OKRs in Microsoft Purview (Preview)

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OKRs (objectives and key results) in Microsoft Purview are trackable business objectives tied to business domains and data products to emphasize the value of business data.

Data governance is an important practice that is often overlooked unless an organization has strict compliance requirements. While organizations seem to understand the value of data, the role data governance plays in promoting healthy, useful data is lost. Valuable data is neglected as data estates become overgrown with ungoverned information.

OKRs link data products directly to real business objectives to cross the gap between the business and the data estate. Data governance isn't just an IT task or engineering best practice, it's a critical part of value generation. In order to make use of your data, your data estate needs to be well maintained, and the work can be shared out among the experts that know that data best.

What is an OKR?

An Objective and Key Result (OKR) is the goal or desired outcome of a business domain. For example, a 10% raise in sales, or a 3% reduction in support cases. Objectives should relate to everything an organization does, and should define how they're achieving their outcomes.

Parts of an OKR

Microsoft Purview's OKRs have several parts:

  • Owners - the users responsible for maintenance of the objective
  • Definition - An overarching description of your objective, which can be as broad as “empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more”, or as specific as "use marketing campaigns to increase sales in the first quarter."
  • Target date - when you expect to achieve your goal.
  • Key results - these are the measurable, time-bound goals associated with your objective, and should be how you track progress toward your objective.

Owner

These are the users that are responsible for maintenance of a business objective. They could be the leaders of the business, and should have knowledge of how the business functions and where it's headed. Multiple owners are encouraged to provide a complete perspective on the business and to support each other in owning the objective.

Definition

Good objectives are specific and achievable in a time frame. The definition is a high-level text description of the mission or current goal of the team or process, and why it matters. The description itself should be succinct, but isn't enough on its own. It requires a way to measure the goals achievement and progress, which are the key results.

Target date

The date the goal is expected to be met. This helps to drive progress towards the goal, and encourages goals that are achievable, since they must be completed within a specific time frame.

Key results

Key results are how you'll measure progress towards your objective. And your objective might have several key results that roll up to your overall goals.

A good metric for goals/objectives uses the SMART acronym:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Realistic
  • Time-bound

To tie your objectives to real results, key results have several features:

  • Result - A statement that encompasses the specific, measurable result you expect.
  • Progress status - is your progress on track, behind, or at risk? This helps your business identify and prioritize issues.
  • Progress amount - where is your current standing in relation to your goal? You need to use specific numbers or percentages to represent this amount.
  • Goal amount - what's your goal? You need to use specific numbers or percentages to represent this amount.
  • Maximum amount - what's the maximum achievable?

These values are editable so business users and owners can update their goals and results over time. These values are also converted to graphics, so business owners can at a glance see how their organization is progressing toward their goals, and anywhere there are blockage.

An OKR can be connected to all data products that are relevant to that objective. It can be the data used to measure that OKR, or the data used to investigate new business opportunities. Whatever the case, data consumers can use this connection to see all data related directly to their business objectives, and business owners can track the health of the data directly associated with their goals.

How does it generate business value?

Data governance is directly tied to these business objectives. After all, data is used to both track and achieve these objectives. It can also be used to uncover new areas of improvement, and to help guide which objectives need to be prioritized. So, we've brought OKRs into Microsoft Purview to directly tie data to its business value.

For example: Your marketing team has developed an email campaign results data product that their team can use to track the impact of its email marketing campaigns. Your marketing business domain has a "Customer Response" OKR, with the goal of at least 20% customer response to email, telephone, and mail campaigns sent out. A business owner connects the "Customer Response" OKR to the email campaign results data product, and creates an "Email Campaign Response" key result to measure the current percentage of customer response. When the marketing team is tracking their quarterly progress, their objectives are tied directly to the data they use to track that information. They're directly aware of the health and value of the data associated with their OKRs, and naturally encouraged to invest in the health of the data.

This not only encourages your users to focus on their objectives, but also promotes health, security, right use, and data discovery directly related to your business objectives. Your business and your data estate grow together naturally to support your goals.

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