There’s certain elements of your organisation which need to be in place (or actively being worked on) in order to make OKR successful. If these elements are not true for you, then you should probably avoid OKR.
- The business has an actionable strategy to execute on
- Product teams need an actionable strategy, Operational functions need a strategy for the function
- Teams are mission aligned with end to end capability to deliver outcomes
- Teams need to have discretion around how they work and the work they do (note: complete freedom is not a requisite)
- Teams must be able to measure the impact of their work as they progress
- Teams have the knowledge and tools to break work down and release value iteratively
- A culture of continuous improvement needs to exist enabling failure tolerance and adaptability
- A clear problem to solve: What are you hoping OKRs will achieve? Because Google did it isn’t an answer
- The majority of Individual Contributors see value in how OKR can help them – yes you need to work this out before starting.