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PHASE 4 - Creating Themes and OKRs

Audience: Admin, Strategy Manager
Page Type: How-To Guide
Phase: PHASE 4 (Execution)
Duration: 4-5 hours

Goal​

In PHASE 4, you will:

  1. ✅ Create strategic themes (Pillars of the Vision)
  2. ✅ Define Theme-SWOT-BSC connections
  3. ✅ Create Corporate and Unit OKRs
  4. ✅ ⚠️ EVERY OKR MUST BE LINKED TO A THEME (Mandatory)

Prerequisites​

  • ☑️ PHASE 3 completed (Assessment positive)
  • ☑️ SWOT analysis ready
  • ☑️ BSC defined
  • ☑️ Strategic themes identified (or creates now)

Step-by-Step​

Step 1: Define Strategic Themes​

  1. Go to Synthesis → Strategic Themes
  2. Create New Theme
  3. Enter information for each theme:
Theme: "Product Innovation"
├─ Description: "Build next-gen product features"
├─ Owner: VP Product
├─ Duration: 2025-2026 (2 years)
├─ Budget allocation: 2M USD
├─ Strategic fit: Supports Vision
└─ Success metric: Launch 5 major features by end 2025
  1. TYPICAL THEMES: 3-5 themes (more = diffuse, less = incomplete)
    • E.g., "Market Expansion", "Product Innovation", "Operational Excellence"

Step 2: Theme-SWOT Connections​

Which SWOT factors does each theme address?

Theme: "Market Expansion"
├─ Opportunities: "Asian market growing 25% annually" ✅
├─ Strengths: "Established supply chain" ✅
├─ Threats: "New competitors in Asia" → Mitigate
└─ Weaknesses: "Limited marketing budget" → Mitigate
  1. Click Link to SWOT on the theme page in COS
  2. Select each applicable SWOT item
  3. Linkage reasoning: Why does this theme address this factor? (1-2 sentences)

Step 3: Theme-BSC Connections​

Which BSC metrics measure each theme?

Theme: "Product Innovation"
├─ Financial Metric: "Revenue from new products: 15M by 2026"
├─ Customer Metric: "Feature adoption rate: 80% by 2026"
├─ Internal Metric: "R&D output: 5 major releases/year"
└─ Learning Metric: "Engineer training: 40 hours/year/person"
  1. Click Link to BSC on the theme page in COS
  2. Select relevant BSC metrics
  3. Target value: How much should the theme move the metric for success

Step 4: Create Corporate OKRs​

⚠️ RULE: EVERY OKR MUST BE LINKED TO A THEME

  1. Go to Execution → OKR Cycles
  2. Click Create OKR
Objective: "Establish market leadership in Asia"
├─ Owner: Strategy Manager
├─ Linked Theme: "Market Expansion" (MANDATORY)
├─ Duration: Q1-Q4 2025
├─ Key Result 1: "Revenue from Asia = 30M USD (vs 10M now)"
├─ Key Result 2: "Market share in Asia = 25% (vs 10% now)"
├─ Key Result 3: "Customer NPS in Asia = 8.0 (vs 6.5 now)"
└─ Measurement: Monthly KPI review
  1. EVERY OKR MUST PASS THIS CHECK:
    • Theme selected? ✅
    • Key Results measurable? ✅
    • Owner defined? ✅

Owner & Contributor: When creating an Objective, the owner is automatically assigned as the unit leader. For Key Results and Initiatives, you can search and select an owner. At every level, you can add multiple contributors via search.

Step 5: Create Unit OKRs​

Each unit/team creates their own OKRs (Aligned to Corporate OKRs):

Unit: "Sales Team"
├─ Objective: "Close 100 deals in Asia"
│  ├─ Linked Theme: "Market Expansion"
│  ├─ Key Result 1: "Qualification rate = 60%"
│  ├─ Key Result 2: "Win rate = 45%"
│  └─ Key Result 3: "Deal size avg = 500K USD"
└─ Owner: Sales Director

Step 6: Finalize and Activate OKRs​

  1. Review all OKRs (approver review)
  2. Click Activate OKR
  3. Teams start tracking KPIs (Daily/Weekly tracking)

⚠️ MANDATORY THEME RULE (CRITICAL)​

✅ CORRECT:
OKR: "Achieve 80% customer satisfaction"
  └─ Theme: "Customer Experience" ✅

❌ WRONG:
OKR: "Achieve 80% customer satisfaction"
  └─ (No theme link!) ❌ ERROR

In the system:

  • Selecting a Theme is MANDATORY when creating an OKR
  • The Save button is deactivated without selecting a Theme
  • Error message: "Please link this OKR to a Strategic Theme"

Verification​

✅ Checklist:

  • 3-5 Strategic Themes created
  • Theme-SWOT connections defined
  • Theme-BSC metrics linked
  • Corporate OKRs created + Theme linked
  • Unit OKRs created + Theme linked
  • Owner + measurable KR for all OKRs
  • OKRs activated

Tips​

  • Theme count: 3-5 optimal (Too many = diffuse)
  • Theme consistency: Theme-SWOT-BSC-OKR chain must be consistent
  • OKR linking: No OKR should remain without a theme
  • Ownership clarity: Every OKR must have a clear owner
  • Contributors: You can assign contributors from different units; they can see even confidential records
  • Owner selection: KR and Initiative owners are selected via search; Objective owner is automatically the unit leader

Common Errors​

Error: "I cannot create OKR, it gives an error"
→ Solution: Is Theme linked? Theme is mandatory!

Error: "How many themes should we create?"
→ Solution: 3-5 themes (1 = concentrated, 10 = scattered)

Error: "OKRs do not match the theme"
→ Solution: Return to PHASE 3, realign Theme-BSC-SWOT

Error: "How do we setup measurement?"
→ Solution: Convert BSC metrics to KPIs (weekly update)

Next Steps​

After Activation:

  1. Start WBR/MBR/QBR cadence
  2. Weekly KPI updates
  3. Monthly OKR progress check
  4. Quarterly scoring

See also​