Large organizations including Google and Sears have developed proprietary systems for defining and tracking OKRs for thousands of employees. But what if you’re not a F500 company? What if you don’t have the internal resources to develop an in-house OKRs solution?

Most OKRs experts, including Kris Duggan, CEO and founder of BetterWorks, and Niket Desai of Google, conclude that organizations with less than 100 employees are generally fine managing OKRs with existing software platforms such as MS Word/Google Docs, MS Excel/Google Spreadsheets, or even PowerPoint.

In the early stages of implementing OKRs, an internal champion for the OKRs project can also be valuable, especially if the internal champion has used OKRs successfully in the past. At a certain point, you will likely feel a need for a more robust OKRs solution to capture and track OKRs. I agree with Duggan, who notes, ”...a dedicated OKRs tracking solution becomes helpful with 10 or 20 people, important with 100-200 people, and critical in the 1000+ employee range.”

Here is a list of 24 questions drawing from my discussions OKRs software vendors and prospective buyers that you may want to consider when evaluating dedicated OKRs solution. Note that questions marked with (BW) are taken right from the BetterWorks OKRs eBook which is one of the best resources I've seen for people new to OKRs.

1. Does the software support both bottoms-up origination of OKRs with individuals as well as tops-down, cascading processes where managers define OKRs for their direct reports? (BW)
2. Can OKRs cross teams to enable horizontal alignment or flag dependencies across teams or can they only be connected based on the organization’s reporting structure? (BW)
3. How easy is it to access and update OKRs? Are there mobility options? (BW)
4. Visual hierarchy of OKRs: Does the system produce a chart that graphically displays how OKRs are connected?
5. Can I see a history of how OKRs and the progress on OKRs change over time? (BW) For example, does the system use color-coding to quickly visualize performance of OKRs over time?
6. How does the software encourage behavior such as frequent check-ins to keep goals and progress fresh? (BW)
7. How easy is it for colleagues to support, collaborate, encourage, and comment on one another’s goals?
8. What examples of enterprise scale deployments have been served by the software?
9. Is your OKRs deployment optional for employees or does the software agreement specify that all employees must purchase a license?
10. Can I update and access OKRs from a mobile device?
11. Can I grade OKRs at the objective level and/or key result level?
12. Can I click a button to create a summary report detailing an individual’s progress on OKRs that can be used at a performance review meeting?
13. Does the OKRs software allow users to enter anything for a key result or is there technology that ensures key results are measurable and have a set timeframe?
14. What kind of OKRs coaching services and support does the software vendor recommend or provide?
15. Does the software support all types of key results (i.e. baseline metric, positive target metric, negative target metric, threshold target metric, and milestone)?
16. Does the system have a “draft mode” whereby users can enter their OKRs but not make them visible until finalized?
17. Does the system support SSO or does it require the user to memorize a password in order to login?
18. System of record data integration: Can data be pulled in from external systems such as a CRM (e.g. salesforce.com), GL (e.g. Oracle Financials), or BI tool (e.g. Information Builders) to automatically populate standard metrics that are already tracked by a system of record?
19. How easy it is for me to add or remove an employee? Does this require technical support from the vendor?
20. Does the system keep track of OKRs from prior time periods so users can go back and compare current OKRs to prior OKRs?
21. What type of information or metric is the tool capturing?
22. Is the tool used for individuals for project management? Or leaders as a business management tool to run a business?
23. What frequency do employees use the tool? How often are they using the system to report information?
24. Does the system enable individuals to assign a standard status to KRs (e.g. “on track” might be green,“behind” might be red) or does the software system automatically derive the status?

If you've read this far, I bet you can come up with question #25. Please post it here!

This article was first published on Ben Lamorte's site okrsblog.blogspot.com December 4, 2014.