Each quarter Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation releases new services that provide Ukrainians with even more digital opportunities and make government more efficient. However, keeping everyone working on so many projects aligned is a significant challenge.
To keep everyone focused, the Ministry adopted a framework used by tech companies worldwide: OKRs, or Objectives and Key Results. One of the core concepts of that framework is check-ins – structured, regular meetings where each team gets to showcase their achievements.
The Feedback as the Core of Check-Ins
The teams at the Ministry of Digital Transformation use the CFR system for their check-in process. CFR stands for Conversations, Feedback, and Recognition. This system ensures that team members gather every week or two to assess the work done during that period (by updating the KR progress and confidence level) and also reflect on key areas.
Here are the questions that they ask and answer about each Objective during this meeting:
- What was accomplished? Who deserves praise, and for what?
- What worries us? What should have been done differently? What should we keep doing the same way, and which approaches should be discarded?
- What are our steps for the next week? And what about the one after the next?
This process provides each team with space to reflect on their progress, encourage further efforts, identify obstacles, and adjust their direction. The CFR format is easy to adopt and scales well – you can first have a meeting within the team, and then another meeting with other team leaders in the department.
In addition to the “regular” check-ins, the Ministry also uses two special meetings, only for owners of the high-level quarterly OKRs. These meetings occur at the end of the first and second months of each quarter.
The check-in process is made even simpler by connecting the teams’ daily work in Jira with their OKRs using the Jira OKR plugin by Oboard. This allows team members to demonstrate the impact of their work and quickly identify when a part of the project is not progressing as intended.
How Other Ukrainian Organizations Are Using OKR Check-In Questions
It’s not just the Ministry – other Ukrainian companies are also using Oboard to integrate goal-oriented check-in routines into their workflows.
Spendbase, a SaaS company with remote-first teams, runs weekly and monthly check-ins with the following structure:
- Is everything alright?
- What was accomplished?
- Have we discovered any insights, blockers, or ways to scale?
- What are the plans for next week?
- Who deserves recognition?
For monthly reviews, they delve deeper, assessing progress against objectives, what’s working and what is not, and whether key results need adjustment.
AltexSoft, a tech consulting company, has a similar, but more concise four-part check-in protocol:
- What was accomplished?
- What progress was made toward OKRs?
- Do we need to adjust the OKRs?
- Do we have enough resources?
Both formats are designed to allow teams to recalibrate and raise any concerns early, without slowing delivery or stalling execution.
Oboard Check-In Tools
All three organizations mentioned above – The Ministry of Digital Transformation, Spendbase, and Altexsoft – utilize Oboard OKR software to facilitate their check-ins effectively. Because for check-ins to work, they must be easy to perform and integrated into the daily workflow – which is exactly what Oboard brings to the table.
- Custom schedules. Customize your check-in cadence to suit your company’s needs.
- Automated reminders. Get a notification in Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, via email, or directly in the Oboard app.
- Check-in Feed. View all updates relevant to your department or role in one convenient location.
With Oboard, every check-in is tied directly to active OKRs, so updates stay linked to real company goals and individual day-to-day work.