Why OKR examples won't help you
Why OKR examples won't help you
Without context and the right muscles and mindsets, they aren't that useful.
Hi, Felipe here. A short post this week as the one I had planned turned out to be longer than expected. We'll be back next week with our regular programming.
A client emailed me asking for a list of good OKR examples:
Can you provide a (long) list of good OKRs? The team and I have been talking through what good OKRs look like in response to your articles and would like more examples.
People always ask for lists of OKR examples, but in my experience, a list of generic OKRs isn't that helpful.
First, it's hard to understand most OKRs without context. They are often meaningless unless you understand the type of work people do, the industry they work in, or why some outcomes and metrics are important.
OKRs that anyone can easily comprehend are usually too basic to be useful. There are plenty of those online.
Second, there are so many bad OKR examples out there online and in books like Measure What Matters that unless people understand why focusing on outcomes is important, giving them more examples makes no difference.
People have to be willing to unlearn all those bad examples.
Finally, without developing your outcome muscles, looking at a great set of OKRs can feel like watching Simone Biles perform at the Olympics. I can see what she did, but I have no idea how to do it myself.
So although I use different examples in my workshop, I focus on teaching people the principles and techniques they need to understand what makes a great OKR and how to do it themselves.
As each team goes through the workshop, we use their OKRs to build an internal list of great examples that the next teams inside the company can use.
But even so, people will only be able to create something similar after developing the right muscles and mindsets.
OKR examples sound like a great idea. But the real value comes from understanding the principles behind them and developing the skills to focus on the right outcomes for your specific context.
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