To develop Local Service Projects (PSL) and local structures as part of a large corporate project, Veolia Eau France It wished to introduce an operational and effective method from 2019 to define priorities and implement actions: the OKRs (Objectives & Key Results).
During the event OKR Forum France 2021 of which he talenco was a major partner, Karina Khiou, PMO Mission Manager (Product Management Office), was able to provide testimony on the implementation of the OKR method and the team’s commitment at Véolia Eau.
Karina Khiou (Veolia Eau)
“Being accompanied is a real advantage for taking ownership of the approach, (…) to help the internal facilitator adopt the right posture and avoid the various pitfalls.”
Your first steps in the OKR method?
Karina Khiou: At Veolia, the topic is quite recent. I first went online to see where I could find a lot of information about OKRs. There are few difficulties in understanding the method… but to grasp it is a different story!
Even though we know the goal and the deliverables, it is not easy to define the right priorities, to ask the right questions, the priority objectives, etc. And yet, that is the secret of success. OKR method : prioritize objectives, define how to achieve them, and measure results (Key Results) that will prove that the goal has been achieved.
Your conviction to start with a pilot?
Karina Khiou: It’s not necessarily easy to gain everyone’s support immediately. Before generalizing the method, we started with a pilot in two territories. This allows us to understand the method, the local specifics, and to see how to scale its OKRs to different units.
It is interesting to see how each one adapted the overall strategy and developed it to their local needs.
Your opinion on the usefulness of being accompanied?
Karina Khiou: Being accompanied is a real advantage in terms of taking ownership of the process. At Veolia Eau, we were accompanied by talenco and conducted the first internal/external team interviews.
When you set up the OKRs, Having an external facilitator guaranteeing the method allows us to refocus on the objectives and deliverables and to challenge ourselves.. That’s a real plus for help the internal facilitator to adopt the approach, adopt the correct posture and avoid the various pitfalls.
Thus, the internal facilitator, through his or her knowledge of the company, will be able to focus on the realistic side of the indicator and on the feasibility of the data provided. reporting.
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