I've used Koan on and off for more than a year. Their functionality and features have vastly improved since the first time I used them over a year ago. I look forward to their continued development and progress.

It makes it very easy to track our team's progress towards our quarterly goals

Team engagement, but that's more on our end of the table. Perhaps a mobile app would make it easier?

Our organisation has a number of very different parts to it, and many volunteers and external partner entities we work with too. We were also radically ramping up our offering and thus changing in the skills and processes needed. At the time we implemented Koan, and OKRs, it felt like a thousand "key" (haha) results were needed. And keeping everyone clear on the purpose and core measures of success in order that they can stay aligned yet go full speed using their own initiative and creativity is hard at the best of times. Koan was easy and quick to implement, and together with the people and physical world OKR activities, enabled us to navigate through that noise and achieve a significant amount of our stretch goals during the 14 months since we implemented it. It has also been easy to modify and change our implementation as our maturity with OKRs has grown.

It is easy to use. The structure forces you to clarity on the key activities or work streams by which you intend to achieve your primary objectives and enables 360 communication across and within teams and divisions. You soon see any misunderstandings about what's important or the gaps between teams, functions and individual roles and can quickly act to remedy those. It's a vital leadership tool as the organisation grows, and frankly even when it's small, to achieve real alignment and focus. You could theoretically model and track your OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) on a spreadsheet, but that simply doesn't work in practice. The weekly updating and reflection functionality provides a valuable drumbeat. Sometimes that is uncomfortable, but therein lies the value because it keeps bringing you back to your intended priorities and plans across teams, individuals and the organisation.

The Cons are not so much about the software itself but about the nature of OKR implementation. Do not be under the illusion that the software can do it for you. The software is a vital tool, but you still have to do the hard work of figuring out with your team members, the MOST important objectives for that stage in your organisation's growth, and then selecting the small number of KEY result that will get you there - across multiple functions, teams and levels of responsibility. If you're only getting started with OKRs, expect to have to revise and redo. And treat that as valuable in itself. Lack of clarity in the physical world will manifest on the tool. Seeing and fixing that is incredibly valuable, but it's hard and takes persistence. Re support, we're 8 to 10 hours ahead of the USA, so I'd love to see them expand support beyond US business hours.

You can set deadlines for tasks and give awards to employees.

The free tier was very limited and the experience could be better

I first discovered the OKR methodology at my previous company, where we used to write and track on that via Google Sheets. We were also using another SaaS product just for reflections. When joined my current company I was happy to learn KOAN is implemented and we can do everything in one place. The platform really helps you as an individual and as a part of a team, and a company. I really recommend it.

The platform is very friendly, fast, intuitive, and keeps updating. I love how everything is saved automatically and also the fact we can access it from any device. Also the reminders features are helpful.

Nothing that I can think of....everything has been going smoothly for me.