evaluating its relevance. On the flipside, if you consistently score very high, try challenging yourself with more ambitious goals!
Once you have begun the closing process, you will then be able to assign a score to your objective. The following fields will appear:
Metric*: This is the degree of completion that has been achieved for your OKR and may be represented by a KPI or a percent complete. In this field you will enter your final number.
Overall Status: By default, Ally.io will set your status to closed. In order to successfully close the OKR, this status will need to remain closed.
Score: Based on the above inputs, Ally.io will recommend a score for your OKR, which is a simple calculation of your completed percentage mapped to a score between 0 and 1. You can choose go with Ally's recommended score, or override it with a number of your preference based on the perceived outcome.
Continue working on this in another time period?: This is a field where you can decide whether or not you want to move this objective to another time period in order to keep working on it. This will essentially postpone the completion of this OKR until the next quarter. Select Yes or No based on preference.
Closing Note: This is a note about the OKRs you are closing. At Ally.io, we recommend putting your final assessment of the success/failure of the OKR here and any suggestions you might have for including it in future time periods.
Once all of the fields have been filled out, selecting "Close" will save the update, and the OKR dashboard will update to show you final status, a greyed out OKR, and a number at the end of the row.
Now wait a minute: you might be wondering why a score of 1.0 is orange? After all, you completed 100% of the objective! Well, remember that the ideal OKR should be challenging but attainable. A score of 1.0 may indicate a need for more ambitious objectives.
Added bonus: Users who are on our Enterprise plan can now override the default ranges for the color schemes we have provided for the OKR’s. Here the org admin can configure the scoring ranges against which the color schemes will be mapped
Objectives in Ally.io get scored automatically once all the Key Results under them are scored. The score allocated is obtained by averaging the percentage completion rates of its associated Key Results. However, sometimes the sum is greater (or lesser!) than the parts. Feel free to change the calculated score.
Why would I modify the score? An example.
When you score and close your OKRs, Ally.io automatically generates a score for you. So let's say your Objective was "Secure the next round of funding for my startup" and your KR was "Meet with 10 potential investors for coffee this month."
Standard scoring would look like this:
If you met with 8 investors this month, your score would be .8
If you met with only 2 investors this month, your score would be .2
Seems pretty straightforward, right? Why would you need to modify things?
Well, if you met with 8 investors, and 2 of them ended the meeting early, 4 of them turned you down, and 2 of them not only turned you down, but said that your company idea was stupid and would never work, then you might downgrade your score from a "successful" .8 to a more realistic .3. Yes, you did pretty well with going on meetings, but you were far away from getting funding.
On the other hand, if you met with only 2 investors, and one of them thought your idea was amazing but passed, and the second one agreed to give you $1 million in funding, you could certainly upgrade your score from a "failed" .2 to a "mission accomplished": 1.0.
Some best practices to remember while scoring key results:
Keep the evaluation simple. If your Objective is to increase traffic to your website by 20%, and you increased it by 15%, give yourself a 0.75.
Scores do not equate to your performance. Scores indicate whether the right Objectives were picked or not - they help improve the process. If an Objective is consistently scoring low, maybe it’s not important enough for the team. Contemplate if it is still worth pursuing.
If you are scoring a lot of 1’s, evaluate your Objectives. Are they too easy or too safe? Your goals must make you slightly uncomfortable. 0.7 is a good score!
Postpone Objectives
When a stipulated time period ends (basically, the end of a quarter, or end of a year), and you haven't made the desired progress on your objectives, you can either close them or postpone them to the consequent time period. The chosen objective, its immediate key results, and associated projects (if projects has been enabled for your organization), will be cloned to the following time period.
Should I close or postpone?
Consider this scenario:
Your objective is to increase brand awareness, while the key result is to increase traffic to website by 25% by publishing 10 blog articles.
Your progress is greater than 0
Let's say you've published 5 blog articles, in which case your progress will be greater than 0. The default status will be Closed.
If you wish to continue working on this next quarter, the action performed here is Close and Continue, while the status of the objective is Closed.
If you do not wish to continue working on this for the next quarter, the action performed here is simply Close, while the status of the objective is Closed.
When the progress is anything but 0
If the current progress is anything greater than 0, the status will be Closed by default. This is owing to the fact that there's a substantial amount of progress made, and you might want to close the objective with the progress made at that given point in time. However, you also have the option to continue working on this objective for the subsequent time period to chart progress toward the desired goal.
Your progress is 0
Let's say you haven't published even a single blog article, in which case your progress is 0. The default status will be Postponed.
If you wish to work on this next quarter, the action performed here is Postpone and Continue, while the status of the objective is Postponed.
If you do not wish to work on this next quarter, the action performed here is simply Close, while the status of the objective should be changed to Closed.
When the progress is 0
If the current progress is 0, the status will be Postponed by default. A progress of 0 potentially means you have not started working on the objective, or the work you have done has not moved the needle on the objective. You have the option to either continue working on this for the subsequent time period, or you can choose to drop this completely.
What happens to my progress when I postpone the objective?
As you know, there are two methods of measuring progress in Ally.io, namely — Percent completed, and KPI (success metric). The progress will be reset when it is postponed to the following time period, however 'reset' has a different meaning in the context of Percent completed and KPI.
Percent completed
The progress will be reset to 0. When the objective is postponed to the next time period, you will start working on it from the ground up in terms of the progress.
KPI
The progress will be reset to the current value. For instance, you want to publish 10 blogs, and you have published 5 blogs this quarter. When you postpone this to the next quarter, your starting value will be 5, and not 0.
How should I postpone?
Navigate to the objective you want to postpone.
Click on the check-in symbol towards the right of the progress bar. If the current progress is 0, the status will be Postpone by default. Anything other than a 0, the status will be Closed by default.
You will have an option to Continue working on this in another time period. Choose Yes.
Be default, the current progress will be preserved. If you want to reset the progress, and start afresh, click on Edit. This will open the Clone settings modal, and here are a few configurations you can make in this window — when should it be cloned, what should be cloned, and how should it be cloned.
From the clone settings window, choose the Time Period to which you want to clone this objective. In addition to the objective, if you want the Key Results to be cloned, choose an appropriate option from the dropdown — All the key results or All the key results that are either closed or postponed, or none (if you don't want to clone the key results).
You will have two options to determine how the progress will be cloned — preserve the current progress, or reset the progress.
Preserve the current progress — the current value, starting and target value of
the objective will be cloned
Reset the progress — the current value will be used as the starting value for the
cloned objective in the next time period
The chosen objective, its key results, and projects will be postponed to the next quarter, which implies that it will be cloned automatically to the next quarter.
Provide a reason for postponing, and click on Postpone to finish the process.
