So, just the other day I was tasked with coming up with some OKRs for our new AI & Automation practice. If you don’t know what an OKR is then check this article out.

Anyway, I’ve set OKRs before and done quite a lot of work with Viva Goals before both internally at Nasstar but also with clients when implementing Viva Goals, I’ve also read quite a few books on effectively using OKRs. So I’m relatively well placed for this task but as I’m also a sucker for any new tech I thought I’d use the fairly new Copilot functionality in Viva Goals to see what its all about.

And to say I’m impressed is an understatement, it’s really REALLY good. As with anything Copilot related its not going to fully automate this process for you and you still need to work with the tool to get the right results but as with M365 Copilot it really helps with that staring at a blank page issue and I was very impressed with the starting point it gives you.

I thought this deserved a little blog post to show you how it works and for a bit of fun I thought I’d use a star wars theme for creating these OKRs 🙂

Creating OKRs using Copilot in Viva Goals

Picture this, Darth Vader has just come out of a meeting with the Emperor and has been tasked with creating some OKRs to help with a number of areas that the Imperial Army need to focus on as a business.

He fires up his computer and logs into Viva Goals, he’s met with a blank page asking him to create some OKRs but Darth Vader has a tingling feeling in his bones that there is something that may be able to help him here, perhaps its the force guiding him but he decides to click on the little icon in the bottom right of the screen.

Up pops a little box that could really help the Dark Lord to create an OKR strategy that promotes focus and alignment, while also providing transparency and data-driven tracking. OKRs allow teams to shift focus from output to outcomes, keeping employees engaged with larger goals and strategy.

Vader clicks on the “Help me generate new OKRs” box and knows he will need to specify some context

Darth is then presented with this in the Copilot chat box.

After pondering for a while on what Darth and his team mates should really be focussing on

He comes up with the following prompt

“My name is Darth Vader and I am the Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces. We are a military organisation who’s aim is to stop the rebel alliance from infiltrating the empire.

I’d like the OKRs to focus on us developing our new death star and completing its build. The death star is a space station and super weapon which can annihilate an entire planet.

I’d also like the OKRs to focus on enhancing Sith Influence and Power throughout the galaxy

And lastly to improve Imperial public relations as those pesky rebels have started a smear campaign against the imperial army.”

And within a few short seconds Viva Goals has created 3 OKRs based on the prompt above

Lord Vader is pretty happy with this as its saved him a bunch of time and effort meaning he can concentrate on more Sith things like strangling generals without touching them or something like that.

However as with all Copilots it does need a little human interaction to refine the results, now the 1st and 3rd set of OKRs are spot on but the key results on the 2nd OKR are not quite right, everyone knows there can only ever be 2 Sith lords in existence, a master and apprentice. So we will edit these key results to be a little more on point.

We are able to edit these key results right within the Copilot window

And then Darth can simply hit the save button

And there we have it as if by using the force Copilot has magically added these OKRs into Viva Goals for us and Lord Vader and his Team have a set of Goals that can really drive the Imperial forces forward.

Final Thoughts

I thought I’d have a little fun with this and it was a good excuse to use designer to create some of the images for this blog post as well, but bringing it back to reality, Copilot in Viva Goals is a brilliant way to start creating OKRs from a blank screen and can get you 80% of the way there. This can really be a huge time saver and help people understand the correct format and structure to writing good OKRs.

There are other features for Copilot in Viva Goals like creating OKRs from a document but that’s for another blog post in a galaxy far far away.