EMPOWERED

CHAPTER 60Objectives in Perspective

We need some way to manage and assign work to product teams, and we want to do this in a way that is empowering and executes on our product strategy. This is the purpose of team objectives.

Assuming you have embraced the empowered product team model, and you have capable leaders (admittedly, these are two big assumptions), it is fairly straightforward.

Here are the 10 most important keys to effective team objectives:

1. The most important thing is to empower teams by assigning them problems to solve and then give the teams the space to solve them. For them to make good decisions, they will also need you to share the strategic context, especially the product strategy.
2. We love it when product teams volunteer to work on specific objectives, and we try to accommodate this when possible to leverage their motivation and enthusiasm for the problem. But we can't always do so because we need to make sure we cover everything we need to.
3. Selecting the objectives to be worked on, and ultimately deciding which team or teams works on each objective, is the explicit responsibility of product leadership. However—and this is critically important for empowerment—the key results need to come from the team.
4. It's normal that there's a back and forth—not that the leaders doubt or question what the teams propose as their key results, but rather judging which investments are worth the effort and associated risk. For example, suppose a team believes that, with their ...