Taking yourself out of the day-to-day running of your firm for even a short period of time to focus on your future strategic objectives can sometimes seem like a dream and not reality.

You are likely too busy fire-fighting -  dealing with your team and client deadlines to even think about the important strategic priorities of your firm.

But while setting strategic objectives might be difficult, it is invaluable to future of your firm.

In his book ‘Measure What Matters’ John Doerr explains OKRs. His passion is based on their simplicity and power to help teams identify and accomplish their goals.

OKRs stand for Objectives and Key Results. A simple goal setting system that provides a structured way for teams and individuals to set and achieve their goals.

OKRs help to create clarity, focus, accountability, alignment and momentum to deliver real results. And crucially, they translate strategy into quarterly manageable steps towards executing strategy.

OBJECTIVE – This is the WHAT – What are you wanting to achieve?

The objective should be significant, concrete, action-oriented and inspiring.

The objective should be hard; the point is to push yourselves as a team. As Doerr writes: “When properly designed and deployed, the objective is a vaccine against fuzzy thinking — and fuzzy execution”

KEY RESULTS – This is the HOW – How you are going to achieve your objective?

Key results should be specific and time-bound, aggressive yet realistic, measurable and verifiable.

They enable you to set measurable milestones to monitor your progress.

Used correctly, OKRs will help you work out the objectives of your firm and execute them.