Re:OKRs Are Bullshit
by gniv on Tuesday February 06, 2024 @06:42AM
(#39273228)
That sounds to me like you haven't worked in a place that does OKRs right. The overriding thought should be "They are more like guidelines, anyway". Where I worked it was common for every single OKR to have a low completion score, and nobody batted an eye. Directions change, priorities change etc. The OKRs were still useful, to keep track of what everybody was doing.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
But then they do performance reviews and ask to relate the stories to these OKRs.
Is that my bad luck with the corp then?
Because it's a combination hundreds or thousands of people incorporating this system. Are they all incompetent, or does this company in particular have incompetent people?
Performance reviews should be kept separate from OKRs. I view these two concepts as follows:
1. Performance reviews or performance management are tied zo an individual, their role and their career.
2. OKRs are Independent of the individual as they are driven by the company’s strategic and operational goals. While every KR is owned by an individual, this individual is responsible only for managing the measurement, coordinating collaboration and escalating to superior Objective or Key Result owners as soon as the Key Result is no longer on track.
This implies that if you were replaced by someone else, they would inherit your OKRs but not your performance management including your performance reviews, personal development goals and career aspirations.
One way to do this is by rating performance based on both contributions to OKRs owned by the individual as well as those of others and rating performance as high only if both are exceptional.