Why are OKRs the perfect connection between Agile and Leadership?

in short:
        Building trust - they offer a more gradual scale than
               "laissez-faire" & "micro management"

  They scale Customer Focus - think about customer value first
               when breaking down your strategy

Felix Handler

OKR Coach since 2019

Scout since 1991

  • since '16 Agile Coach, since '21 systemic Org-Developer

  • worked with corporates and globally distributed Startups

  • Meetup Series about OKR since 2020

  • currently working at
    borisgloger consulting

Employees

People want a new form of leadership - with purpose & empowerment 💪🏻

Managers

"Why should I as a manager trust my house, my car and the future of my family's wellbeing to somebody else?"

How can we foster a company where employees trust the leadership and vice versa? 🤝🏻

How do we balance this with financial targets so the company is also financially successful?

Trust

Why OKRs?

👁️‍🗨️ Transparency

Increasing Maturity

🎯 (Customer-)Focus

🤝🏻 Alignment / Orchestration

🧠 Learning Organisation

💡 Outcome- instead of Output orientation

😍 Ownership & self-determined,
     value driven work

Complex vs Complicated

Autonomy & Alignment

OKR Tension Field

Focus

💪🏻 Purpose & Freedom: Make the customer happy!

Responsibility

🫡 Team Responsible for delivering value long term

  • 60%/40% principle
  • Little's law (WiP) -> Focus

Customer Focus

Where do OKR sets come from?

👉🏻 efficient Communication 💬 > 🔀 efficient Processes

🥳 Fun Fact: OKRs also exist for relationship / couples planning

OKRs are a form of (outcome) expectation management 🤔

Trust grows when expectations are met! (From both sides) 🤝🏻

If you have motivated, engaged employees and they work to make the customer happy through their product, you will be successful! 🎉

Financial Success 💰

Trust

Customer Focus

Learning Journey

Principles & Pitfalls

What to do with my KPIs now?

KPI

  1. lag measure
  2. rather indirectly influencable
  3. keep several running "on the side" to "be safe"
  4. Measure health

KR

  1. lead measure / actively influenceable measure
  2. few to be able to focus
  3. Measure progress

👉🏻 OKR are not just a method, but a mindset.

It is easy to understand, difficult to master.
(Coaches can help / accelerate this 😉)

Closing Remarks

👉🏻 Start with people who want to try it and scale it from there! ❤️‍🔥

📈 It has to be part of everyday business, otherwise it will not work.

What questions do you have?

Thank you for your time and attention!

Slides on https://slides.com/snowborn-de/okr-leadership