Before you get started building out your next dashboard or setting OKRs and KPIs, wait! You aren’t ready! Check your assumptions of what you want to achieve and why you are choosing to track the metrics and data you have selected. 

Are you able to articulate the reason behind your OKRs or KPIs? 

If yes, great. Then you may proceed with your planning process.

If no, then you have some work to do first.

Whether you use a general data dashboard, OKR’s, KPI’s, SMART goals, or something else, the Constellation System of visual thinking provides a framework for you to identify goals and outcomes that will set your business on a clear path forward. 

Objectives and goals must move you toward your organization’s vision or why. If they don’t, you are wasting your time by tracking the wrong thing. 

In our work, we find that adding a visual thinking element to the goal setting and planning process can be an effective way to ensure that anything you track and make progress on is done with purpose.

But first, let’s define a few terms. 

OKRs, KPIs, and SMART Goals Defined

An OKR, or Objective and Key Result is a strategic framework for deciding where you are going and how you are going to get there. An objective is a clearly defined goal, and key results are measurable ways to move towards that goal.

Related to Key Results are KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, which is similar to the Key Result from OKRs. KPIs measure the performance of certain metrics. They use SMART criteria or the idea that goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based.  

No matter how your organization sets goals and identifies metrics, you first need to take the time to evaluate why you want to measure something. You need to understand how that fits into how you want to move your organization forward.

Use Visual Thinking to Clarify Your Organization's Purpose, It’s North Star

Before you set goals or objectives for the year, the quarter, or even the month, you need to know where your organization is going. What is its purpose, mission, or why? We call that your North Star, and it is what everything in your business is moving toward. 

For example, the why for our team at Relumed is for leaders to reignite the irrational drive in others. Everything that we offer moves us towards that North Star.

The Constellation System offers a decision-making framework, using visual thinking and mind mapping, for you to explore and connect any goals you have with the actions you will take. It consists of three main sections for mapping - WE HAVE, WE DO, and SO THAT.

Everything an organization is working towards falls under the idea of a SO THAT. The North Star is the ultimate SO THAT, but you can a SO THAT for next week, next month, next quarter, or next year. 

Take a minute to reflect on your organization’s North Star. Is it easy for you to define? Is it meaningful to you? Is your team able to explain it?

Then break down the SO THATs that you are focusing on, you may look at SO THAT’s for the next month, quarter, or year.

In your visual map, all of the goals and outcomes that you set are versions of a SO THAT. It makes the Constellation System extremely flexible - you can use the same mapping framework for your plan for next month as you use it for the big picture of how you want your business to grow towards an exit. This is on purpose. Visual thinking and mapping is a new concept for many of us. By having an accessible framework, you have very little to learn in order to start using it successfully.

Every SO THAT should connect and move toward your North Star, or your ultimate SO THAT. Your SO THATs that lead toward your North Star become your objectives. 

Use Visual Mapping to Identify How to Meet your Goals

Now that you have set your SO THATs, or your objectives, you can map out how you plan to accomplish them. For this exercise, the Constellation System offers a decision-making framework for what to track to monitor progress. 

What do you do?

The next section to complete is the WE DO section of the map. When you are mapping out what you do, you should be able to connect every single WE DO to a SO THAT. 

For example, if your SO THAT for next quarter is so that we acquire 10 new customers, that can become your Objective. You know that is the outcome you want to achieve. If your North Star is to bring your product or service to an entire industry, then you can connect that to your quarterly SO THAT - 10 new customers is yet another segment of your target industry!

Then you want to identify what you will do to make that happen. You may have several WE DOs towards that. Maybe you will do video marketing, webinars, and networking to achieve your goal. If you connect video marketing to your SO THAT of acquiring 10 new customers, then that connection point is where you should identify what you will track. Will you track the number of video views? Increase in YouTube subscribers? Clicks on links in video descriptions? Maybe you will set up a Google Analytics goal to track website visits from video marketing.

What resources do you have?

The third main section of the Constellation System is WE HAVE. While we won’t explore this section in-depth in this exercise, it is a map of your resources. What do you have available to you (tangible or intangible) to accomplish your WE DO? Similar to how you connected your WE DO with your SO THAT, you can connect your WE HAVE with each WE DO. This will help you identify gaps (or abundances) in your resources. 

Connect the Dots

Once you have mapped out your WE HAVE ~ WE DO ~ SO THAT Constellation Framework, it’s time to start connecting the dots! Draw lines connecting each WE DO with a SO THAT. Each connection becomes an opportunity for a goal or key indicator.

The key is to make sure you are tracking data that informs your understanding of progress towards your SO THAT. If you track the number of staff hours spent on video marketing, that will only tell you how long it takes to make a piece of content. It won’t help you understand if your video marketing efforts influenced any customers.

Benefits of Visualization in Communication of OKRs or KPIs

Working through a visual map of WE HAVE ~ WE DO ~ SO THAT to identify relevant and effective OKRs or KPIs isn’t just a fun exercise. Using visuals in planning and communication with your team helps you see problems and opportunities in new ways. It helps ensure that your team is on the same page. It provides a tangible reminder of where you are going. It makes your work more impactful. And it sets you up to use data-driven goals effectively.

When you have a culture of visual thinking in your organization, you will look for any excuse to make content more visual, and thereby more visible.

You and your team can work through this exercise on your own - remember to start small and simple. Or you can bring in visual facilitators to design your Constellation System and set you up for success. Either way, infusing your planning process with creative, visual thinking will be energizing for your team and will lead to better use of OKRs, KPIs, or any other tracking process you put in place for your organization.