Measure What Matters
Takeaway:
Not satisfied with the direction of a project? Looking to move your school to a new direction? Have a weakness that must be overcome? Then welcome to the world of OKRs.
Guiding Questions:
How do goals and OKRs differ?
What role does having objectives play in school improvement?
Why are key results so important to OKRs?
How can you use OKRs to improve learning at your school?
Summary:
John Doerr is a former Intel guy who helped fund Google back in their start up days. He learned a lot from his days at Intel, but his greatest lesson was about OKRs.
Objectives and key results (OKRs) are based off of the idea that setting goals are not enough. Having an objective that is accomplishable, but stretches your organization is necessary. But, so are the key results, which will allow you to see if you are taking the right steps to accomplishing them.
For example, we have identified a problem with teacher retention at our school. This past year we saw turnover at a very large scale. On top of this, we see a need to improve the performance of our teachers. So, we created an objective to “Improve the retention and development of our instructional staff.”
Having such a goal is all well and good, but it is the measurable key results that make a difference. Our key results (or measurements for success) are:
90% teacher elected retention for 21-22
90% satisfaction on quarterly staff surveys
Develop and implement programs to increase teacher development (mentoring, PLCs, individual goal setting, etc.)
10% increase on teacher performance on our student surveys
Our first key result is very lofty, but also technically accomplishable. While it is normal for international schools to turnover 20-30% of their instructional staff each year, we wanted to limit that to only 10%. Right now, we are essentially right at 10% turnover and accomplishing this key result.
How can we accomplish this? By taking care of our staff. An earlier article on this blog talks about the keys of reducing teacher turnover, and they are:
Support and trust from your school leaders
Opportunities for growth and development
Highly competitive salary
While I cannot impact the salary much, I can have a big impact on the other two areas. Those are clearly visible in our key results two and three.
After the objectives and key results have been established, choosing when to measure for progress is the next step. We review our OKRs internally among our administration and with our staff each quarter. We want that accountability with our teachers and we want to model the thinking and decision making that takes place to help reach our objectives.
In the end, we are working to make sure our students are actively learning. Our OKRs ensure that we are always working towards that end by having specifics objectives and actionable key results.
See our our OKRs for the 20-21 school year here.
Leadership Thoughts:
The book title says it all, “Measure What Matters.” While there has been a massive shift in focusing on data in schools over the past 10+ years, we must recognize that data is great really for identifying problems and measuring progress.
Work with your teams to set objectives and make sure that your key results are measurable. Even if you are not successful in accomplishing all of your key results, you and your team will be better for trying. And being better will have a direct impact on your students, it is worth it.