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Create and implement your Viva Goals rollout plan

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Are you ready to implement Microsoft Viva Goals in your organization? A rollout plan helps you craft the strategy to introduce and deploy Viva Goals. Once you complete your rollout plan, you should have Viva Goals operating across your entire organization and be able to connect the daily work of every team member to business goals.

Roll out Viva Goals with a user pilot

As you navigate the OKR Maturity Model that the following images depicts, and change management with respect to your Viva Goals rollout, we recommend that you ease your organization into creating and managing Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) by implementing a user pilot.

Table that shows the O K R maturing process.

Conducting a user pilot offers two main benefits:

  • You quickly learn how a methodology works within your organizational culture and gain insight into challenges and opportunities.
  • Your pilot group acts as an example for the rest of the organization. The pilot group's success in achieving objectives serves as a motivator for other groups to embrace the technology.

There are four main steps to conducting a Viva Goals pilot program. You must:

  • Select the type of pilot you want to conduct.
  • Develop your program goals.
  • Configure your OKR calendar and timing.
  • Roll out your OKRs pilot program.

Note

We recommend that all users take the OKR Leadership Program learning path on demand training program. It helps ensure that every pilot participant feels empowered to educate, engage, and train others in OKR methodology and software.

1. Select your pilot style

Carefully consider the three styles you can implement with respect to your pilot program, including the:

  • Leadership-only style.
  • Department-wide style.
  • Big bang style.

No matter which style you decide to use, what's important is that you do what works best for your organization. Also, be patient. It can take a few quarters to become comfortable with the changes. However, you'll soon establish a solid rhythm, and your OKR program will grow, mature, and transform your organization.

Let's discuss the types of pilot style you can employ.

Implement a leadership-only pilot group

One of the most popular ways to roll out an OKR program is from the top down, because it ensures leadership is fully behind your program and your OKRs are correctly aligned. Here's an example of the process:

  1. The executive team sets OKRs in the first quarter. OKRs are transparent in nature, so your entire organization will have visibility into them. However, during this phase, you invite only your executive team to be active Viva Goals users.
  2. You implement a weekly cadence for check-ins during that first quarter. We recommend that you structure meeting agendas around measurement of OKRs and check-ins.
  3. You bring team managers on board after a successful first quarter. When you begin training team managers, they'll develop OKRs that align with those of the senior leadership team.
  4. You include individual team members after another quarter. You're now ready to begin training individual team members, who'll expand key results by developing OKRs that align up the reporting structure.

Implement a department-wide pilot group

Another popular rollout method is for one individual department, or group to conduct a top-to-bottom rollout that includes team managers and employees. For example, your marketing, IT, or a product-engineering team could do this. Here's an example of the process:

  • The department adopts a weekly check-in cadence, with support from upper management (formal or informal). The group does this for one or two quarters, and experiments with what works and how to make agile changes. During this period, team managers report to management about successes, challenges, and recommendations.
  • Once the individual department and management is has a comfortable OKR check-in rhythm, you develop a training plan to roll out OKRs to the whole organization. This plan should incorporate lessons learned and best practices from the initial pilot group. This helps make the rollout process as smooth as possible for the entire organization.

Implement a big-bang pilot

The crawl-walk-run pilot approach that implements rollouts to leadership or departments is a good option for most companies. However, mature companies that have leadership that can efficiently and effectively guide the organization through change might want to launch OKRs organization-wide, all at once. This is know as a big bang approach.

The advantage of the big bang approach is that companies can apply the momentum of an initial kickoff to attain the benefits of OKRs more quickly across the entire organization.

2. Develop your program goals

Your goals define the outcomes you want and enable you to measure the success of your Viva Goals rollout. It's imperative that you have full stakeholder participation when you define your OKRs, so they feel a sense of ownership. It also helps ensure your project tasks align to your organizational OKRs.

Your OKRs should include a mix of technical and user-focused successes. Therefore, before you begin crafting your Viva Goals OKRs, take time to reflect on several questions, including:

  • Why are you implementing this program? Do you want to provide better transparency across your organization? Increase employee engagement? Initiate a new product launch? Provide focus to fend off a competitor? It's important to be clear about the why so you can galvanize employees and build and retain momentum.
  • What does success look like for this program? Ask yourself how you'll know, a year from now, whether you've achieved your goals.
  • What's your communication plan to let your team know about the OKR program and the Viva Goals implementation? What's your communication plan for the beginning of implementation to mid-cycle check-ins to the time when you're closing OKRs, and reflecting on the process and what you've learned?

Asking the preceding questions helps you develop OKRs that are actionable and clear. For example, say you're rolling out an OKR program. The following table depicts an OKR for that rollout of a Viva Goals OKR program:

Table shows O K R example.

3. Determine your OKR calendar and timing

When you consider your OKR calendar and cadence for check-ins, you should decide whether you want to establish OKRs that are for a year-long period or done per quarter. You also need to determine what check-in rhythm you want to enforce.

Annual timing

Most companies start with three to five high-level objectives for the year. For example, if it's December 2024, they'll set objectives for 2025. Some companies will go a step further and have a multi-year plan on which to work.

Quarterly timing

Most companies plan OKRs quarterly using the following cadence:

  • Quarter 1 (Q1): January, February, and March
  • Quarter 2 (Q2): April, May, and June
  • Quarter 3 (Q3): July, August, and September
  • Quarter 4 (Q4): October, November, and December

Note

If your company uses a different quarterly schedule, you can change it in the Viva Goals admin portal in Admin > Time Periods.

Check-in cadence

As a best practice, team members should check in and update their OKRs on a weekly basis. Viva Goals has built-in notifications via app integrations and email to ensure a regular cadence.

Note

You can change the days and times of reminders in the Viva Goals admin port in Admin > Notifications.

Some companies configure set check-ins to occur biweekly or even monthly. However, we recommend weekly as a best practice.

4. Roll out OKRs to your entire organization

Once leadership and your pilot group is comfortable with how OKRs and Viva Goals are working, it's time to create a training plan so you can roll out OKRs to your entire organization.

It's important to categorize users by persona and OKR maturity when building a training strategy. Each persona has specific tasks they must do, and there'll likely be different training that's required to complete tasks. In your training plan, you should:

  • Focus on the why. Make sure employees understand why the change is happening, why it benefits them, and why they're being asked to change.
  • Use real work scenarios. Use tasks or processes that are familiar to your users to help them get comfortable with learning how to use Viva Goals.
  • Use multiple formats. Training for users should take on multiple forms so it accommodates different learning styles, geographical norms, and resource constraints.
  • Reinforce. Use reinforcement options to help make the training stick for users. You can use on-demand training, lunch and learn sessions, and new-employee training options.

For more information on how to successfully drive OKR and Viva Goals adoption in your organization, refer to Viva Goals Adoption Guide.

Important

Your ultimate goal is to find an OKR process that works best for your organization. Viva Goals is designed to be flexible and meet your organization's unique needs. Your strategy and how much users buy-in to your OKR program will evolve as your team adjusts to the process. Make sure to give yourself a quarter or two to establish a solid rhythm, and then watch your employee experience and business outcomes grow stronger and your goals become reality.