Clarity and Connection: How Microsoft uses Viva Goals to drive organization-wide impact

This article is part of a series that describes how Microsoft Viva is being developed and deployed at Microsoft. In this seventh installment, we build on chapter six to share how Microsoft deployed Viva Goals programmatically to unify OKR use on a single platform, improve visibility of organization and team-wide goals, and maximize the benefits of this approach to business planning and execution.

With many teams across Microsoft using objectives and key results (OKRs) to bring clarity and connectedness to their teams’ objectives, as discussed in chapter four of the Viva at Microsoft series, Microsoft wanted to bring these benefits to its entire organization. Lorraine Bardeen, Corporate Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Industry Solutions at Microsoft, says, “It’s very isolating for team members to have no idea if their objectives line up to what the company is trying to get done.”

Microsoft is deploying Viva Goals to all employees so they can take full advantage of the OKR solution. “We had different teams using OKRs, but how they were managing them varied significantly. We couldn’t realize the true benefits of OKRs until we had them all in Viva Goals so we can see how the pieces come together to build up across the organization,” says Liz Pierce, the Viva Goals Customer Experience Lead at Microsoft, who led the deployment of Viva Goals to the 40,000-strong engineering and devices group at Microsoft.

“We couldn’t realize the true benefits of OKRs until we had them all in Viva Goals so we can see how the pieces come together to build up across the organization.”

Liz Pierce, Viva Goals Customer Experience Lead, Microsoft

Learnings from a large Viva Goals deployment

Microsoft found two practices to be absolutely critical to the successful adoption of Viva Goals. The first was getting executive buy-in to the process and a commitment to provide clarity on the teams’ strategic vision and overall objectives. “When we rolled out Viva Goals across engineering, it was nonnegotiable to have the leader of each team involved in the process,” explains Pierce. “OKRs, like any other method you might use to share team goals, can only catch on if the team sees its leader supporting the process.”

The second was including OKR champions, who scale the work of the implementation team. They bring expertise to individual teams and help coach each team to implement a consistent quality standard for OKRs across the company. With consistency in these two areas, teams across Microsoft were given the freedom to take advantage of the flexibility in Viva Goals to set up their reporting structure and checkpoints to best meet their needs.

In deploying to large teams like its engineering organization, Microsoft focused on the top layers with extensive planning and coaching. “We had detailed tactical conversations to set up the first two organizational levels in Viva Goals and then empowered those teams to create whatever structure they wanted beneath them,” says Pierce. “It would have been overwhelming to set up OKRs for everyone all at once, but by ensuring clarity at the top, we enabled teams to drive their own adoption.”

This idea of not trying to be perfect from the start carried over into the goal-setting process. “When getting started with new objectives, we don’t know what is possible,” says Monique Little, Senior Business Program Manager at Microsoft. “So, we tell teams to start somewhere and then use the review process to make adjustments.” In many cases, teams find that they can exceed even their best-case expectations.

“We had detailed tactical conversations to set up the first two organizational levels in Viva Goals and then empowered those teams to create whatever structure they wanted beneath them. It would have been overwhelming to set up OKRs for everyone all at once.”

Liz Pierce, Viva Goals Customer Experience Lead, Microsoft

Using champions for coaching and quality assurance

OKR champions play a key role in creating OKRs for each team within Microsoft and are often charged with keeping the metrics up to date within Viva Goals. These coaches have monthly meetings to share best practices and plan for new onboarding sessions. The OKR champions were critical in ensuring a successful rollout. “Where I feel like we’ve gone wrong with previous OKR systems is just jumping in and experimenting,” says Bardeen. “One of the things that I really appreciate about the Viva Goals rollout is the use of the OKR coaches. They provide critical support, training, and one-on-one live coaching with our individual teams to ensure we are creating OKRs that provide clarity on high-level objectives.”

A key role of the OKR champions is to ensure the quality of the OKR process. One important learning was to start with a clear strategy for the team. “The most important thing is to clarify your strategy and vision,” says Maryleen Emeric, Chief of Staff for Modern Work & Business Applications Marketing at Microsoft. “If you don’t have that, then it’s hard to write effective objectives and key results.” Champions often work with their leaders to produce a clear strategy statement before the OKR process can begin.

“Providing clarity and direction to my team is one of the most important aspects of my job as a leader,” says Seth Patton, General Manager for Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Viva at Microsoft. “We use Viva Goals to create a seamless goal-setting process where we align our team’s work to our strategic priorities, so everybody on my team understands how they’re contributing through the OKRs they create and are a part of.”

Another area in which the champions provide help is ensuring that a reasonable number of OKRs are selected. Says Emeric, “When we started working with OKRs, we were trying to track 20 or more key results, which didn’t result in much focus for our team. Now, we ask the team for input and come up with a long list but take the time to pick the top 5 to 10 items to focus on.” Items that don’t make the cut may still appear as OKRs for the next level down, or they may stay on a backlog, but Microsoft has found that Viva Goals provides the most benefits when teams can really focus on a few items.

“We use Viva Goals to create a seamless goal-setting process where we align our team’s work to our strategic priorities, so everybody on my team understands how they’re contributing through the OKRs they create and are a part of.”

Seth Patton, General Manager for Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Viva, Microsoft

Improving leadership decisions with clear progress reports

By deploying Viva Goals across the organization, Microsoft provides visibility into organizational objectives, which helps both the leadership team and individual contributors. Leaders can see the progress toward objectives and react more quickly, while individual contributors can understand how their work contributes to their team’s objectives. “By clearly representing how objectives build within the organization, Viva Goals provides clarity on what teams should be doing and generates a real sense of purpose that the work that they’re doing is actually accruing up to the organization’s bigger strategy,” says Little.

For leaders, the multiple views within Viva Goals help them to identify areas that need greater support. “I use Viva Goals to quickly catch up on what each of my teams is doing. To see what’s working well and what isn’t going so well,” says Bardeen. “I love being able to look at the objectives through different lenses with Viva Goals, like drilling down into an objective or looking at all of the work being done by each team and who is responsible for each result.”

Microsoft leaders find that the visualizations make it easier to understand the work being done and focus on areas that need more attention. “Viva Goals clearly illustrates the things my team is doing and who’s responsible for those outcomes versus tracking individual tasks,” says Monica Flaherty, Global Business Strategy Leader – CRM Customer Success at Microsoft. “The visual representation of data helps me process it quickly and then have the right level of discussion with my team about our progress and roadblocks versus getting stuck in the details.”

Viva Goals has also made it easier to report on progress, with many teams no longer creating PowerPoint slides for reviews and instead using Viva Goals directly. “We don’t put together the OKR content slides anymore like we did prior to Viva Goals,” says Flaherty. “It’s definitely a time savings, but more importantly, Viva Goals becomes the way to run the business and helps us transition from tactical discussions to thinking about meeting our business objectives.”

“Viva Goals clearly illustrates the things my team is doing and who’s responsible for those outcomes versus tracking individual tasks. The visual representation of data helps me process it quickly and then have the right level of discussion with my team about our progress and roadblocks versus getting stuck in the details.”

Monica Flaherty, Global Business Strategy Leader – CRM Customer Success, Microsoft

Insights that affect the entire organization

When teams are reorganized or new teams are formed, the existing structure of objectives in Viva Goals helps those new teams organize their work to support the organization’s objectives. And new team members can onboard faster when they can see what everyone around them is doing. “New employees are amazed at how easy it is to understand what’s important to the organization,” says Monique Little.

Instead of objectives being hidden away in spreadsheets or posted on static SharePoint sites, Viva Goals makes them visible across the organization. “It’s an awesome way for any individual to be able to see the specific goals of the broader organization or their individual team,” says Little. “And not just a list of goals, but the progress and the commentary.” This visibility has strengthened the feeling of community within Microsoft as individuals see the importance of their work in reaching the organization’s overall goals.

While various teams at Microsoft have been using OKRs to plan and communicate their objectives for years, it wasn’t until Microsoft deployed Viva Goals that it could unlock the full potential of the OKR process. By standardizing its OKR process in Viva Goals, Microsoft has simplified business planning and reviews, and provided company-wide visibility into each team’s objectives, improving collaboration and creating a stronger sense of purpose for employees across the globe.

Find out more about the employee experience platform on the Viva webpage.