5 ms·

How does an OKR not orient and account for effort if each level’s objectives are the higher level’s key results? If my boss has an objective that will be met wi

How does an OKR not orient and account for effort if each level’s objectives are the higher level’s key results? If my boss has an objective that will be met with measured output from my department, and my boss sets my OKRs with me, how can I escape making that output an objective and measuring contributions to it? What is your assertion specifically based on?

mlthoughts2018 8y ago
Higher level OKRs are generally left vague while being claimed to be unambiguous and precisely scoped. That way it is a subjective matter as to whether the outcome was satisfied or not (so that success in an OKR system can remain political and not meritocratic). This follows from upper levels of the hierarchy to lower levels, so that in the leaf nodes where KRs hit specific projects, it becomes an incredibly stressful negotiation between the pragmatic reality of what needs to get done and how much bandwidth there is vs a stack of forking paths of ambiguous outcomes so that managers want to hedge their bets on all possible outcomes. If OKRs were treated more like prediction markets, and bonuses or rewards were tied directly to quantified outcomes, then it would be like what you say (and also like what OKRs are supposed to be, rather than what they pay lip service to).
- 1123581321 8y ago
  The part that makes the most sense to me, and that I’ve experienced, is the stressful transition of management into measuring specific projects. However, I think it’s good if the OKRs force those conversations to happen. And obviously if the organization is too dysfunctional, the OKR setting process cannot be honestly conducted and will never work. I don’t think the average organization is this bad.
  - mlthoughts2018 8y ago
    In my experience, only very few companies use formalized processes like this in a remotely reasonable way, surely less than 5% of companies. In the rest, which often include name brand, successful companies, the situation is just pure dysfunction.

mlthoughts2018 8y ago

Higher level OKRs are generally left vague while being claimed to be unambiguous and precisely scoped. That way it is a subjective matter as to whether the outcome was satisfied or not (so that success in an OKR system can remain political and not meritocratic). This follows from upper levels of the hierarchy to lower levels, so that in the leaf nodes where KRs hit specific projects, it becomes an incredibly stressful negotiation between the pragmatic reality of what needs to get done and how much bandwidth there is vs a stack of forking paths of ambiguous outcomes so that managers want to hedge their bets on all possible outcomes. If OKRs were treated more like prediction markets, and bonuses or rewards were tied directly to quantified outcomes, then it would be like what you say (and also like what OKRs are supposed to be, rather than what they pay lip service to).

1123581321 8y ago
The part that makes the most sense to me, and that I’ve experienced, is the stressful transition of management into measuring specific projects. However, I think it’s good if the OKRs force those conversations to happen. And obviously if the organization is too dysfunctional, the OKR setting process cannot be honestly conducted and will never work. I don’t think the average organization is this bad.
- mlthoughts2018 8y ago
  In my experience, only very few companies use formalized processes like this in a remotely reasonable way, surely less than 5% of companies. In the rest, which often include name brand, successful companies, the situation is just pure dysfunction.