> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://guides.tability.io/docs/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://guides.tability.io/docs/become-a-tability-power-user/how-tos/how-to-bounce-back-from-a-bad-quarter.md). # How to bounce back from a bad quarter Don't let one bad cycle throw off your whole system In a perfect world, you’d set OKRs, work on your OKRs, then achieve all of your OKRs with perfect focus and execution from your team. Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world where anything can disrupt your OKR process– an necessary strategic pivot, market changes, or even just process mismanagement. We’ve all been there: an end-of-quarter retrospective session that feels disheartening as you go through the misses and struggle to find the silver lining. At best, you forget about it and move on. At worst, it sours your team on OKRs entirely. So what can we do to mitigate the damage? ## Don’t make retros a eulogy As the old saying goes, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” While a bad quarter in your OKR cycle can feel like a huge blow, there’s always something good to be found. Even with a quarter that never quite gets going, there are still lessons to be learned from how things were approached. Did we finish the goal writing process? Did we finalize our targets? Did we rely too heavily on dependencies and not on things we could control? Look for the lessons in the retro, not just the scores. Beyond that, find something good. Even minor positives can do a lot to make it feel like your OKR process wasn’t a complete failure. Did every team write something that looked like an OKR? Great– that’s the first step! In reviewing the OKRs, did the team realize anything that could be better? Never take learning for granted. Did one single person make a single update? That’s a great start and brave thing to do– let’s celebrate any wins. OKRs can feel like micromanagement or a terrifying new layer of performance management, but they’re not supposed to be either. The easiest way to counter those feelings is by finding something to celebrate, no matter how miniscule. But none of this works if your teams don’t commit to doing the retrospective. Don’t just move on and forget what happened– take the time to think about how the process went and encourage sharing with other teams, regardless of if you’re sharing the good, the bad, or the ugly. {% hint style="danger" %} Don’t redesign your OKR system without diagnosing the program. {% endhint %} ## Keep It Simple, Smartypants Often, what happens to throw teams off of their OKR process is by not understanding OKRs and trying to do too much. The feeling is that leadership is judging the work being done, so teams try to capture everything they’re working on in their OKRs. This leads to unruly OKRs with unreasonable amounts of key results or hundreds of tasks that overwhelm the teams when it comes time to update them. If your teams are running into issues with overcommitting to OKRs or drafting too many goals, implement this new strategy : > **One objective, three key results.** The goal of OKRs is to focus on what is most important, so narrow that focus to the absolutely most important thing. One key point to remind your team of: you’re not trying to capture everything that you’re working on in your OKRs, nor are you saying that your OKRs are the only thing that you’re going to work on. OKRs are a list of priorities for what you need to accomplish in addition to the business as usual things your team is working on. If your customer success team sets an OKR wholly focused on retention, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t also chasing expansions and activity from their accounts, it just means that when there’s space to take additional projects or an opportunity to shift priority, it ends up there. ## Set priorities, not wishlists On a related note, teams can often fall into the trap of including everything they’d like to get to in a quarter in their OKRs. Not just what is possible, but what could help. This is particularly evident in initiatives under a key result. OKRs (and their initiatives!) should be time-bound and actionable, meaning that they should be able to be accomplished in the timeline set (for instance, we should be able to make this amount of revenue in this quarter) and able to be worked on (we can’t sell a product that hasn’t been built). If your team is outlining projects where they don’t have the time to accomplish all of them, they’re wasting time and space with nice-to-haves. If they’re adding in projects that won’t be possible, what’s the point? A core way to help teams refine their priorities is to look at them. Having teams set their goals, and then having someone from that team explain what’s possible to get done, what resources they have, and what would be most impactful is a great exercise to help them narrow down the list of what they need to do and allow them to better focus on the biggest drivers. ## Momentum over ambition After a rough quarter, momentum matters more than ambition. It’s why we narrow the scope of the goals a team is working on, but also why we need to find ways to get teams to feel like there’s something good coming out of the process. You celebrated wins in your retrospective, but if you’re only waiting until the end of the quarter to call out what’s working, you’re missing out on an opportunity to keep your team’s morale high and to help them not lose steam. You should be doing at least the following: * **Weekly:** Call out one (or a few) individuals who are getting good results or accomplishing their initiatives. They don’t need to necessarily be ahead of target on their key results– even someone saying they need help on a key result can be something worth celebrating. * Things to call out: * Well written check-ins * Good collaboration * Key result progress * Initiatives accomplished * Requesting help (no ego) * Consistency * **Monthly**: Highlight a team that’s working well. This will likely mean a team that has made good progress on their goals, but will be more than that. We’re looking for teams that are committed to the process and are actively engaged with their goals more than just the outcomes they’re getting. Those are important too, but we want to highlight that the commitment is what we’re after (the results are sure to follow). * Things to call out: * No missing goal updates * Good collaboration * Key result progress * Initiatives accomplished * Cross-functional communication * **Quarterly:** At the end of your OKR cycle, you have a lot you can look at to judge how a team performed. The goal here should be to primarily look at the process, but we can put more of an emphasis on goal completion at this point. * Things to call out: * Goal completion * Goal turn around (a key result marked red that ends the quarter green) * Stretch targets achieved * Team communication and collaboration * Consistent updates ## Give your team the tools they need The tools that your team has are critically important towards how they’ll be able to approach their OKRs. That includes all of the resources they had when you first launched OKRs. What training did they go through on writing OKRs? When did they learn how to use Tability? Where are your OKR expectations written down? Did you [create a playbook](/docs/getting-started-with-okrs/okr-implementation-planning.md) for your OKRs? These tools get rolled out in the beginning of an OKR cycle and then are left in a folder to be accessed by new hires (sometimes), but they should be front and center every quarter when your team gets ready to write their next set of OKRs. It’s easy to forget the intricacies of how to put together goals, buttons move, and if your team had a rough quarter, how much of it is because they needed a refresher? Additional trainings spark buy-in from your team. Renewed conversations help team members connect with the idea of working on the OKRs. And regular updates build the right muscles for your team to not let things fall through the cracks. It’s never a bad idea to bring back the things that were important when you first rolled out your OKRs. Falling short in a quarter isn’t a final judgment on your people or your framework—it is merely a valuable data point. The most resilient organizations aren’t those that sidestep every hurdle; they are the ones that view setbacks as essential feedback for growth. Use this information to identify what deserves celebration, where you can strip away complexity, and which resources need a refresh before your next cycle begins. By committing to the retrospective, uncovering hidden wins, narrowing your focus, and keeping your progress front and center, you empower your team to reset. When you provide the right support, a difficult quarter shifts from a failure to a lesson—ensuring your OKR system continues to thrive rather than fall apart.