2021-02-15
Individual KRs do not work. Personal KRs do. It is hard to implement OKRs straight away, especially on all levels of an organisation, but it is crucial for work culture do it right.
OKR – Objective, Key Result
I struggle with setting up OKRs correctly despite following good practices, avoiding poorly defined objectives and key results while doing this on an individual contributor level.
Essential thighs I try to nail down when setting up individual KRs:
- Keep alignment with team/managers and organisation OKRs. It's teamwork!
- Make key results express a change in others (to describe outcomes and not outputs). Intentionally, the KRs are not a specific task or project (although I have provided examples in the footnotes).
- Find measures for key results (which is not always possible).
Individual KRs are so hard because, by definition, any desired outcome (defined from the perspective of users, customers, internal stakeholders) requires teamwork.
Personal KRs are different, as we have the power to transform ourselves, and such a change can be monitored by the change in others' behaviour.
With OKRs is the same as with other frameworks: easy to use, hard to use right.
When implementing such framer works in companies, the real effort should be put on the quality of implementation, not the adoption itself.
This is crucial with OKRs, as to how they are done dictates how people will work. This can make or break for teamwork and work culture.