How to Align on Priorities with the Help of OKR
Nothing is worse than being stuck because you are dependent on other people’s input. Here is one idea on how to solve it.
Ever heard of OKR?
In “Manage by Numbers — Why Quantification Doesn’t Work for GR”, I argued that the whole numbers game is rather futile for GR functions, simply because it inevitably leads to a mindless copying of business metrics that do not really help to manage GR teams better. At the same time, I have seen more than one GR team trodding along without any real sense of direction or an idea how to contribute real value to a company. The core idea of the GR blog is to provide some thoughts on how to get there.
I recently re-read John Doerr’s book “Measure What Matters” — highly recommended (check out his website). It’s all about focusing on one objective and three to five key results (“OKR”) — a simple, but powerful guideline.
What is lacking in Doerr’s book is an application of the OKR idea to the specific challenges of corporate functions. I don’t blame him — he is an investor who cares most about the execution of product development and business plans. However, I think there can be said more about how OKRs make “the other stuff” in companies work better, as well.
Organizational empathy
One of the most frustrating experiences of corporate functions managers is the dreaded “wait”: You are doing something that you think is really important for the company, but you cannot do it without input from other parts of the company. A window of opportunity is about to close, and you are still stuck, waiting for that important piece of information from product development or Legal or Comms. It’s awful.
The problem is: Everybody is working frantically on their top priorities — and might be equally frustrated by a “wait” experience. You might argue that the “wait” is the main modus operandi of corporate functions. It is inherent in their nature: Corporate functions are bringing together different perspectives and assets in a company, so interdependence is the norm, not the exception. All the more puzzling is how few thoughts are spent on how to tackle the problem of “wait”. In fact, I am sure that few teams are really aware of the top priorities of other teams at any given time. Sure — there might be regular cross-functional alignment calls, but they are more often than not based on a Powerpoint presentation listing timelines that are difficult to make sense of for non-team members. The “why” remains obscure, and the personal commitments each team member has made to certain priorities are not clearly communicated.
The result: We often lack “organizational empathy” for other colleagues simply because we do not understand their priorities.
Key Results as tokens
Revisiting OKRs reminded me that Key Results are resource commitments of individuals and organizations that you might as well view as “tokens” that could be a good foundation to coordinate better.
Quick reminder — quoting from Doerr’s website: KRs are the measures and milestones that indicate how you know you will accomplish our Objective.Each Objective has its own set of Key Results with at least 3, but no more than 5, per Objective. You can’t have an Objective without Key Results and vice versa. That’s what makes this goal setting system so unique. The “what matters” is intrinsically tied to the measurements. Good Key Results have several basic characteristics: (1) They are specific and time-bound, (2) they are aggressive, yet realistic, (3) they are measurable and verifiable.
Here is how it could work: Once you have identified KRs for each member of your team for let’s say the next quarter, the team should jointly do a “dependency analysis”: From whom do we need input from other teams in what timeframe to achieve these KRs? The dependency analysis should be specific enough to identify key contributors and their managers. Once done, it is time for a management alignment session where each manager presents his dependency analysis and — implicit to it — the resource demands each team has. Voilà: You just have thrown your tokens on the table: Plain for everyone to see what your team wants to achieve in this quarter.
Such an alignment session on KR tokens will reveal where priorities are aligned or where different priorities might lead to a “wait” experience in one of the teams. The latter require the full attention of the management team. What are the reasons that different teams work on different priorities? Applying the OKR framework suggests that it might be good to check if there is a misalignment on the Objectives level. This does not mean that there are no good reasons for different priorities — however, having this discussion is absolutely crucial.
Prioritis (my favorite disease)
Recognizing the danger that I sound like a broken record: Setting priorities is at the core of every strategy. It is very likely the KR token session will lead to a picture of many priorities of individual team members that conflict with each other. That’s the incredibly sad part of organizations and priorities: Everybody thinks they have priorities — adding up to nothing if they are not coordinated.
I imagine that the most pragmatic next step for a management team is a bargaining effort: If you need my resources on this project, can you help me with my project? That’s alright — that outcome might not be according to the OKR gospel, but it will certainly increase transparency and organizational empathy.
Let me know what you think!
