OKRs for All

CHAPTER 4OKR Misconceptions, Mistakes, and Myths

In this chapter, I share some of the biggest misconceptions about OKRs—ones you've probably heard or wondered about yourself.

While OKRs have been in use for many years now, adoption has increased rapidly in the last few years, uncovering several outdated ideas about the framework, even as OKRs have evolved to be a much more streamlined and accessible goal management framework. I'd like to clear these up for you.

OKRs Are Only About Measurement

Often, organizations write objectives and key results and do not connect them to key initiatives and projects that need to happen to realize these outcomes. This results in two problems:

1. There is no real plan to reach these outcomes, and those OKRs become more of a wish list. The key results of an objective should be a stretch, but realistic, and include the executional plan to realize that objective.
2. There is no clear way to connect all the key initiatives and projects back to why they are happening in the first place—to the objectives. Key initiatives and projects drift off course, and often do not have the intended impact in moving the needle on the outcomes. When the need to change an objective arises, these key initiatives and projects do not change with it, making agility nearly impossible.
3. There is no clear context that shows the full picture of an OKR. Not only do we need to see the measures of success, we need to see the activities, side‐by‐side.

The key initiatives are an ...