Writing Team Key Results

One of the keys to effective team key results is making sure the whole team contributes to, and feels invested in, the process — it shouldn’t just be the team lead setting them for the team, or one team member setting them on behalf of everyone else. While we want every team member to contribute, it’s likely that not every team member is going to contribute in the exact same way — for example, a newer team member might not have enough context to generate KR ideas, but might have previous experience seeing KRs so can easily give feedback on a peer’s ideas.

Management techniques like OKRs and similar have many issues and all [[Organizations]] need to deal with them in a customized way.

Properties

• The key result is a result, not a task (another framing: it’s an outcome, not an input).
• The key result is measurable, both in the sense of we can clearly define what success looks like, and we have the data points available to you.
  • It may include a component that measures magnitude, and one that controls quality.
  • Remember that because a key result means a number, numbers can and will be gamed.
• The key result does not pre-suppose the exact program of works to do (and in fact leaves room for creative solutions).
• The key result states assumptions about why the team KR affects the top-level KR.
• The key result target should be informed by analysis.
• Key Results are helpful if your team have a 12-18 month mission, a clear focus, and specific lever or set of levers it is empowered to move.
• There is no replacement for good people, though. Project management is about organizing people. And people are hard to organize if they’re not motivated, and adding a standardized, bureaucratized process won’t increase motivation.
• OKRs are effectively a quarterly negotiation to get alignment across teams so that large, complex, projects get done on time.

Process

1. Brainstorm draft KRs focusing more on the “shape” than the content.
2. State your assumptions:
   • Why does this team KR affect our company KR?
   • Why this target number?
3. Iterate and get feedback.
4. Lock it in.

Three useful templates:

• OKR for growth = Improve {topic} by {percent} during {timeframe}. Measure by {metric}.
• OKR for capability = Launch {feature} for {benefit} on {date}. Track progress by {metric}.
• OKR for process = Accelerate {queue} from {x} to {y} before {deadline}. Time by {metric}.

Resources

• Objectives and Key Result
• Key Performance Indicator