Learnings from one year of OKR Implementation
Learnings from one year of OKR Implementation
1 Product Creation Department
150 People
3 Locations
The Why
The Why
What to use OKRs for?
- Empowerment of Teams
- Transparency of other units’ objectives
- Focuses our efforts / helps to say “No”
- One Planning approach within department
-
Combine bottom up & top down input
- Alignment enables autonomy for the teams
- Connect feature- and tech-company input
What NOT to use OKRs for?
- As only tool for planning
- To Do list
- Just a different type of roadmap
- As performance evaluation
The How
Situation before:
Department has 2 main locations (Hamburg & Berlin)
-
Berlin worked with it in a self-organized way for a year
-
Hamburg had no real experience
Merger with tough timeline ongoing
- POs often aligning on a very low level
- Teams plan more on feature- than on impact level
The How
The Drivers
- Sent 2 Agile Coaches to external training
- then trained team of 3 other Agile Coaches as multipliers
- Management giving us free hand & tried to come up with good Dept OKRs
Experiments & Learnings
Experiments & Learnings
Initial Trainings
OKR finding sessions within Teams
OKR finding sessions within Management
Retros
Experiments & Learnings
Initial Trainings
- Little intro + practical exercise worked well
-
Smaller groups worked better
- 5-10 people per trainer
OKR finding sessions within Teams
OKR finding sessions within Management
Retros
Experiments & Learnings
Initial Trainings
- Little intro + practical exercise worked well
-
Smaller groups worked better
- 5-10 people per trainer
Retros
- 2x via survey
- 1x on site ->
Experiments & Learnings
OKR finding sessions within Teams
- Often required several iterations to be fruitful & understood
- Require trust in given autonomy
- Going from features to impact is hard
- Collective team planning is sometimes still new
OKR finding sessions within Management
- question whether to include KRs at this level
- As with any change, they should represent, drive & display the change
Timeline
Experiments & Learnings
Mid-quarter Review
1. Q3
- per location, teams offer x rounds
- fixed times, participants switch
2. Q4
- Quick 3 mins slide as part of weekly updates
3. Q1
- 10 min timebox / demos
- 4 in parallel
+: good overview
-: often empty rooms during presentations
no cross-location info
+: quick, focused overview
-: not much interaction & questions
+: quick, focused overview
-: short interaction & questions
Experiments & Learnings
Quarter Review
1. Q2 (Berlin only)
- Sequential presentation of teams (local & virtual)
- No enforced timeslots
2. Q3
- All in Berlin + department team building
- 7 time slots to choose out of ~16 teams
- Separate slot for alignment & Retro on site
3. Q4
- Per location due to merger crunch time
- Fixed, announced time slots
- Optional but suggested attendance for each slot
Experiments & Learnings
Quarter Review
4. Q1 (Fully Remote)
- Sequential presentation of teams
- Enforced timeslots
- Planning: Teams had to contribute up-front
+: good overview, not too expensive
-: fully remote more demanding
Learnings
🔭 Customer & impact / numbers focus does not come overnight - it is a mindset
🎯 We started asking the right questions
👶 An agile company means a learning company - on all levels
🔁 It is normal to have improvements come over time / iteratively
🔗 Finding the right alignment circles can lead to new structures (e.g. tribes)
⛐ Different modes of planning / alignment have to be aligned
🚀 OKRs can give new (positive) outlook but are a big change
Learnings
Things we should have done differently
📚 Not making training optional
⏳ Not enough capacity for program lead tasks / OKR Masters
💡 “Why” was not sufficiently understood by the organisation - mentioning it in trainings was not enough
Other Developments
💪 The company decided to officially go agile as an entire company
💖 There is significant interest by other departments to also introduce OKRs in their area & some already started
📈 Bigger focus on numbers & transparency of numbers in the company
🔁 Further experimentation with event formats (e.g. sending delegations)
💯 Leadership support with OKR Mindset
Some Impressions
Learnings from one year of OKR Implementation
By Felix Handler
Learnings from one year of OKR Implementation
Learnings from one year of OKR Implementation
