Here’s the brutal truth:
Cascading OKRs does not work, it is a flaw, time-consuming, and hard to track and measure.
Integrative OKRs empowers employees to contribute autonomously to the company’s vision
1. 1
Here’s the brutal truth:
Cascading OKRs does not
work, it is a flaw, time
consuming and hard to
track and measure
Integrative OKRs
empowers employees to
contribute autonomously
to the company’s vision
Integrative OKRs
Say NO to Cascading OKRs
Ramin Vatanparast
Top Down & Bottom Up
https://www.ThePDSG.comRamin Vatanparast
2. Chief Product Officer
VP of Product Management & Data
Senior Director of Product Management & UX
Director of Product Management & Monetization
Senior Product Manager
2
About the host:
Ramin Vatanparast
Ph.D. Degree in Management from Aalto University, Helsinki in Finland
Ph.D. Degree in Technology from Tampere University of Technology in Finland
https://www.linkedin.com/in/raminvatanparast/
https://www.thepdsg.com/
3. 3
A Brief History of OKR
Why Cascading OKRs Does
Not Work?
Integrative OKRs & Its Benefits
8 Rules of OKRs
The Agenda
https://www.ThePDSG.comRamin Vatanparast
4. 4
1954
Peter Drucker invented MBO
or Management by
Objectives...
1968 1974 1999
Andy Grove co-founded
Intel and while CEO
developed MBO into the
model of OKR
John Doerr joined Intel and
learned OKR
John Doerr as advisor of
Google introduced OKRs to
Google
OKR History
OKR is not a new concept
https://www.ThePDSG.comRamin Vatanparast
6. 6
The Objective is a precise, brief, and
ambitious formulation of the goals
you want to achieve. The main key is
to create it according to be:
Ambitious
Significance
Simple
Time-bond
Objective Key Result
Key Results show your progress and
help to focus to accomplish the goals.
It is a call-to-action formulation that
contains metrics and has to be
quantifiable.
Activity-based (to develop, launch,
create...)
Value-based (measures outcomes,
contains numbers, percentages…)
Initiatives
Initiatives are describing what you are
going to do to reach your goal, what
actions do you need to take, and what
tasks do you need to accomplish.
Should benefit the objectives
Should impact KR
Should be changed quickly if
there is no impact
https://www.ThePDSG.comRamin Vatanparast
7. Each Company is Different
Need for Customized OKRs
https://www.ThePDSG.comRamin Vatanparast
8. 8
“cascading makes an operation more
coherent.”
In his book, “Measure What Matters”, John Doerr wrote, “They link diverse
operations, lending purpose and unity to the entire organization.”
Works on
crisis2
What is Cascading OKRs?
One-way &
irreversible3 Does not
empower4
1
https://www.ThePDSG.comRamin Vatanparast
9. 9
Integrative
OKRs
Integrative OKRs empowers employees to
contribute autonomously to the company’s vision
How to set Integrative
OKRs?
What are the OKR
rules?
Top Down & Bottom Up
https://www.ThePDSG.comRamin Vatanparast
10. 10
Set business
priority statements
Build integrative
OKRs
Elaborate and
communicate
Build team OKRs
collaboratively
How to set Integrative OKRs?
Start from the big picture to inspire and empower people to contribute
https://www.ThePDSG.comRamin Vatanparast
11. Teams
Organizations
Organizations
Business Priority
11
Integrative
OKRs
Top Down & Bottom Up Quarterly
OKRs
Company OKR
Executives
WHERE & WHY
Strategies
Org OKR
Leaderships
ALIGN
Tactics
Teams OKR
Teams
HOW
Action plans
Weekly
Review
Big Best
Bets
OKR
Retrospective
Initiatives
Long term
Annual
Half year
Quarterly
https://www.ThePDSG.comRamin Vatanparast
Priority
Statements
Cross
Functional
OKRs
13. 13
8 Rules of OKR
Do not
Rush
Performance
Management
Integrative
OKRs
RULE ONE RULE TWO Rule FOUR
Customized
OKRs
Time
Bound
Individual
OKRs “NO”
Practice to
Perfect
RULE FIVE RULE SIX RULE SEVEN RULE EIGHT
Cross
Functional
RULE THREE
https://www.ThePDSG.comRamin Vatanparast
14. 14
Make it to be
integrative OKRs
top-down direction
and bottom-up feedback
We have a full day
to set our annual goals
& it is set and we are not going to change it
Top down
Bottom Up
~30%
Top Down
OKRs
~70%
Bottom Up
OKRs
Market knowledge
& Strategic Vision
Area experts
with know how
Align and orchestrate
cross organization
Company
OKRs
Department
OKRs
Team
OKRs
3-5
high-level objectives
3-5
cross organizational
objectives
1-3 objectives
Company
Statements
https://www.ThePDSG.comRamin Vatanparast
15. 15
Do not Rush
to set OKRs
Good OKRs
means
Good outcomes
https://www.ThePDSG.comRamin Vatanparast
17. 17
Individual OKRs
don’t work
Does not
provide a north
star
Introduces
unnecessary
complexity
Destroys
team
culture
Puts individuals
above Team and
Company Objectives
https://www.ThePDSG.comRamin Vatanparast
18. 18
Customize OKR
Aspirational
or
Committed
Aspirational
Ambitious
“Moon-shots”: Aspirational OKR
(10X goals) is how we’d like things in
the world to look like.
No clear path: There is no clear path
to get there and no real knowledge of
what resources will be required.
Success: will then be benchmarked
by 60-70% completion with variance
Committed
Business
“Roof-shots”: Committed OKR is
goals that teams or organization has
agreed to achieve.
Make it done: Resources and
schedules should be adjusted to
make sure they get done.
Success: will then be benchmarked
by 90-100% completion
Avoid Low-Value Objective (LVO), “Who cares?” OKRShould remain on a team’s OKR until it is done
https://www.ThePDSG.comRamin Vatanparast
19. 19
Make it
time bound
but
Do not fall in love that
everything should take a
quarter to be built
Challenges of Quarterly Planning
Team is tied to a solution
to deliver in a quarter
Team takes the idea of
“stretch” goals to heart
Team sees that exposing work to
customers early feels risky
Team plans in a large batch
instead of limiting
committed work in queue.
https://www.ThePDSG.comRamin Vatanparast
20. 2
0
Performance
Management
Strategy
No data in vacuum
Quarterly OKRs
Weekly Review
OKR Retro Initiatives
Continuous
performance
management
Fit OKRs to
performance management strategy
https://www.ThePDSG.comRamin Vatanparast
21. 21
coming up with
objectives isn’t
hard
coming up with the
measurable key results
takes a lot of practice
Using SMART framework
coming up with the measurable OKRs
OBJECTIVE: What do you want to accomplish?
INITIATIVE: How do you do it, What action do you Take?
GOAL: How does this tie to bigger objectives?
KEY RESULT: How do you demonstrate your accomplishment?
WHEN: When to you target to complete?
https://www.ThePDSG.comRamin Vatanparast