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OKRs in practice look suspiciously like waterfall software development. When you find yourself assigning ICs programming tasks by economic quarter, you've f-ed up.
I am so happy to work in a company that does not work with this business voodoo (and still delivers great results). All goal frameworks I have worked in, OKRs included, were a colossal waste of time.
Oh, that's when they work on the least bad way. They can become much more than that, all it takes is somebody intent on gaming them.
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…
I deeply disagree. If you have a team of quality people but they're all running around in their own direction doing their uncoordinated thing, they add up to basically zero. While if they're all working towards the same thing in the same direction, their efforts reinforce each other so the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. The expertise of people on a team provides a ceiling for what they can accomplis…
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…
I deeply disagree. If you have a team of quality people but they're all running around in their own direction doing their uncoordinated thing, they add up to basically zero. While if they're all working towards the same thing in the same direction, their efforts reinforce each other so the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. The expertise of people on a team provides a ceiling for what they can accomplis…
If I learned anything watching "the playbook" on Netflix, is that great coaches don't seem to follow any kind of playbook at all. They're flexible, and managed to create strong relationships with their managees over time, while forcing them to be team players.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I deeply disagree. If you have a team of quality people but they're all running around in their own direction doing their uncoordinated thing, they add up to basically zero. While if they're all working towards the same thing in the same direction, their efforts reinforce each other so the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. The expertise of people on a team provides a ceiling for what they can accomplis…
I agree with you but the sports metaphor undersells your point. Coaches usually don't matter all that much unless you are going from a truly terrible one. Bad management isn't like not a great coach, it like having a team where all the players are playing different sports, there is no score board, and people get paid based on how much the coach likes them.
OKRs in practice look suspiciously like waterfall software development. When you find yourself assigning ICs programming tasks by economic quarter, you've f-ed up.
Planning what an entire company's goals are every week or two means a lot of time planning. And no time not planning. That sounds painful.
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…
Despite having great people, coordination challenges greatly increase over time. This is a good summary:
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I deeply disagree. If you have a team of quality people but they're all running around in their own direction doing their uncoordinated thing, they add up to basically zero. While if they're all working towards the same thing in the same direction, their efforts reinforce each other so the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. The expertise of people on a team provides a ceiling for what they can accomplis…
I actually agree with you a good amount. I was never saying that you don't need management, just that first you need quality people. I do think you can have a good team with poor managers that still preforms, but I can't think of any examples of great managers with bad teams that excel. Well first I would say that a team of quality people wouldn't all run in their own direction. They would know they need to coordinat…
That's probably an optimistic view of even quality people. They're not magically going to know what their goal--presumably aligning with business interests--is. They may not know company priorities. They may personally be more invested in some aspects of the process than others.
As far as sports analogies, it probably varies by sport. Coaches are important in general but, if you put a really good basketball team with one or two superstars on the court, they'll probably play a given game pretty well on their own. The same is almost certainly not true of even the Superbowl-winning football team.
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…
I deeply disagree. If you have a team of quality people but they're all running around in their own direction doing their uncoordinated thing, they add up to basically zero. While if they're all working towards the same thing in the same direction, their efforts reinforce each other so the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. The expertise of people on a team provides a ceiling for what they can accomplis…
Wow, really? You must have never been part of a strong, productive team.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
I am tired of "you are doing Agile wrong" arguments. I hear it all the time. What's the point of a manifesto that only works when done perfectly right. A manifesto/process that isn't robust to imperfections has no role in a real world, which is always going to be imperfect
Are you really asking that?
The problem with most uppercase Agile implementations isn't that they are slightly off from the manifesto, but because they completely ignore what the manifesto is trying to say.