Initiatives represent strategic efforts, experimentation, and execution geared toward moving the needle on your Key Results.
What are Initiatives?
Initiatives are strategic efforts designed to move the needle on your Key Results. Initiatives should be high value and high effort. They are going to be assumptions, but if you pick the right ones then you should see a tangible improvement in your Key Results. Initiatives shouldn’t be your day-to-day responsibilities, but rather the net new things you have prioritized and want to try and do.
Why are they important?
Initiatives should be strategic in nature, meaning they are worthy of executive-level visibility. If your CEO wouldn’t care, chances are it’s not a great Initiative. Tangible results might not happen immediately, which is why leading indicators are the best types of Key Results, so you can see the impact as quickly as possible.
How to create Initiatives?
Ideate, discuss, and prioritize. Look at your Key Results, assess the capacity of the team, and explore possibilities. Think of Initiatives as the “big rocks.” Don’t get bogged down in the details or the weeds of the daily grind, but rather the biggest efforts which require cross-functional collaboration.
The difference between Key Results and Initiatives
The difference between Key Results and Initiatives is where folks tend to get tripped up, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. Just remember the three E’s. Effort, experimentation, and execution. That’s what Initiatives are all about - the work you put in and control.
The difference between Tasks and Initiatives
Tasks can be done quickly and fairly easily. These are the relatively small things that need to get done. Attend a meeting. Email a prospect back. Update your CRM. You name it. Initiatives on the other hand are more strategic in nature. They should be discussed and debated. Teams should be empowered to come up with their own Initiatives which they believe will move the needle on the Key Results. Initiatives ideally should be able to be executed in less than a quarter, but if needing to extend beyond this time frame that's okay.
Consumer Examples
|
Objectives |
Key Results |
Initiatives |
|
Get in shape |
Lose 10 lbs |
Go to the gym 5x a week |
|
Become debt free |
$0 in credit card debt |
Cut up the credit cards |
|
Launch a side hustle |
Generate extra $100 |
Launch Shopify store |
Society Examples
|
Objectives |
Key Results |
Initiatives |
|
Healthcare for all |
10million new signups |
Launch new healthcare program |
|
Lead electric vehicle revolution |
50% new car sales are electric by 2025 |
Open 5,000 new charging stations |
|
Slow down global warming |
Earth’s temperature to 95.2 by 2050 |
Create new global partnership system |
|
Ensure water for all |
Provide 3million people with access to water |
Create 300 new wells in local communities |
Business Examples
|
Objectives |
Key Results |
Initiatives |
|
Improve the login experience |
Reduce password resets from 10% to 1% |
Implement SSO |
|
Generate more prospect engagement |
Increase visitor to lead conversion rate from 2% to 5% |
Launch new website |
|
Streamline the buying process |
Increase proposal to win conversion from 10% to 20% |
Implement digital proposal system |
|
Be more customer-centric |
Reduce churn from 10% to 2% |
Implement customer learning program |
|
Launch an MVP |
Get 10 BETA users |
Hire new development lead rock star |
Generating Output Leads to Improving Outcomes
There’s a lot of discussion around Outcomes, and rightfully so. They are a great way to measure business behavior, and the folks who get it right are on the cutting edge of operations. However, without Output, the Outcomes never happen. Prioritizing and optimizing Output is what generates the right results. If you are trying to get a customer to do X in your product (the Outcome), then it may take building Y features (Output) before you get it right.