Lesson Learnt 8 : OKR- My learning, experience & growth journey

We must realize—and act on the realization—that if we try to focus on everything, we focus on nothing.

I have a bold goal for me & I want to see- Am I on track or not. What is the best approach? a young coach asked me - Is OKR the best approach. Plus how OKR understanding is important for us an agile coach. Thank you for this ask and let me share my experience.

I was introduced to this concept of OKR few years back, I have always enjoyed reading about OKR but recently got a chance to implement. It's at that moment when my Objective shifted to understand the real importance & implementation personally & professionally.

All simple things like SCRUM are not easy to implement. Its tough to master it and drive value from it. Fortunately, I have few great mentors/OKR coaches in our team, got trained from many external super gurus and read great books on OKR( links at the end) but in this article I am sharing my experience journey, views & tips to start with it (coz master this Ocean of Knowledge will take years) .

Along with OKR, you can also read about other goal oriented frameworks because when I started working with Leaders then it was common questions around MBO( Management by Objectives) ,Hoshin Kanri that many Lean organizations use & SMART Goal/KPIs. So also got chance to understand how Hoshin Kanri can help to create OKRs for Product squads.

Why OKR's are important for me as a Coach to know, chew and help teams adopt -

After my implementation experience, I can now relate to need of OKR. As the industry trends are toward digital products , product centric organizations, project to product model etc. and such scenarios are growing in enterprises so is the ask for OKR. There were many questions in my mind as - Why not Scrum for Product in agile implementation, will Value Stream Mapping be helpful in OKRs designing or there is no relation, what if my key results are not achieved, Are my acceptance test scenarios in user stories related in any sense with my key results, Should i stop measuring KPIs/SLAs & ...... so with all these my exploration started . In my hunt and experience I got to implement few scenarios. I am sharing few examples and some learning sessions, few good blogs if you are curious too... Feel free to ask if any specific question....

OKR for Team: Every Leader's dream to create thriving business

Companies that have used OKR's have always talked about success stories, but we have seen from last 2 decades that its still a mystery that how OKR works.. let me share my try in 10 steps

1. Set up a leadership workshop and bring alignment with executives on the vision, mission, and core values of the organization, that helps to formulate clear objectives execute strategies better and faster leading to get results. When there is clarity of purpose at the top level, it flows to all the levels. This framework is the base to cultivate a data-driven high performance culture and improve the collaboration amongst teams on a single goal. Few sessions were to discuss that what is different & response is - The real power of the OKR is figuring out how to live the goal every day, as a team.?It steers you in right direction
2. For that we need to create curiosity among leaders & team members, what is in it for them, what benefits, roadmap - attached is the sample slides on Pitching OKRs to leaders. So OKRs should talk about alignment at each level, reducing silos and complete transparency.
3. Discussion on Product Centricity - Technology (Digitized), Process ( Digitalized) & People ( Part of Product aligned teams/Squads) , alignment of business goals and IT goals by talking about Customers/Users, how we are giving value to customer & aligning those Objectives. The exercise is Top Down workshops on Objectives & bottom up so there is matching... Many innovative ideas will be outcome of these exercise and people will open up more on driving it.
4. Developing the Vision statement for any team is most critical , as recommended by many coaches and books, i have used “Back to the Future Visioning” as a fun exercise to help develop vision statement. Ask the group to imagine they awake the next morning 5, 10, of 15 years in the future & record their impressions of the future.. Many mature teams and PO already have a clear vision
5. Roadmap for OKR Implementation - Strategy to OKR Mapping Framework, Objective Ideation Workshop, Key Results ideation, Finalize OKR (freeze on number like 3-4 based on team strength & capacity) , Hoshin Kanri to OKR mapping, OKR implementation ways of working/Playbook, Quarterly plan (30-60-90 days) and Maturity model as we move ahead in this journey. Slowly Enterprise focus on What really matters ...
6. Art of Simplicity - While working with teams, focus on asking great ideas for the Product & then turn them in objectives. An Objective can be like a mission statement, only for a shorter period of time. A great Objective inspires the team, is hard (but not impossible) to do in a set time frame, and can be done by the person or people who have set it, independently. Teams are more accountable for results because they have created it
7. OKRs set the destination for the team so no one wastes their time, detailing other pillars below but OKRs helps on Focus, Alignment and Acceleration. Focus and alignment bring more engagement and purpose for teams and team members
8. Like any other transformation or big change - Implementing this strong Goal oriented framework requires some time, effort, budget, training/mentoring. I realized the benefits of OKR outweigh the risks & team perform better, innovate and deliver outcomes/ objectives faster.
9. Connecting OKR cycle with Product delivery cycle...
10. Launch the OKR Program in small group, unit or tribe and then scale. Understanding both bottom up and top down is critical for success in any large org or enterprise. even the tools in market does not support more than 10K users, unless you completely customize the tool.

11. Challenges are immense, i can write long articles, but the way to over come is focused approach. Only talking about the chosen objective/key results. We gave 50% of team's capacity on Org objective and 50% or customer/delivery support in beginning. We have lived in complex world for so long that writing simple objectives and key results in easy words were the most difficult work. But very simple roadmap that I feel could be used with most of the teams is as below:

OKR for Self if you want to try writing one

Objective - As an Enterprise Transformation, I want to start documenting my experience and learnings so that i can reflect back on my journey and use those insights for new teams/ leaders that I will coach in year 2022

Key Results : 1. To create 10 lessons learnt and publish them under my blogs in LinkedIn . 2. Seek feedback from 5 other coaches on improvement & innovation ideas. 3. Read 5 related arcticles/experience study on each new topic you have tried this year.

How I did my learning ...

John Doerr (Father of OKR) carried this result-driven approach, OKR(Objectives and Key Results), and introduced it to many top companies, start-ups turning them to become the most profitable company.?John Doerr delivered a presentation to the google team, which Larry Page appreciates in his foreword to the book, on OKR and the significance of implementing it. John Doerr makes it clear that OKR ought to be blended with ‘sound judgment, strong leadership, or a creative workplace culture’ to achieve success.?So to self- learn on this topic you can follow below steps

Step 1 : Enroll and follow What Matters: OKR Online Course: Getting Started With OKRs 101

Step 2: Refer good books on OKR, i have read ( Objectives and Key Results: Driving Focus, Alignment, and Engagement with OKRs by: Paul R. Niven, Ben Lamorte) , Measure what matters and Introduction to OKRs by Christina wodtke

Step 3: Writing key things, notes on diary and what I can use as an agile coach in my transformations. I read about MBO also as I loved few points in - Andy Grove's thinking, a successful MBO system need answer just two fundamental questions: (1) Where do I want to go (the objective) and (2) How will I pace myself to see if I am getting there? That second question, simple as it may seem, turned out to be revolutionary in launching the OKRs movement by attaching what would come to be known as a “key result” to an objective. A guiding principle in Grove's use of objectives and key results was driving focus.

Understanding in depth the definition of OKR and its focus on critical thinking, Alignment, Commitment, tracking the results and inspiration stretch objectives. My key take away are

• Critical-thinking framework: OKRs is about accelerating performance keeping end goal in mind. As one of the key quote by Peter aka as?“Drucker-isms”?is this:?“The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong questions." ?When examining OKR results challenge is to go beyond the numbers , dig deeper to unearth the stimulating questions for future breakthroughs. OKRs, when implemented with rigor and discipline, facilitate this model of critical thinking.
• Ongoing discipline: OKRs represent a commitment—of time and effort. Its not set it and forget it model, but it entails updating OKRs each quarter (or whatever lower cadence you choose), examining results carefully, and modifying strategy& business model as necessary, based on results.
• Ensure employees work together: Cross-functional collaboration and the value of teams truly create success of any organization, OKRs must be structured, and used, to maximize collaboration and alignment. Shared widely so that everyone, from top to bottom, can see objectives and key results from throughout the organization.
• Efforts should be focused: OKRs are not master checklist of tasks that need to be completed but the aim of model is to identify, prioritize, align on the most critical business objectives and gauging accountability through quantitative key results.
• Measurable contributions: Key results are typically (and almost exclusively) quantitative in nature.
• Drive the company forward: The ultimate arbiter of success is achievement of your goals.

Step 4 : Relationship of other related frameworks, like In the early 1980s, SMART goals, developed by George T. Doran, and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) became popular methods for organizations to set objectives. so how OKRs get influenced by them. We all know & have used SMART goals where SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-focused, and Time-bound. Elements of this approach went into OKRs, particularly results-focused and time-bound. so while working with product teams that are using User story format we related both.

Step 5: Understanding the relationship neatly between O & KRs. The Objective is qualitative, and the Key Results ( three or four) are quantitative.

Reference Books and Articles

Some good blogs : Hoshin Kanri - OGSM - OKR: A case of apples and oranges? (i-nexus.com)

The Visioning Exercise - Leadership Strategies (leadstrat.com)

Link of Material : What Matters

Tools that you can explore:

OKRs | Tasks | Performance Management | Profit.co

Lattice Overview | People Management Platform

Product Overview | Synergita – Continuous Feedback based Employee Performance and Engagement Software

Some issues in publishing with PPT and Pdf, will work on fixing this article.