How do you start a new year with your team? Do you jump into the new one right away or do you evaluate how the goals went last year first? How do you get the whole team involved and committed to what you want to achieve together?
We want to share how we work and maybe it will give you some tips and new ideas.
This is how we start a new year at Rolf!
We start the year with a full-day kickoff where we first evaluate the previous year using a reflection model called After Action Review (ARR), read more about the model here. ARR consists of the following points:
- What did we expect to happen?
- What actually happened?
- Why did it turn out the way it did?
- What can be improved and how?
- What can we spread further?
We then move on to the new year and go through Rolfs in turn:
- Vision
- Mission
- Values
Each point is discussed in three steps:
- What does the point mean for me?
- How can I contribute to it in my daily work?
- Is there anything we would like to change in our vision, mission and values?
The next step is to review the company's strategic objectives together. The purpose of this is to ensure that everyone is well aware of the goals set by management for the new year. This is so that we can set goals at team and individual level that match the strategic goals. Here we use a goal management method called Objective and Key Results (OKR), i.e. goals and measurable results. OKR means, among other things, that you are expected to set goals that are just above the limit of what you think is possible, which encourages creativity and commitment. A prerequisite for working with OKR successfully is that everyone works together towards the same goal and that each individual sees themselves as an important cog in the big wheel. Management goals apply for the whole year and team and individual goals for one quarter at a time. You can read more about the OKR here.
Now we are ready to decide together how we will celebrate our common successes during the year, it is of course that we want to pay attention to all the work, toil and commitment that each of us contributes to achieving our OKR. For example, we already have something we call Bubble Friday, which is a recurring feature where we celebrate on special occasions that we have achieved something specific together. But even larger milestones we want to gather around, then we set aside a full day where we meet to do something that everyone appreciates.
So what happens now?
Teams start work based on their respective OKRs, the methodology simplifies the prioritization of what each team and individual should do (and not do). We evaluate our OKR cycles regularly (quarterly) and set up new OKRs for the next quarter.) Of course, we use the AAR model for these evaluations.
How do we work continuously?
We use all the modules in Rolf's platform. The reflection log where we all reflect every week to our immediate manager who also gives us feedback on each reflection. We also use the tag cloud that is formed in the reflection log to see how we feel over time (both at individual, team and organizational level).
In the Development Plan , we set our individual goals that are directly linked to our common OKRs, which are set in Goals. There we also add goals based on our values.
We fill out a Rolfing before each monthly reconciliation where we get the status before the conversation, which we then follow up how it looks over time (both at individual, team and organizational level).
Of course, you can also use Rolf's digital platform in exactly the same way as us. Get in touch and we can tell you more about how to become a customer and how you can implement the different modules based on the wishes and needs you have.