4 ms·
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 out
by 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 agoThe 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 agoIn 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.