AlloVoisins is the leading French platform dedicated to the rental of equipment and local services. It groups together both private individuals and self-employed professionals and small businesses. marketplace Created in 2013, it now has more than 4 million members in France.
How the OKR method worksObjectives & Key ResultsDid it allow the startup to overcome the health crisis and continue its development?
Edouard Dumortier, CEO and Co-founder of the startup AlloVoisins and author of the book « The future of the collaborative economy«We present his testimony on the choice of the OKR method and the challenges of its implementation with the support of talenco.
«It's a method that can be used over time, but I find it very promising and it's worth sticking with!»
Edouard Dumortier
CEO and Co-founder
AlloVoisins
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15 testimonies from leaders
In what context did the OKR method become established at AlloVoisins?
Edouard Dumortier: The Covid-19 crisis in March 2020 brought a brutal halt to AlloVoisins, whose activity is very seasonal, because when you say lockdown, you also say a ban on people leaving their homes, meeting each other, going to the homes of one another…
Like many bosses, it was a very worrying situation. I had two issues at the time: ensuring the company’s sustainability and still keeping things running. roadmap the development of the product that we had set ourselves, and – beyond the context – to put ourselves in a position to the ability to bounce back as well as possible and as quickly as possible once we would have emerged from the crisis.
Before implementing the OKRs, we had entered a high-level cycle of managing the company.
But this is not a way of operating that is intended to be permanent and, as early as September 2020, we asked ourselves how to bounce back, how to give teams a new perspective, what is our vision and How to implement this vision by involving the teams while simultaneously achieving maximum efficiency.
It was when we exchanged together (with talenco) that I realized The OKR method seemed to be perfectly suited to our needs and our context..
How was the deployment of OKRs ensured in your startup?
E. D.: There is first a A lot of preparatory work to be done on the « why » because everything starts from there. It’s a subject on which we were quite advanced. So we just refined and adjusted it why at the level of AlloVoisins. It was still necessary and salutary!
And then I worked on my own to set the company’s OKRs and the CEO’s OKRs so that I could answer the teams’ questions.
To deploy OKRs, I think you need to have a good grasp of the method, be rigorous, and follow it fairly strictly from the start. It’s It is important that this method be well understood and assimilated by all the stakeholders. which must take ownership of it, and that is not easy already.
Edouard Dumortier (AlloVoisins)
But the most complicated thing in the end, The first difficulty is to make the OKRs work in everyday life and over time. It’s constantly reminding yourself of the goals you’ve set, being able to adapt them based on what the company is experiencing and setting new ones. It’s often said that you need at least two cycles of OKRs to start feeling comfortable with the subject…
How did your teams respond to the choice of the OKR method?
E. D.: The implementation of the OKRs has sparked enthusiasm within the teams.
What was nice was first and foremost Transparency because it’s a method that involves transparency; an upgrade for everyone, meaning that we’re all in the same boat.
It’s also transversality because the interests are linked and become collective and so people are really more responsible and more involved.
It also means being very focused on one’s « why » and to place it at the heart of what we do. It is very important to be clear about the vision at all levels of the company but especially on how we will execute the vision, because that’s the principle of OKRs! It allows us to say where we’re going, how we’re going to get there, and how we’ll co-build it together. So Each stakeholder will be an actor so that the vision can be implemented as effectively as possible and achieve the company’s goal.
Another important point for me, it allowed me to to get myself into the mix and therefore be on the same team as the teams.
What results have you achieved thanks to the OKR method?
E. D.: It is probably too early to draw conclusions because it is a method that must be lived through over time, but I find this very promising and it’s worth hanging on to. I see many positive effects in having deployed the OKRs:
- It aligns everyone with the vision (this is very important!),
- It brings the teams together, Because achieving your OKR will have beneficial impacts on those of others,
- It creates a bond and it encourages people to working together,
- it also allows for more transparency in the teams, which encourages them to work better together. humility,
- and the last very important point for me is that it allows Prioritizing actions over issues Choosing is giving up!
What advice would you give to leaders who want to embark on the journey of OKRs?
E. D.: If I take away two things I learned during our first two cycles of OKR, the first one would be not to confuse the action plan with Key Results (The action plans will make it possible to achieve the Key Results) and the second would be to be well-equipped because it allows one to structure one's work well, To set deadlines and to have a fairly clear roadmap.
Also, It is essential that all stakeholders adopt the OKR method, And that means having a good grasp of the subject, knowing all the pitfalls that one will encounter, and being rigorous. One is not necessarily an expert on the subject… It’s better to have an expert in the field accompany you who has the experience and the answers to the questions we will ask ourselves.
The guidance provided by Jean Baptiste (talenco) was interesting in the sense that it was an external, neutral, objective, and free of any personal interest or constraints view. This allows one to be challenged and to drive the implementation of the OKR method. He plays a key role in this. at the same time, a role of facilitator and a role of guarantor of the rules of the game to ensure that we are not straying from the method or introducing it «to our own taste».
Interviews conducted in May 2021. A big thank you to Edouard Dumortier for his experience with the OKR method!
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