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
