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> Secondarily, I found that as a team lead, to the extent that OKRs were stressed, any non-OKR related work became highly dis-incentivized. ... I assume that th

> Secondarily, I found that as a team lead, to the extent that OKRs were stressed, any non-OKR related work became highly dis-incentivized. ... I assume that the OKRs are there to guide which releases/epics/stories, etc... you do, but in our case, we had a pretty clearly defined product already prior to introduction of OKRs. Good OKRs provide measurement and alignment. Measurement is handy -- the idea is to say 'I want to do O, and I believe X, Y and Z are sufficient to achieve it'. Since all these variables are measurable, you can see whether the problem is that you failed to achieve X, Y, and Z, or if your plan wasn't actually sufficient to achieve it. Alignment is a bit more nebulous. For small teams, it may be unnecessary. But as orgs grow, there's room for mission creep and contradictory goals and efforts. Good OKRs are designed to be able to connect up the org chart. Staff should be able to explain how their contribution serves the mission, rather than their own insular fiefdom. And if they can't, it might indicate they're not doing what the rest of the org is planning around! If your engineers are focused on quality metrics like number of tests or SonarQube metrics but management doesn't see the platform as anything other than a proof of concept to find product-market fit with, that's a problem. What your experience describes is a feature factory[1], and I don't think OKRs really change that. You can think of OKRs as management laying out how the backlog should be prioritized, and the fact that nobody in management was pushing for quality is a sign. Either they didn't know how to measure quality and impact, or they felt it wouldn't serve the overall mission. And these are all good things for everyone involved to see and recognize. [1]: https://hackernoon.com/12-signs-youre-working-in-a-feature-factory-44a5b938d6a2 https://hackernoon.com/12-signs-youre-working-in-a-feature-f...

zerkten 8y ago
> Alignment is a bit more nebulous. For small teams, it may be unnecessary. But as orgs grow, there's room for mission creep and contradictory goals and efforts. In my experience this is the single biggest thing that trips up organizations which have grown, or been acquired. It also seems to be the thing that people can't wrap their heads around because it feels difficult. If whole divisions aren't aligned then it doesn't really matter how well your team performs because the lowest common denominator division becomes the limit. This is especially noticeable around acquisitions where the incoming team naturally wants to operate as if nothing has changed, but they may be really out of alignment with the acquiring company. With enough time and management pressure alignment might occur, but it's normally a painful process of the acquiring company taking over aspects of the acquired company. Rarely, if ever, are acquisitions comfortable, but the other other results can be a bit better.

zerkten 8y ago

> Alignment is a bit more nebulous. For small teams, it may be unnecessary. But as orgs grow, there's room for mission creep and contradictory goals and efforts. In my experience this is the single biggest thing that trips up organizations which have grown, or been acquired. It also seems to be the thing that people can't wrap their heads around because it feels difficult. If whole divisions aren't aligned then it doesn't really matter how well your team performs because the lowest common denominator division becomes the limit. This is especially noticeable around acquisitions where the incoming team naturally wants to operate as if nothing has changed, but they may be really out of alignment with the acquiring company. With enough time and management pressure alignment might occur, but it's normally a painful process of the acquiring company taking over aspects of the acquired company. Rarely, if ever, are acquisitions comfortable, but the other other results can be a bit better.