What are Lenses in FORA?
Lenses in FORA provide customizable, executive-focused insights tailored to specific objectives and challenges. They allow leaders to gather intelligence from across the organization without needing to participate in every conversation, helping track progress toward key initiatives through email and in-app updates and alerts as information emerges.
Example OKRs and Corresponding Lenses
1. Revenue Growth OKR
Objective: Increase quarterly revenue by 25% Key Results:
Expand into 3 new markets
Increase customer retention by 15%
Launch 2 new product features
Example Lens: "Revenue Growth Tracker"
What it monitors: All meetings, forwarded emails, and chat discussions related to sales pipelines, market expansion efforts, customer churn, and product launch readiness
How it helps: Provides a red-yellow-green dashboard showing sentiment and confidence expressed in communications about each key result
Alert triggers: Flags when sales teams mention delays, when customer success discusses churn risks, or when product development references timeline changes
Sources: Sales team meetings, executive leadership updates, product development standups, customer success calls
2. Product Development OKR
Objective: Launch new platform version with 99.9% reliability Key Results:
Complete all critical features by Q3
Achieve zero high-priority bugs in UAT
Reduce deployment time by 50%
Example Lens: "Product Launch Readiness"
What it monitors: Engineering standups, QA reports, project planning meetings, deployment discussions
How it helps: Surfaces discussions of roadblocks, technical challenges, or timeline risks via email and in-app alerts
Alert triggers: Detects when engineering teams mention delays, technical debt, or quality concerns
Sources: Engineering standups, cross-functional planning meetings, QA reports, technical documentation
3. Customer Success OKR
Objective: Improve overall customer satisfaction score to 9/10 Key Results:
Reduce support ticket resolution time by 30%
Increase NPS score by 15 points
Deliver advanced training to 85% of customers
Example Lens: "Customer Health Monitor"
What it monitors: Customer support meetings, account reviews, training sessions, internal discussions about support processes
How it helps: Highlights recurring customer pain points and tracks sentiment around support initiatives with real-time alerts
Alert triggers: Alerts when support teams mention systemic issues or when customers express frustration in recorded calls
Sources: Customer support team meetings, account review calls, training sessions, Slack/Teams discussions in support channels
4. Operational Efficiency OKR
Objective: Reduce operational costs by 20% Key Results:
Automate 5 key manual processes
Decrease procurement cycle time by 40%
Reduce employee onboarding time by 25%
Example Lens: "Operational Excellence"
What it monitors: Process improvement discussions, automation planning meetings, procurement reviews, HR onboarding sessions
How it helps: Tracks progress discussions on automation initiatives and identifies roadblocks in optimization efforts
Alert triggers: Notifies via email and in-app alerts when teams discuss automation challenges or when procurement or HR processes are mentioned with negative sentiment
Sources: Operations team meetings, automation project reviews, procurement discussions, HR onboarding planning sessions
5. Market Expansion OKR
Objective: Successfully enter two new international markets Key Results:
Establish legal entities in target regions by Q2
Hire regional leadership teams by Q3
Achieve 100 customers in each new market by year-end
Example Lens: "Market Expansion Insights"
What it monitors: International strategy discussions, legal entity formation meetings, regional hiring plans, international sales pipeline
How it helps: Provides visibility into potential regulatory issues, hiring challenges, or market-specific obstacles
Alert triggers: Flags discussions of regulatory complications, hiring difficulties, or cultural adaptation challenges through timely alerts
Sources: Executive leadership strategy sessions, legal team meetings, regional hiring discussions, international sales reviews
Practical Implementation Example
An executive using FORA could set up multiple lenses to track different strategic initiatives simultaneously. For example, a CEO might have:
A "Strategic Initiatives" lens monitoring high-level progress across all major company objectives
A "Revenue Risk" lens specifically tracking potential threats to revenue targets
A "Talent Development" lens focusing on leadership pipeline and key personnel discussions
The executive receives email and in-app updates and alerts based on information as it emerges, with a dashboard showing red-yellow-green status for each initiative and the ability to drill down into the specific conversations that triggered alerts. Instead of relying on filtered information from direct reports, the executive gains unfiltered insight into how teams are really discussing key objectives.
Benefits for OKR Tracking
Real-time awareness: Identify misalignment between stated goals and actual work discussions
Early risk detection: Spot potential issues before they impact quarterly results
Cross-functional visibility: See how different teams discuss the same initiatives
Unfiltered insights: Access ground-truth conversations rather than packaged status reports
Institutional knowledge preservation: Maintain context about decisions and progress over time
By implementing these lenses, executives can maintain visibility into OKR progress without micromanaging or attending every meeting, allowing for more strategic use of time while still keeping a pulse on critical initiatives through timely alerts delivered directly to them.