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OKRs will never be enough

edge.ceo

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Re: OKRs will never be enough

#21

Post by theptip »

aerosmile wrote: post #7
kenjackson wrote: post #2

The business scorecard just seems like it is measuring a set of key results. If it’s a KPI the team is trying to achieve then how is that different than a key result?

The answer lies in the frequency of updates across the org. KRs in most orgs are reviewed on a quarterly basis, whereas marketing spend, conversions and similar need a weekly cadence. We are currently reporting on KRs on a weekly basis, but that requires a lot of indoctrination for new hires.

I think it’s best practice to monitor your top-level KRs in your weekly/bi-weekly leadership meeting. I have never heard anyone recommend to only use OKRs for retrospective evaluation of a quarter/half.

For example I’m sure Doerr recommends regular syncs on the status of your KRs.

They are intended to be both a way of reviewing the work in a planning period, and also determining what is red and needing attention within the planning period.

Tactical/team-facing KRs could be measured daily if you need to, though the CEO wouldn’t want that report.

Re: OKRs will never be enough

#22

Post by jkukul »

> When a startup is small, it can be sufficient to run a fairly simple objectives-and-key-results (OKRs)

When OKRs were first used at Google it already had tens of thousands of employees. Why would any startup use a tool created by a big org and designed for a big org? Should we give infants medicines that were created for adults?

Startups need to stop copying BigTech because they're not like BigTech.

Re: OKRs will never be enough

#23

Post by seanhandley »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #8

I don't care what managers do as long as it's managers doing their own fucking jobs instead of forcing it on everyone below them. Individual engineers shouldn't have to plan objectives, their own or otherwise. That's literally what management is for in the first place.

Managers are accountable for seeing this is done, but the whole team should be co-responsible for setting goals.

I worked as a software engineer for 12 years before becoming a manager and I can promise you that a team works better when everyone has input on what goals the team commits to and how the team plans to achieve those goals.

You never never never NEVER want to work on a team where your manager decides all of that and then just throws tickets at you. Screw that sideways.

Re: OKRs will never be enough

#24

Post by 2dvisio »

arkitaip wrote: post #11

Does anyone use OKRs for themselves? How does it work?

Use it to keep track of personal goals and I use the KR to break it down into chunckable and measurable steps. Have done that intuitively in the past, but now have formalised it a bit more. It helps that for my job we OKR regularly for both the Performance but also the Growth part of the job.

Re: OKRs will never be enough

#25

Post by rubyn00bie »

At this point, I'm full "sickos.jpg" watching organizations switch goal setting frameworks to fix issues stemming entirely from communication, planning, and accountability problems. I'm not even going to get started on how silly these scorecards are considering the metrics shown are a minimum for running a business.

Re: OKRs will never be enough

#26

Post by mattbuilds »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #16
mattbuilds wrote: post #10

All these frameworks for managing people matter much less than creating a team of quality people. Think of it like sports. Sure a good manager or coach can get the most of the players on the team. They might even add tactics and play above their level. But when it comes down to it, what matters the most in the skill set of the players. The best coaching in the world isn’t going to help me and my friends beat a pro sp…

Strategy can matter a lot. Tactics is mostly irrelevant. Unfortunately the latter is much easier to change so leaders like to modify it constantly to seem like they are adding value. And since it’s mostly irrelevant it’s hard to prove that this is bad.

I was using tactics and strategy interchangeably, as in the sports sense. Probably should have been more clear, but I agree with your point. Also business is much more complicated than sports, where the rules are concrete. I was just using it as an example that what matters is using the talents of the team instead of a framework for management.

Re: OKRs will never be enough

#27

Post by seanhandley »

arkitaip wrote: post #11

Does anyone use OKRs for themselves? How does it work?

Yes, for settings personal goals it can be helpful.

KRs are just "things you can do to achieve the goal", so my process goes:

- What do I wish was different? - What would happen if that thing changed? - What's stopping it from changing? - How can I get over those obstacles?

The answers to "how can I get over those obstacles?" become the KRs that help achieve the O ("What do I wish was different?").

Re: OKRs will never be enough

#28

Post by LambdaComplex »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #20
mattbuilds wrote: post #10

All these frameworks for managing people matter much less than creating a team of quality people. Think of it like sports. Sure a good manager or coach can get the most of the players on the team. They might even add tactics and play above their level. But when it comes down to it, what matters the most in the skill set of the players. The best coaching in the world isn’t going to help me and my friends beat a pro sp…

In my experience you have it right but backwards: These frameworks exist to help management manage teams without quality people. Scrum/agile is exactly the same thing. The stricter and more documented the process, the more fungible actual team-members are. That's important in places like bodyshops and non-software business where no self-respecting engineer with options would want to work, and places where monotonous…

> Scrum/agile is exactly the same thing. The stricter and more documented the process

The Agile manifesto specifically says "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools." If teams are forced to work in a certain way (e.g. scrum) then your organization isn't actually doing Agile.

Re: OKRs will never be enough

#29

Post by javaunsafe2019 »

seanhandley wrote: post #23
BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #8

I don't care what managers do as long as it's managers doing their own fucking jobs instead of forcing it on everyone below them. Individual engineers shouldn't have to plan objectives, their own or otherwise. That's literally what management is for in the first place.

Managers are accountable for seeing this is done, but the whole team should be co-responsible for setting goals. I worked as a software engineer for 12 years before becoming a manager and I can promise you that a team works better when everyone has input on what goals the team commits to and how the team plans to achieve those goals. You never never never NEVER want to work on a team where your manager decides all of…

I did understand the comment differently. More that at some level OKRs are not important and the decision that a product/module is needed is everything a good working development team needs to do it’s job.

That has nothing to do about the creation of tickets imo. Ofc the team will find a way to organise ITS OWN WORK.

Re: OKRs will never be enough

#30

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

I don't know what the rest of the comments are on about but this is a pretty reasonable proposal. In particular, it's heinous to couple customer acquisition to engineering projects. Maybe customers don't want what you're selling, or maybe the economy is taking a down turn, or the sales pipeline is broken.

OKRs can absolutely be useful, but like so many other things, a system is what it does. If you measure bug rate, then you'll get no bug reports, even if there are bugs.

OKRs, when done correctly, aren't about accountability necessarily, but course correcting early and often. It's a tool to combat scope creep and a feedback loop for triggering pivots when progress towards laid plans aren't yielding returns.

These are things engineers should love! They keep engineers focused on the right things, aligned with the business and most importantly keep the business aligned with them.

Politics and bureaucracy are rampant everywhere, but like everything else, when used in moderation these tools can be really good.

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