How to Align Teams on Company Goals Using OKRs?

How many projects do you work on to align with your company’s strategy? Ideally, it should be all of them. Why would we be working on something that doesn’t help deliver the strategy?

Unfortunately, I often speak to project managers who don’t know if their projects align with company goals. The projects might align – but no one has taken the time to explain the strategy or make the link for the people doing the work.

That’s a problem because people work better when they know they are contributing to something bigger than getting their project over the line. It’s essential for teams to see the bigger picture and understand that their work is making a real difference. Objectives and key results (OKRs) are a structured framework for driving alignment, and in turn, that makes a difference to project success results.

What Is Team Alignment?

OK, let’s start by unpacking this buzzword. You’ll hear execs talk about alignment, but what do they actually mean?

Alignment in this context is the strategic coordination of teams, projects, and individual efforts with overarching company goals. It ensures all employees work towards a shared vision with clarity, accountability, and collaboration. You might hear leaders talk about everyone pulling in the same direction or being on the same bus. It’s a way to increase productivity, create a collaborative environment, achieve your goals faster, and create a meaningful work environment.

Without alignment on company goals, your organization risks working inefficiently, missing goals, and lower staff engagement.

It’s up to leaders to set clear expectations and direction; if you are in a team leadership position, that means you. You can create alignment for your direct reports or project team; you don’t have to wait for someone more senior to do it for you.

OKRs for Team Alignment

One of the easiest ways to ensure everyone is aligned on the goals is to set common objectives and key results. OKRs show the team where they should be going. They have measurable outcomes, so you can tell if you have achieved them. They help with transparency and decision-making because you can ask: "Does this help us get closer to our objectives?"

So how do you use them? Here's a high-level process you can use as a starting point.

Step 1: Define Organizational Objectives

In reality, unless you are the CEO, you won't define organizational objectives for the whole company. So, this step is more about discovering the overall corporate strategy and goals. Use those or translate them into something that your division, team, or unit will find meaningful.

Set high-level strategic goals as the guiding principles for your priorities.

Step 2: Let Teams Set Their OKRs

Break down those large goals into actionable OKRs at a team level. Make sure everyone on the team knows what they are and how they will be measured. The purpose here is that everyone’s individual work should line up behind a team objective, which in turn feeds into a company’s strategic objective or goal.

Aligning top-level and team-level OKRs to the company vision

Don’t overthink it! People can contribute to the overall objective by doing their job. This is all about making sure you are working on the right things at the right time.

Step 3: Track Progress and Keep an Eye on Results

Use portfolio and workflow management tools to track progress, with dashboards to give everyone visibility. Have regular check-ins to share results. For example, we share progress against key performance indicators monthly in an all-hands meeting.

Global view into strategic goals and their progress using the Initiatives and Outcomes dashboard in Businessmap

Another way to create alignment is through storytelling. Use your regular meetings to explain how the work the team is doing improves the customer experience, for example.

Perhaps your project is streamlining internal processes – talk to the affected teams, find out how the changes impact them positively, and share feedback. Or even invite someone to speak to the team about the improvements they are seeing.

That’s it! You can regularly review and refine the processes you use for objective setting and tracking to ensure the whole process works effectively.

Pitfalls to Be Cautious of

Aligning team performance and projects to the overall business goals isn’t that difficult in theory – but actually making it happen can come with some challenges. Here are some things to watch out for:

• Lack of clarity in goal setting: Write goals in a way that means they are very clear.
• Overloading teams with too many objectives: We’re only human! Don’t stretch the team too thinly.
• Not tracking progress or adjusting OKRs as needed: Corporate strategy changes, as does our ability to meet goals. Keep everything under review and change as necessary.
• Strategic goals feel too abstract: Those lofty organizational strategy bullet points might not feel like they mean much, so make them relevant by providing real-life examples of how the team’s work contributes to the bigger picture.

The Biggest Challenge: Sync Leadership and Operations’ Efforts

The biggest challenge I see is the misalignment between leadership and operational teams. There is a disconnect when operational teams are rewarded for doing things that are not part of the broader strategic OKR framework. Operational teams often have dashboards or KPIs they are targeted on, such as time to fix errors, call handling times, etc. They might also have project goals to achieve, but if their main job is business-as-usual work, then they won’t necessarily have the time to work on their project tasks.

Leaders have to come up with ways to make sure there’s enough focus on all activities so that teams don’t drop strategic work in favor of how they are measured day-to-day. Without alignment, you and your teams could end up working on activities that might feel important but that aren’t contributing to what company-wide success actually looks like.

Real Team Alignment in Practice

Aligning teams with company goals isn’t just a one-time effort. It’s an ongoing process that requires clarity, communication, and commitment. When teams understand how their work contributes to the bigger picture, they are more engaged, motivated, and productive. Project alignment, powered by structured frameworks like OKRs, ensures that everyone moves in the same direction with measurable results.

Still wondering how to make this a reality? There are many software tools you can use that help you align project work to wider strategic goals and balance your project portfolio. The right tools can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

Linking team and company-wide objectives and key results in Businessmap

You can also research how other companies implemented OKRs to give you some ideas about how to get started.

Now it’s over to you. How will you ensure your projects align with your company’s strategy?