There is more value in creating and using OKRs than in the actual OKRs.

Chargefox is the fifth company I have worked at, where OKRs are the method or practice used to set the company's or group's direction. In my last few, I've either led the establishment of the framework or helped create it.

When I first started at Chargefox, I was surprised that most of the team had never worked with them before. Leading the team through their establishment has been super fun and exciting—for me, anyway!

This post is a quick writeup on what I learned on this journey, sprinkled with insights from journeys at other companies.

If OKRs are new to you, many excellent sources exist. Ben Lemorte wrote a book called Objective and Key Results, Driving Focus, Alignment and Engagement with OKRs; you can get it on Google Books. Atlassian has a good writeup at https://www.atlassian.com/agile/agile-at-scale/okr. Just Google OKRs

Firstly, I have always used them to inspire teams to get out of their comfort zone, try something left off the field, and strive to achieve something extraordinary. I haven't seen OKRs as operational objectives, KPIs, or easy to hit; they are the things my teams look to achieve to meet something like an MTP (https://moonshotpirates.com/blog/setting-a-goal-for-changing-the-world-massive-transformative-purpose/). At Chargefox we have a MTP and its "Electrify Everything!". When I joined Chargefox, I wanted to lead a change, and forming an OKR framework was my instrument.

I'm purposeful about saying Lead change. There are many ways to describe or classify leadership. I may get called out here for simplifying it too much, but I see two main styles: management and leadership. Management is more structured and instructional in the delegation of tasks and efforts of teams to achieve a manager's desired outcome. Leadership is guiding and developing the capability of a team along a journey, accepting that it's chaotic and may take more time. Both styles have a time and a place. If you want to get the team to stand on its own two feet, to build, develop itself and grow, you must lead over manage. So I lead almost always and then apologise when I have to manage.

OKRs guide teams to find something that they would die for and then go on to live for that. OKRs are moonshots. If we hit our OKRs, I haven't inspired the team enough to have a good crack at being outstanding. Teams should only hit about 70 - 80% of the KR. At Chargefox, our OKRs are inspirational; they guide our team to achieve great things.

OKRs are not the only things a company or team strives to achieve. They should only cover some of the work undertaken. I have yet to use OKRs to inspire or measure my teams' or companies' operational work. The more transformative, the more of a scale-up business you are, and the higher the percentage of your team efforts goes against the OKRs. If you are an Enterprise or work in a stable marketplace the less work would go towards OKRs.

I've never seen a perfect or flawless set of OKRs, and I urge those trying to set OKRs just to start; have your best go at it, and do it as a team, not as an individual. The conversations and debates forming OKRs are more important than the result. As teams discuss the objectives and how to measure them, you learn much about your business and what inspires and motivates people. Get someone to facilitate as you want your team's undivided attention when creating OKRs At Chargefox, I worked with Alex Stokes at Reeboot (https://www.rebootco.com.au/) for weeks planning a three-day workshop to create our first year's OKRs.

Start slowly, looking to craft only a few. At the start don't wordsmith the 'O'bjective too much; if it's a team creating them, then just make sure that you collectively know what the 'O' means. The discussions on getting the right KRs are far more insightful. If you can't find measures, then rethink the objective.

Be careful of vanity metrics/measures as your KRs. However, one person's vanity metric could be another person's actionable KPI. It depends on the person and the objective. For example, the number of page impressions on a web page with a "buy product now" button could be seen as a vanity metric by a person who wants to sell more products. However, page impressions would be actionable for a person who wants to sell advertising on a page.

For OKRs to work, people must be interested in why they seek to achieve an outcome. They must seek insightful data to inform them and know if they are on or off track. Teams need to be data-driven. When I joined Chargefox, we were a focused team committed to doing what we thought was right At the start, there were blank looks if I asked one or two whys to understand why we were working on something.

To get people interested in the why, we started making data free and accessible. We built reports and dashboards showing interesting facts, loads of facts, more facts than anyone could consume, and conflicting facts to cause debate. I talked to data over asking for reports or presenting PowerPoint presentations. We developed a very basic data platform where anyone in the team could access all the non-PI data.

I asked why all the time. I am pretty sure that the team at Chargefox thought I was a lunatic—they probably still do. But now armed with data and a thirst for data, the team at Chargefox measures everything and aligns their efforts to meet the company's imperfect OKRs. I get called out by the team for being wrong, continually, based on fact, not emotion - I love it!

Our OKRs could be better, but they have inspired people to achieve great things. At Chargefox, we have an informed team that seeks to understand so that our efforts have an impact; we kick some mighty goals. Having OKRs didn't build that team ability. However, the journey of creating an MTP, building OKRs, and working with OKRs for almost 2 years has supercharged our capability.