Skip to main content

OKRs

Engineering for the Rest of Us by Sarah Drasner​

In order to create a good, actionable OKR, woth on both objectives and key results... Limit the number of overall OKRs so that your team can focus. Important characteristics about OKRs:

  • They are defined by a top-level business goal or strategy.
  • Once defined, they should be easy to find and clear to everyone... Repeat them often, until you're sick of saying them.
  • They need to be reactive to feedback, especially from your peers... collaborate to reach a common goal. They should agree that what you've set out to do is important, be willing to help, and vice versa.
  • OKRs will likely make you mildly uncomfortable. The goal should be kind of exciting because you're trying to do something that's a challenge.

At a top level, I like to define future OKRs by doing two things: looking forward and looking backward. In looking forward... consider the big picture: What do I think our caompany could do that will make waves in the next few years? What could I do to contribute to this? Look backward: What does the data say about this direction? What pace is the growth of this idea currently? What data do I have access to? What are the unknowns? What are the gaps I can close?[26]