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I think Google or one of the other big tech companies also use OKRs instead of the more traditional KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
by 6nf 8y ago
I think Google or one of the other big tech companies also use OKRs instead of the more traditional KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
- dilyevsky 8y agoOKRs are Conjoined Triangles of Success irl. Lots of companies use it around the bay (including Google). They think it’s a godsend because suddenly they can measure their progress in some way that is not just “story points per sprint” ignoring the fact this measurement only makes sense within the system itself and may not reflect the reality at all.
- alexandercrohde 8y agoA good thought exercise is to ask yourself, "Is it possible an engineer achieves every OKR yet is the worst employee at the organization?" and "Is it possible an employee achieves NO okr and is the best?" I feel I could think of examples. There are so many dimensions of valuable work (no security holes, being nice, not reinventing the wheel, documenting well, long-term stability/refactorability, code being reusable by other teams) but I imagine OKRs can't cover all those facets. It almost seems as fruitless as trying to measure friendship by OKRs.
- dilyevsky 8y agoWhich is why okrs are untied from promos at Google for instance (in theory that is =))
- joshuamorton 8y agoWell most people don't set personal okrs, or at least not formally, so it's probably true that theory matches practice.
- sanderjd 8y agoBoth are possible, yep. But OKRs tend to be written down pretty often (quarterly is what I've seen, but maybe monthly is a thing too). If a bad employee is cruising or a great employee's work is not being recognized quarter after quarter, that's a direct managerial problem and not really what OKRs are trying to solve.
- chii 8y ago> If a bad employee is cruising or a great employee's work is not being recognized quarter after quarter, that's a direct managerial problem management introduce OKRs so that they don't have to solve actual managerial problems - the OKRs _are_ their solution! That it misses a bad employee cruising, or a great employee's contribution is a footnote. After all, when the system is using an OKR to guide the actions of employees, and you go against it, it's basically career suicide. I personally don't like OKRs or any performance metric that isn't directly tied to customers' actions (e.g., growing customer numbers, or growing revenue etc).
- cpeterso 8y agoFor this reason, Spotify now uses OKRs for teams and not people: https://hrblog.spotify.com/2016/08/15/our-beliefs/ https://hrblog.spotify.com/2016/08/15/our-beliefs/
- Bombthecat 8y agoWhere I work right now. They use OKR on division level.
- ddalex 8y agoAt Time Out, we used to set OKRs at team level, and then prompty discard them and the carefully constructed plans that went nowhere when faced with the reality. So now we're setting the Objectives, and measure the KPIs that are defined to reflect the objectives. The actual means to move the KPI, which would be the KR (key results) in OKRs, are no longer defined in quarterly planning sessions, but are selected and updated by the team during sprint planning. This gives the teams a large independence in What they are doing while still maintaining business alignment and meaningful measurements.
- digaozao 8y agoFrom what I understand, that is the idea. KRs are the KPIs you are going to focus on each quarter.
- henrygrew 8y agowhy don't you give examples
- tootie 8y agoAside from it being somewhat nonsensical, the industry has been saying KPI for decades as have other industries.
- jkaljundi 8y agoGoogle at work OKRs guide: https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/set-goals-with-okrs/steps/introduction/ https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/set-goals-with-okrs/ste...
- dandare 8y agoAnecdotal story: I know a company that is too messed up to measure/quantify key indicators so as a solution they switched from KPIs to OKRs.