Radical Focus

Set only one OKR for the company, unless you have multiple business lines. It’s about focus. Give yourself three months for an OKR. How bold is it if you can do it in a week? Keep the metrics out of the Objective. The Objective is inspirational.

Actionable by the Team Independently This is less a problem for startups, but bigger companies often struggle because of interdependence. Your Objective has to be truly yours, and you can’t have the excuse of “Marketing didn’t market it.” An Objective is like a mission statement, only for a shorter period of time.

Hanna was ready for this. “Google started with OKRs when they were a year old, and it worked for them. Many small companies become big companies because of OKRs. And guys, we may not have made our OKRs, but we should be grateful they showed us we’ve got a problem with focus.”

Time Bound For example, doable in a month, a quarter. You want it to be a clear sprint toward a goal. If it takes a year, your Objective may be a strategy or maybe even a mission.

“Hang on. Here, in the lower right, we put health metrics. These are things we want to protect while we shoot for the

Why is this? If it is important, then why doesn’t it happen? I believe there are five reasons. One: We haven’t prioritized our goals.

Raphael shook his head. “I get it, but you can’t just set goals up and hope they happen. You have to execute against them as a team. That means check ins. Just like the daily stand-ups and weekly planning we do in Agile. It can be a good, useful meeting if you have a framework you use every week to guide the meeting.” He grabbed a napkin and unfold

Jim asked, “How will you know you have succeeded?”

“Yes, yes, yes. What’s in the last slot?” Hanna asked, pointing at the lower left. She felt renewed and inspired. “I call that ‘heads up.’ It’s the pipeline of important things you expect to happen in the next month. That way Marketing, Engineering, Sales and all don’t get caught flat footed when something has to be supported.”