4 ms·

One of the downfalls of OKRs is that in many cases the true objective for people and/or teams is not something that can be mentioned without being unspeakably i

by WJW 4y ago

One of the downfalls of OKRs is that in many cases the true objective for people and/or teams is not something that can be mentioned without being unspeakably impolite. For example, the political goal "I as CTO want my department to grow by N FTEs so that I will gain in prestige compared to my peers in the C-suite" is definitely not something you will ever see on an OKR sheet but is definitely something that happens. On the other end of the influence spectrum, "I want to learn technology X because it will look good on my resume when I job-hop in a year from now" is also something you can't really use as a reason in a corporate setting but still definitely something that happens all the time. If you cannot start from the real Objectives and have to make up fake ones, determining effective Key Results to go with them is bound to lead to confusion.

vmception 4y ago
> in many cases the true objective for people and/or teams is not something that can be mentioned without being unspeakably impolite At the individual contributor level the manager is always pushing for “personal OKRs” too And I’ve never been able to be honest or “authentic” about that Nobody could ever explain if it was professional development goals, extra responsibility or goals within the company or coding project, or actual personal. Other ICs would be excited to write their actual personal.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  It's funny. When it comes to personal development, side projects, etc. I have had times when I was very interested in setting specific goals and other times when I really didn't want to.
- icedchai 4y ago
  I totally hate that bullshit. The last time I ran into this "personal goal setting" nonsense was at a company where I wasn't planning on staying around very long. You could say it was rather challenging to be authentic.
  - leaflets2 4y ago
    What kind of goals did you choose, that time?
    - icedchai 4y ago
      I just told them what they wanted to hear, like "promoting knowledge sharing through brown bag sessions" with no intention of ever doing it.
      - leaflets2 4y ago
        Ok :-) I wonder if team/department goals would have been more fun in your case
        icedchai 4y ago
        I was unhappy there after the first month, so any sort of goals would've been pointless. Don't get me wrong, I did decent work and would receive excellent reviews / praise for it, I just didn't like the culture / environment. The honest truth: I didn't have any goals, and still really don't. I just wanted good, interesting work to do during these dark times (pandemic, etc), with as few interruptions as possible.
- oceanplexian 4y ago
  Whenever someone asks that question I tell them my personal goal is to make more money. Ironically this sometimes leads to productive conversations.
  - enos_feedler 4y ago
    This is the dream response for any manager. I am the opposite and cared very little about making more money. I was more interested to reduce my life's operational expenses to get more out of the money I was already making. I got bounced around from manager to manager because of this. Nobody knew how to get me to do anything.
  - afarrell 4y ago
    “I want to make more money” is an easy thing for a manager at a not-failing company to handle because it is so concrete and concretely deliverable.
deepsun 4y ago
Speaking for the devil -- that's going to happen anyway, but OKRs will force to put that into a framework, to come up with a reasonably looking excuse to do that. Better with excuse than without, no?
Litost 4y ago
This hidden agenda issue can be very problematic, as you say it might be self-evident based on watching people leave that they've gone somewhere else for the "better" tech stack but you'll unlikely to get anyone to admit to it, unless you're working somewhere progressive and/or with a progressive manager etc. My last place we intentionally didn't use K8s but we were upfront with our team and hires (it was almost one of the first things I mentioned when recruiting) along with the reasoning. But unless people are honest about their motives, and this is something that has to cascade down from the top, you'll get all sorts of sabotaging behaviour, especially if OKRs are imposed from the top and not bought into/negotiated across the org. This gets worse when (due to human psychology and fast brain/slow brain traits, with the slow brain backing up the knee jerk fast brain) goals like the ones you mention are hidden (in shadow - see Jung). Or as mentioned in other comments you get the whole Economics externalisation problem when all sorts of 2nd and 3rd order+ goals (like team/org cohesion, fixing technical debt, taking ownership of incidents/problems or going the extra mile) which aren't in any of the OKRs get gamed out of the system because no-one's tracking them. This would be fine if the OKRs are light touch guides and not excuses to stick everything else on the bonfire. i.e. OKRs are in service and not master. I'm not sure how you mitigate this other than hiring people aligned with company values/goals/action who are less likely to just be (understandably because it's a jungle out there) maximising their pay and the modernity of the tech stacks they know and foster a culture of co-operation not competition.
- lovich 4y ago
  > I'm not sure how you mitigate this other than hiring people aligned with company values/goals/action who are less likely to just be (understandably because it's a jungle out there) maximising their pay and the modernity of the tech stacks they know and foster a culture of co-operation not competition. I’m not sure it’s possible to grow beyond a small group of people and actually maintain that. People would need to feel some significant ownership in the company and you can’t spread a meaningful amount ownership across hundreds or thousands of people. And that’s after the investors and execs take their cut
  - Litost 4y ago
NumberCruncher 4y ago
> If you cannot start from the real Objectives and have to make up fake ones The more you understand the real motivation of people the harder it gets to take business goals and decisions seriously.

by WJW 4y ago

vmception 4y ago

> in many cases the true objective for people and/or teams is not something that can be mentioned without being unspeakably impolite At the individual contributor level the manager is always pushing for “personal OKRs” too And I’ve never been able to be honest or “authentic” about that Nobody could ever explain if it was professional development goals, extra responsibility or goals within the company or coding project, or actual personal. Other ICs would be excited to write their actual personal.

PaulHoule 4y ago
It's funny. When it comes to personal development, side projects, etc. I have had times when I was very interested in setting specific goals and other times when I really didn't want to.
icedchai 4y ago
I totally hate that bullshit. The last time I ran into this "personal goal setting" nonsense was at a company where I wasn't planning on staying around very long. You could say it was rather challenging to be authentic.
- leaflets2 4y ago
  What kind of goals did you choose, that time?
  - icedchai 4y ago
    I just told them what they wanted to hear, like "promoting knowledge sharing through brown bag sessions" with no intention of ever doing it.
    - leaflets2 4y ago
      Ok :-) I wonder if team/department goals would have been more fun in your case
      - icedchai 4y ago
        I was unhappy there after the first month, so any sort of goals would've been pointless. Don't get me wrong, I did decent work and would receive excellent reviews / praise for it, I just didn't like the culture / environment. The honest truth: I didn't have any goals, and still really don't. I just wanted good, interesting work to do during these dark times (pandemic, etc), with as few interruptions as possible.
oceanplexian 4y ago
Whenever someone asks that question I tell them my personal goal is to make more money. Ironically this sometimes leads to productive conversations.
- enos_feedler 4y ago
  This is the dream response for any manager. I am the opposite and cared very little about making more money. I was more interested to reduce my life's operational expenses to get more out of the money I was already making. I got bounced around from manager to manager because of this. Nobody knew how to get me to do anything.
- afarrell 4y ago
  “I want to make more money” is an easy thing for a manager at a not-failing company to handle because it is so concrete and concretely deliverable.

deepsun 4y ago

Speaking for the devil -- that's going to happen anyway, but OKRs will force to put that into a framework, to come up with a reasonably looking excuse to do that. Better with excuse than without, no?

Litost 4y ago

This hidden agenda issue can be very problematic, as you say it might be self-evident based on watching people leave that they've gone somewhere else for the "better" tech stack but you'll unlikely to get anyone to admit to it, unless you're working somewhere progressive and/or with a progressive manager etc. My last place we intentionally didn't use K8s but we were upfront with our team and hires (it was almost one of the first things I mentioned when recruiting) along with the reasoning. But unless people are honest about their motives, and this is something that has to cascade down from the top, you'll get all sorts of sabotaging behaviour, especially if OKRs are imposed from the top and not bought into/negotiated across the org. This gets worse when (due to human psychology and fast brain/slow brain traits, with the slow brain backing up the knee jerk fast brain) goals like the ones you mention are hidden (in shadow - see Jung). Or as mentioned in other comments you get the whole Economics externalisation problem when all sorts of 2nd and 3rd order+ goals (like team/org cohesion, fixing technical debt, taking ownership of incidents/problems or going the extra mile) which aren't in any of the OKRs get gamed out of the system because no-one's tracking them. This would be fine if the OKRs are light touch guides and not excuses to stick everything else on the bonfire. i.e. OKRs are in service and not master. I'm not sure how you mitigate this other than hiring people aligned with company values/goals/action who are less likely to just be (understandably because it's a jungle out there) maximising their pay and the modernity of the tech stacks they know and foster a culture of co-operation not competition.

lovich 4y ago
> I'm not sure how you mitigate this other than hiring people aligned with company values/goals/action who are less likely to just be (understandably because it's a jungle out there) maximising their pay and the modernity of the tech stacks they know and foster a culture of co-operation not competition. I’m not sure it’s possible to grow beyond a small group of people and actually maintain that. People would need to feel some significant ownership in the company and you can’t spread a meaningful amount ownership across hundreds or thousands of people. And that’s after the investors and execs take their cut
- Litost 4y ago

NumberCruncher 4y ago

> If you cannot start from the real Objectives and have to make up fake ones The more you understand the real motivation of people the harder it gets to take business goals and decisions seriously.