Measure What Matters

The OKR framework cultivates the madness, the chemistry contained inside it. It gives us an environment for risk, for trust, where failing is not a fireable offense—you know, a safe place to be yourself.

Ideas are easy; execution is everything.

“Be better every day.”

We use OKRs to plan what people are going to produce, track their progress vs. plan, and coordinate priorities and milestones between people and teams.

Poorly done/managed OKRs are a waste of time, an empty management gesture. Well done OKRs are a motivational management tool that helps make it clear to teams what’s important, what to optimize, and what tradeoffs to make during their day-to-day work.

must describe outcomes, not activities. If your KRs include words like “consult,” “help,” “analyze,” or “participate,” they describe activities. Instead, describe the end-user impact of these activities: “publish average and tail latency measurements from six Colossus cells by March 7,” rather than “assess Colossus latency”; must include evidence of completion.

must describe outcomes, not activities. If your KRs include words like “consult,” “help,” “analyze,” or “participate,” they describe activities. Instead, describe the end-user impact of these activities:

must include evidence of completion.

Committed vs. Aspirational OKRs

The expected score for a committed OKR is 1.0; a score of less than 1.0 requires explanation for the miss, as it shows errors in planning and/or execution.

Aspirational OKRs have an expected average score of 0.7,

Commitments are OKRs that we agree will be achieved, and we will be willing to adjust schedules and resources to ensure that they are delivered.

By contrast, aspirational OKRs express how we’d like the world to look, even though we have no clear idea how to get there and/or the resources necessary to deliver the OKR.

TRAP #1: Failing to differentiate between committed and aspirational OKRs.

TRAP #2: Business-as-usual OKRs.

A team’s committed OKRs should credibly consume most but not all of their available resources. Their committed + aspirational OKRs should credibly consume somewhat more than their available resources.

TRAP #5: Low Value Objectives (aka the “Who cares?” OKR). OKRs must promise clear business value—otherwise, there’s no reason to expend resources doing them.

TRAP #5: Low Value Objectives (aka the “Who cares?” OKR). OKRs must promise clear business value—otherwise, there’s no reason to expend resources doing them. Low Value Objectives (LVOs) are those for which, even if the Objective is completed with a 1.0, no one will notice or care.

It is critical that KRs are written such that scoring 1.0 on all key results generates a 1.0 score for the objective.

A common error is writing key results that are necessary but not sufficient to collectively