Early Stage OKRs

We all know that Google invented OKRs… but that doesn’t mean you should try and do your OKRs like Google.

After a decade of OKRs, it’s pretty clear to me that they work. That being said, it’s also pretty clear that the vast majority of companies don’t do them in a way that actually supports their growth and alignment. They try and do them the way Google does them… but with 1/10,000th of the resources.

When done well, they should accomplish Focus, Prioritization, Alignment and Resourcing for a business to get the most out of a company with strapped resources.

When we do this well, it becomes really easy to find the cause and effect between problems of the company, to prevent our business from developing fiefdoms, or to create a more objective framework into whether or not we need to hire more.

The we use the tools on the right to accomplish this.

  • What your company is focused on should be capable of being stated in a sentence.

    Ultimately, we’re a species that operate with a predator mentality. This means we are very good at focusing on the one thing in front of us. OKRs should reflect this.

    By creating clear focus, we ensure that the entire business is only working on initiatives that move the needle as defined by only a few KRs.

  • As an early stage business, you can only get so many things done.

    Often, a team tries to have multiple objectives in the quarter. The result of this is you have many people focusing on many things, and doing most of them poorly.

    In the “predator” mentality, we want to be sure the entire org is focused on one thing at a time. When we need to focus on multiple things in a quarter, we do them sequentially to keep people executing in a focused manner.

  • Many times, when OKRs aren’t working it’s because the manner in which they were implemented creates a culture of fiefdoms.

    An easy example of this would be when Sales sells things that don’t exist, often leaving product and eng in the lurch to fix it.

    This is one of many examples, but OKRs should bring light to the idea that you are ultimately a team. Everyone should ultimately be headed in the same direction.

  • OKRs don’t work many times when there is a misalignment between the CEO and the rest of the management team in regards to what can realistically be accomplished.

    This often results in the CEO wearing too many hats (and getting overwhelmed, thus doing many things poorly) or asking their team to do things that they can’t without more help.

    This puts the nature of the results on the table, and then forces the question of “what do we need to get this result done?” instead of “can we or can’t we do it?”