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OKRs are good for solving the problem of communicating strategic decisions in a meaningful way in large organisations. Without such a device, it is common for p

OKRs are good for solving the problem of communicating strategic decisions in a meaningful way in large organisations. Without such a device, it is common for people "on the ground" to not have a good understanding of the priorities of people several levels above them, with the result that they can do great work and still not move in the direction the company decided to move in. It is easy to misunderstand that and trash OKRs when you're the "leaf" in an organisational tree. But ask your manager, or their manager, or your VP or CEO, and they'll tell you that they need a device for effectively communicating to everyone in the org what the priorities are.

skrebbel 3y ago
I don’t understand this. Why can’t they just tell them? How does it being an OKR make the communication more effective? (Note: I mean this literally. I’ve never worked in an organization with OKRs, all I know about OKRs comes from HN. I want to understand your point better, not criticize it)
- intellectronica 3y ago
  Imagine that you are an executive managing an org with 3000 people in 4-5 levels of hierarchy. That's common in large companies. You get to "talk" to the enire team perhaps a once a quarter, in some town-hall event where most people aren't really listening, and maybe send a mass email every now and then, which no-one reads. You get to talk to your immediate management team more often, and they talk to their reports, and so on, but of course whatever message you've had is greatly diluted, sometimes comically so, like in a game of telephone. People are not robots, their understanding and communication is very ... creative. And context-dependent. And self-motivated. So that's not effective. Most people need to engage with the message you have - your priorities, changes in direction, specific goals - on a daily basis. Otherwise you are not really giving them any direction. And so you need some device to enable that. And OKRs are a part of the solution.
  - skrebbel 3y ago
    I understand the problem, thanks, but I still don’t understand how an OKR is a good solution.
    - intellectronica 3y ago
      I can review the OKRs every day, and structure my plans for what to work on accordingly. Objectives tell me what is the strategic direction. If what I do doesn't help move in that direction I can stop doing that and do something else instead. Key results help me assess whether I am making progress. If I am not, I can stop doing what I was doing and adjust my plans. That's not perfect, but a lot better than getting to the end of the quarter (or, more commonly, semester) and realising that a few months of hard work have gone to waste because we weren't aligned to the strategy and so didn't achieve what we set to achieve.
      - BobbyTables2 3y ago
        > I can review the OKRs every day Have you considered seeking assistance from professional counsellors? But seriously, I don’t understand the OKR cult. The whole “update and align” thing is worse than any religion. Or do people really wake up each day and ask, what am I supposed to be doing at work?
  - IshKebab 3y ago
    That doesn't match my experience. Town hall style meetings are generally more frequent than OKRs and paid more attention to. My experience of OKRs has always been "set then once or twice a year and then immediately forget about them until the next time".
    - intellectronica 3y ago
      The point is that the OKRs, once set, can be reviewed regularly by everyone.
  - pvdoom 3y ago
- lvturner 3y ago
  I think the argument is that, theoretically it's somewhat standardized format, easy to understand and can be communicated in relatively short form. Of course, in practice, your mileage may vary.
- Stranger43 3y ago
  Because you haven't articulated them were well. My experiences with OKR's is that they are an cargo cult practices covering the lack of good coherent strategy, the exception to this is things that looks like OKR's but evolved differently within the organization rather then being adopted top down by a set of management consultants.
- methyl 3y ago
  OKRs are nothing more and nothing less than a way of telling your organization what’s the most important thing we want to improve and how we are going to measure if it’s improving. It really is just telling them and checking once in a while how it’s going.
deleted 3y ago
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skrebbel 3y ago

I don’t understand this. Why can’t they just tell them? How does it being an OKR make the communication more effective? (Note: I mean this literally. I’ve never worked in an organization with OKRs, all I know about OKRs comes from HN. I want to understand your point better, not criticize it)

intellectronica 3y ago
Imagine that you are an executive managing an org with 3000 people in 4-5 levels of hierarchy. That's common in large companies. You get to "talk" to the enire team perhaps a once a quarter, in some town-hall event where most people aren't really listening, and maybe send a mass email every now and then, which no-one reads. You get to talk to your immediate management team more often, and they talk to their reports, and so on, but of course whatever message you've had is greatly diluted, sometimes comically so, like in a game of telephone. People are not robots, their understanding and communication is very ... creative. And context-dependent. And self-motivated. So that's not effective. Most people need to engage with the message you have - your priorities, changes in direction, specific goals - on a daily basis. Otherwise you are not really giving them any direction. And so you need some device to enable that. And OKRs are a part of the solution.
- skrebbel 3y ago
  I understand the problem, thanks, but I still don’t understand how an OKR is a good solution.
  - intellectronica 3y ago
    I can review the OKRs every day, and structure my plans for what to work on accordingly. Objectives tell me what is the strategic direction. If what I do doesn't help move in that direction I can stop doing that and do something else instead. Key results help me assess whether I am making progress. If I am not, I can stop doing what I was doing and adjust my plans. That's not perfect, but a lot better than getting to the end of the quarter (or, more commonly, semester) and realising that a few months of hard work have gone to waste because we weren't aligned to the strategy and so didn't achieve what we set to achieve.
    - BobbyTables2 3y ago
      > I can review the OKRs every day Have you considered seeking assistance from professional counsellors? But seriously, I don’t understand the OKR cult. The whole “update and align” thing is worse than any religion. Or do people really wake up each day and ask, what am I supposed to be doing at work?
- IshKebab 3y ago
  That doesn't match my experience. Town hall style meetings are generally more frequent than OKRs and paid more attention to. My experience of OKRs has always been "set then once or twice a year and then immediately forget about them until the next time".
  - intellectronica 3y ago
    The point is that the OKRs, once set, can be reviewed regularly by everyone.
- pvdoom 3y ago
lvturner 3y ago
I think the argument is that, theoretically it's somewhat standardized format, easy to understand and can be communicated in relatively short form. Of course, in practice, your mileage may vary.
Stranger43 3y ago
Because you haven't articulated them were well. My experiences with OKR's is that they are an cargo cult practices covering the lack of good coherent strategy, the exception to this is things that looks like OKR's but evolved differently within the organization rather then being adopted top down by a set of management consultants.
methyl 3y ago
OKRs are nothing more and nothing less than a way of telling your organization what’s the most important thing we want to improve and how we are going to measure if it’s improving. It really is just telling them and checking once in a while how it’s going.

deleted 3y ago

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