okrs

How can we set an OKR if we don’t know the baseline?

Leave a Comment / Agile / By / March 16, 2023 / , ,

The baseline problem

It came up again today, actually, once you delve into OKR setting:

“When writing OKRs, and specifically the key results, how can we set a target if we don’t know the baseline?

For example, suppose we want to increase the number of site visitors, if we have 1,000 visitors a day then the target would be 5,000 but if we only have 200 a day then the target would be 1,000. But if we don’t know how many we have to start with, how can we set a target?”

I call it the baseline problem. I know it troubles many teams but it shouldn’t. There are actually, two, or possibly three answers.

The easy answer, and one I don’t like, is to sidestep the problem: instead of saying “increase views from 1,000 to 5,000” say “increase views 500%”, or, to take another example, “reduce run time from six hours to one hour” say “reduce runtime to one sixth.”

Replacing initial and final numbers with a multiplier doesn’t solve the whole problem because you need to start by finding out where you are before you change anything. So task 1 becomes: measure status quo, whether that is eyeballs, run-time or whatever.

Another way around this problem is that you could change your OKR after setting. The initial OKR could say “increase views from to .” Again task #1 is to measure and at that point you simply revisit the OKR and fill in the blanks.

Granted some people might take exception to you tweaking an OKR after the start of the cycle but personally I don’t see that as a big issue.

Baselines solve the wrong problem

Now sidestepping the problem like this might keep you moving but it is not very satisfying. That is because: it is solving the wrong problem. The real problem is not that you don’t know the baseline but that you don’t know what the number should be. When you set the target by starting with the baseline you are putting technology first and you are limiting your ambitions.

The question is not “How many visitors do we have now?” and “What target might be achieve?” but “What visitor numbers do we need to have?” Or maybe “What visitor number do we need to make us number #1in our market?” or “What numbers do we need to break even? get investment? impress clients?”

Or take the run-time example, don’t ask “How fast are we?” and “How fast can we be?”. Instead ask “How fast do we need to be?” If you don’t know the answer then ask “Why do we want to be fast?”. Or ask, “What advantage will being twice as fast bring us?”

Rather than start with the target in mind start with the outcome in mind, then ask what you need to achieve that.

If you set the target by reference to the current baseline you are going to limit ambitions and let the current technology drive. Instead think about the outcome and what that outcome looks like, then work back to understand what needs to be done and options for doing it.

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Two unspeakable Silver Bullets?

Leave a Comment / Agile, OKRs / By / February 1, 2023 / , ,

“There are no silver bullets” wrote the late, great, Fred Brooks. Consequently most writers and evangelists avoid claiming they have a silver bullet even when it sounds like they are claiming just that. I’ve cautioned against silver bullets several times in this blog. I often find myself telling clients “The devil is in the detail.” Meaning: there are lots of things to address and no single big fixes.

Anyone claiming to have found a silver bullet deserves to be faced by scepticism. Still…

I find myself coming back to two solutions again and again. They are the closest thing to silver bullets I know. Even if these are not silver bullets in their own right applying either makes it easier to work the detail and tackle problems.

Yet these silver bullets dare not speak their name. To do so risks endless debate and damaging your own leverage.

Keep reading for the Silver Bullets

Writing this I’m avoiding naming the potential silver bullets because I even feel many readers will stop reading the moment I name them. Please, keep reading.

Both are widely discussed by the agile cognoscenti but both are controversial. Suggesting either may lead people to think you fail to comprehend the situation or are just stupid. Thus in both cases you are likely to end up in long discussions.

Both are disliked by opposite ends of the organizational hierarchy. Both ends are optimistic, and prefer to believe people should be able to rectify problems themselves (the people problem problem again.)

Both bullets are rarely applied with vigour. Perhaps because of the previous points. When I raise the points people plea helplessness, “My boss doesn’t understand.”

Both bullets scale: in the small and large, although they manifest themselves in different ways at different scale points.

Neither is an instant fix but both start to deliver returns relatively quickly. The problem with both is you need to keep the faith and keep applying them for weeks to see a difference. In both cases, people often give up before they see the benefit.

Bullet #1: work Test First

Specifically in technical teams applying Test First coding; whether Automated Unit Testing (e.g. TDD, test driven (first) development), Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) or some other form of Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD). Away from code, at team and organizational levels OKRs are implement the test first principle.

Test first will not fix all problems but it will remove a substantial number of problems. That makes managing the remaining ones easier. And as to where the “extra time” comes from, that is easy: the time you don’t spend fixing defects and misunderstandings. Test first is faster than debug later.

I’ve written a lot about test first so I won’t say more just now.

Bullet #2: reduce Work in Progress (WIP)

Most commonly WIP limits are applied through limited columns on a Kanban board or limiting the work taken into a sprint. Done right OKRs limit WIP too. However, reducing WIP requires discipline.

At the higher levels companies and Government entities seem quick to reduce staffing numbers but slow to reduce work. Accepting new “projects” is easy but resourcing them difficult. Rather than prioritise, say “No” and push back on work, everything is taken on. Individuals who push back as seen as pessimists, “not team players” and “obstacles.” Pushing back does not help your chance of getting promoted so leadership ranks tend to be populated by those who accept.

The result is salami sliced people and slow progress across a broad front rather than rapid progress across a narrow range. But, reducing WIP also seems to be the hardest medicine to administer. In fact, I sometimes find myself hiding WIP reduction measures.

As an aside, I feel WIP has gotten worse since the pandemic struck, the move to remote working means every conversation is now a meeting in the diary. Our diaries are now overrun with “Meeting WIP”. An ad hoc 10 minute conversation at the coffee machine is now a 30 minute Zoom call planned days in advance.

WIP reduction is applicable at all levels: reduce the number of pieces of work the individual is switching between, reduce the number of pieces of work teams are tackling, reduce the number of projects a department has in flight, and most of all: reduce strategic WIP.

Next time

There are lots of benefits of reducing WIP so let me ask: why is WIP so difficult to reduce? – that is the question I’ll address next time. So too is Why don’t people Test First?

Finally I’ll just note: I sometimes wonder why I stop being an OKR-cynical to learned to like them. The thing is, I see OKRs as a tool to address both these problems: OKRs are test first, and limiting OKRs is WIP limiting.

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Mini OKR workshops in February

Leave a Comment / Agile / By / January 13, 2023 / , ,

I’m running two online mini OKR workshops next month:

Monday 20 Feb: Introducing OKRs with Agile

Monday 27 Feb: Writing OKRs

Both sessions start at 2pm GMT so work well for Europe and a sizable chunk of North America.

In reverse order: Writing OKRs on February 27th is a repeat of my sell-out mini-workshop before Christmas. This workshop expands by 30 minutes to 2.5 hours to give more time for feedback and discussion. This was a tough decision. I’m reasoning that the short format is attractive to many people so want to keep things snappy.

Last time, several participants asked for more introductory material to cover OKRs and using OKRs to enhance Agile. Since I want to keep Writing OKRs short I’ve created Introducing OKRs with Agile. This is both an introduction to OKRs and describes OKRs can be integrated with Agile working.

You can buy the workshops individually. Alternatively to attend both book Writing OKRs and at checkout you will be offered a discounted ticket for Introduction to OKRs with Agile.

Book Introducing OKRs with Agile
Book Writing OKRs with option of discounted Introdcuing OKRs ticket too

Blog readers can get 20% off ticket prices with the code Blog20. There are three limited tranches of tickets at different prices: standard, early-bird and very-early bird.

If last time is any guide the workshops will sell out. If you are too late please join the wait list and I’ll make sure you get first chance next time. (Not sure when next time is, maybe April, maybe sooner if there are people on the waitlist.) Similarly, if the timing doesn’t work for you please let me know what would and I’ll see what I can do.

Finally, if you want a whole team to come please drop me a line. I can give these workshops privately online or in-person.

Why OKRs require a strategy rethinking

2 Comments / Agile, Digital business, OKRs, Strategy / By / January 6, 2023 / , , ,

OKRs offer a way to connect strategy – high level abstract goal type things – with delivery – low level concrete detailed task level things. OKRs offer a middle level planning. They are replanned often enough to be flexible while lasting long enough to give enough stability to take on bigger, more ambitious work.

As with so much else about OKRs there is a more agile way of going about this and a less agile way of going about it. Connect strategy to OKRs in the less agile way and you end up back at command and control. The give away sign is that OKRs cascade down the company so teams don’t control their own destiny, ambition is neutered and motivation is lost.

Which approach you take will largely depend on the seemingly academic question: “what is strategy?”

Many people see strategy as a one way street. Strategy making and execution is hierarchal with decisions made at the top are passed down. Alternatively strategy can be seen as emergent property of a cooperating network. Strategy is a two way street, each node both informs strategy making and execution is guided by the resulting strategy.

Depending on how you view strategy you are going to implement OKRs very differently.

Is strategy a kind of planning?

Sad to say, the predominant view of strategy is that it is some sort of grand plan. The plan sets out the “place” the company aims to get to (price, position, etc), plus the route for getting there. Anyone who has studied a little strategy will recognise this as the “Porter view of strategy.”

Strategy as planning inherently sees strategists as master planners, all the relevant information is fed into the strategy/planning department. Experts analyse the data and rationally decide what needs doing. The plans are sent out.

This is inherently hierarchical so it natural to use cascading OKRs as the implementation mechanism. But because teams have little say in setting their OKRs motivation is lost and ambition is neutered.

The is a machine like view of organizations, inherently top-down, deviation from the plan, the strategy, is an error. When OKRs do not directly support strategy OKRs need to be changed.

Study a bit more strategy and you will find that while Porter’s view has appeal it is not the only view. There are in fact many different schools of thought on what strategy is.

Emergent strategy is more agile

To my agile mind the “emergent view of strategy” fits better. Strategy emerges over time from the activities of the organization, part planned, part reactive and part backward looking to explain the past. Professor Henry Mintzberg describes strategy as “a pattern of behaviour over time” which chimes with my pattern thinking.

Strategy is a two way street, teams are edge sensors: detecting technology changes, production techniques, putting products in the hands of customers and gathering feedback. This allows learning and adaption. The organization as a whole is a learning entity: discovering customer need and mastering new capabilities. Teams have the authority to act in the best interests of the company and customers. Over time strategy emerges.

When OKRs do not reflect stated strategy it is a learning opportunity. Ask: why do team OKRs deviate from strategy?

Is the team seeing something which the strategists do not? – in which case the OKRs are signalling back from the edges to the centre.

Is the team able to follow strategy? – maybe it lacks skills or capacity, or maybe it is overloaded with “business as usual.”

Has the intended strategy has been clearly communicated? Or maybe there is no explicit strategy?

Strategy, OKRs and agility

OKRs, like other agile tools, are problem detectors exposing opportunities for improvement.

Perhaps obviously, the “Strategy as a plan” view is going to limit agile to a back-room delivery thing because it passes over the opportunities for feedback and centralises decision making. Conversely, the “Emergent strategy” view entirely compatible with devolved authority, independent teams, experimentation and “the agile mindset”.

When teams act on their own initiative the organization will be more agile. When teams wait for instructions everyone is less agile. There may be a price for agility: teams may repeat work, teams may pursue the “wrong” goals but the price of that efficiency is lost agility which costs in missed opportunities and improvements.

If you want high levels of efficiency and believe in planned strategy you will look to decide strategy and align OKRs with the strategy before you do anything else. However, that results in less agility.

If you want to using OKRs and maximise agility then you need to take an emergent view of strategy. In many ways, we back to the Theory X or Theory Y question.

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Writing OKRs – a mini-workshop masterclass

Leave a Comment / Agile / By / November 18, 2022 / ,

Next month – in just over 3 weeks in fact – I’m running a mini-workshop Masterclass (2 hours) on Writing OKRs. Specifically on making key results measurable and quantifiable. Yes I know targets can mislead, that might be something we will talk about. Its timed for 2pm which should be good for Europe and the East Coast. Sorry far east, Australasia and West Coast.

Tickets are available now but are limited so if you want to don’t delay, book now. Plus, for the next week cheap very early bird are available, and if you use the code “Blog20” you can get an extra 20% off.

I hope to see you there

Objective Driven Agile, BLDD & Reactive styles of development

Leave a Comment / Agile / By / October 25, 2022 / , , ,

Looking across the state of teams today I can clearly see three different styles of agile: Backlog Driven Development, Reactive and Objective Driven Agile. All have their place, all have their uses but the first two of these are a dead end. I’ve been speaking about the third, which I’m calling Objective Driven Agile, for years but in the last few months, since writing Succeeding with OKRs in Agile and speaking to many people about how OKRs and agile fit together, it has become clear to me that ODA allow us the industry, and teams, to address a number of problems that have arisen with agile in recent years.

1) Backlog Driven Development – BLDD. Teams are typically working in a Scrum fashion with a backlog and short sprints. Such teams are sometimes called “feature factories” because they are aiming to “do the backlog” – and the backlog is inevitably a lis of features.

While the Scrum these teams practice is a lot more agile than what came before they haven’t really moved very far from the big requirements documents of old. Backlogs are frequently bottomless pits, the team can never reach done. The loss of change review board might well be making things worse because Product Owners often lack the authority to say “No” or remove items from the backlog.

Still, not only are these teams agile but in many places this is success. The team are churning out stories, customers can see progress and are persuaded to part with cash. If the backlog can be tamed they might even declare done one day. But then, if the team is being operated by a consultancy or other outsourcer for a client the last thing they want to happen is for work to be done.

2) Reactive. Reactive teams gravitate towards Kanban but some are compelled to work in a Scrum fashion which doesn’t match their real work. Such teams may see backlogs are an anathema because they do “what is needed, right here, right now.” Team members here will say “true agility is listening to what customers want and getting it done as quickly as possible.” And in a way they are right.

Again, these teams are a success story, particularly if they are supporting a live system, running DevOps or if customers previously had to wait months for results.

The problem here is that these teams don’t have much capacity for doing the backlog or anything else and yet they are frequently still expect to “do the backlog”. If such a team have been tasked with immediate customer support then that isn’t a problem but frequently these teams face competing demands.

3) Objective Driven Agile, ODA: this is the approach I’m focused on at the moment. With Objective Driven Agile teams have a mission and a higher purpose, something more than “do the backlog” or “keep the system working.” Such teams might be considered “Empowered” and might practice “Dual track agile.” The key thing is, they are not beholden to a prepared list of things to do. The team are responsible for deciding what customers need, what will add value and what will meet team and organisational objectives, and then, delivering that thing.

These teams have “Product Owners” who are more than mere Backlog Administrators – I’ve started calling them “Product Specialists.” These people are tasked with understanding what will add value for customers, users and other stakeholders. Importantly they have the power to decide what gets done and to say “No”. With that power comes responsibility: responsibility to the team, to stakeholders and to other leaders in the organization. That means Product Specialists can explain – in a business case or in a star-chamber – how work on the product adds benefit and how the desired outcome – the objective – is moves things forward.

All three of these styles have their advantages and disadvantages but the real problems occur when the styles are not clearly stated.

Consider the team trying to deliver the backlog BLDD style but who have to “keep the lights on” and support a live system. It is mathematically impossible to make accurate forecasts about delivery when events can derail you. It is also nye on impossible to deny customer requests when they are waiving a large sum of money or escalating their ask through your organization. But again, this can blow up any plan or roadmap.

Nor is is possible to pursue objectives when teams are committed to supporting live or delivering a backlog. At best the objectives duplicate the role of the backlog and at worst increase work-in-progress and add stress to individuals on the team.

So my advice: decide which type of team you are and focus.

In the last few months I’ve been speaking a lot both about objectives and “just in time backlogs”. I’m fired up and want to pursue this idea, if you are interested please let me know and I’ll write more.

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Objective Driven Agile – 7 step lightweight method

5 Comments / Agile / By / October 7, 2022 / , ,

Lets get back to lightweight methods, let me propose a 7 step process with the working name Objective Driven Agile – although I also want to call it Really Simple Agile or maybe Xanpan 2022 – and I’d rather forget the A-word altogether and get back to lightweight.

1) Start where you are, with the people on the team, with the code you have, with any existing documents, there is no pre-work, you start here with what you have. Any pre-work you think you should do, any blocks or impediments you are facing, any reason not to start now becomes a work item to be done.

2) Default to a 3 month “super-cycle” and 2 week iteration cycle (OK, we’ll call them sprints), you may change this later but put the dates in your calendar now and set them to reoccur.

3) Set a maximum of 4 objective(s) for this period.

I will assume you are using OKRs for this and limit them to a maximum of 4 key results for each objective. Key results are not small pieces of objective but bounding criteria which describe the objective, acceptance criteria.

If you team must “keep the lights on”, operate as a DevOps team, support a live system or other “business as usual” then this is objective zero and must be acknowledged as work to be done.

Objectives are outcomes, they make the world a better place. Objectives should support business purpose and strategy. The team should be able to explain how the objectives meet these criteria, better still it should be obvious.

One of the objectives should be nominated by the team themselves with the aim of making future work better, easier and more productive even if the outside world can’t see a difference.

4) Run sprints (iterations) inside your super-cycle: the first sprint starts as soon as the objectives are confirmed.

If any preparation work (e.g. interviewing customers) is needed this is part of the work to do. In the sprint planning meeting review your objectives, then decide which will be the focus of the sprint and ask “What do we need to do to advance our mission?” and write stories for this work.

For each story ask: “can this be completed within one week?” If it cannot then find a way to rewrite it as several stories each of which can be completed within one week.

When you have written the stories ask: “is this enough work for the sprint?” If the team thing they have capacity to do more work, or might do all of this work, then write some more stories – about the same objective or another. If the team feel this is too much work for this sprint prioritise the work then hold some back for the next sprint.

5) During the sprint aim to release each story as it is done, continuous delivery style. Review progress against OKRs regularly (but not every day). If the team can’t do release individual stories at the start then it is something to work towards, something for that team nominated objective.

Work items which arise under OKR #0 should be recorded as “yellow stories”, the team may refuse such work but once accepted it has priority over all other objectives unless otherwise decided.

6) At the end of the sprint release any finished work, demo to stakeholders, review, retrospect and replan. Count the stories – including yellow work – completed each sprint and maintain a graph during the super-cycle. The graph should show planned and yellow work.

7) At the end of the super cycle close out the sprint, review progress against OKRs, hold a retrospective for the whole period. Destroy any stories which still remain undone.

Return to step 3.

Two assumptions: you are setting objectives using OKRs, you are running Scrum like sprints. Both assumptions can be relaxed (i.e. you don’t need to use OKRs and could run Kanban style) but I would need more space to explain how that might work and I’ve deliberately kept this short.

I expect regular readers won’t be surprised by this, my recent work has been going in this direction – I’ve already explained the logic in here in Honey, I Shrunk the Backlog, Backlogs, #NoBacklog(s) and comfort blankets and last year’s Xanpan 2021 (Xanpan 2021 slides or Xanpan 2021 on YouTube).

Let me know if you would like me to expand on these ideas.

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Scrum or OKRs, which comes first?

Leave a Comment / Agile / By / June 1, 2022 / ,

“Hello Allan , I followed a few of your seminars on OKRs and I am reading your book. I do have one question. I will start a transformation soon. The company has the ambition to move to Scrum and also OKRs; Do you have any advise on where to start? OKRs first or SCRUM first. Thank you a lot !”

This question appeared in my mailbox – or rather my LinkedIn box – a few weeks ago and I thought other readers might be interested in my answer.

My answer is: do both together.

That will sound ambitious if you see Scrum and OKRs as distinct things but I don’t, to me they are synergistic and can be viewed as one change. In the process I see the opportunity to create a simpler form of agile, or simpler version of Scrum if you prefer. Let me describe.

The Scrum Master role remains pretty much the same as regular Scrum. The main change is that in addition to facilitating planning meetings and sprint retrospectives the Scrum Master will additionally facilitate OKR setting sessions and OKR retrospectives at the end of the cycle. They will want to ensure the OKRs are known by everyone and people reference to them during sprints.

Similarly the Product Owner role remains pretty much the same with the additional need for the PO to lead thinking on what OKRs to set. This means the Product Owner needs to do more horizon scanning, talk to more stakeholders and prepare to set objectives that will last several sprints rather than just one at a time.

Simplification comes in that there is no need to build up and administer a product backlog. Set the OKRs, then go straight into a planning meeting and ask “How do we make progress against this OKR?”. Write the stories you need to do that. Use the OKRs as a just-in-time story generator. If you generate stories you cannot do this sprint then put them in a product backlog for the next planning meeting.

In the next planning meeting review progress and ask yourself again: “what do we need to do to make progress on these OKRs?”. It might be that you have some stories from last time to work with, if not write some more. OKRs in effect become the Sprint Goal and you generate the stories from there. (If you are using a Product Goal as well then reference that when setting the OKRs at the start of the cycle.)

Estimation is reduced because you have fewer stories in play and in the backlog. If you want you can use story points and velocity to determine if the sprint is full or you can just ask the team “Is that enough work to keep us busy?” and “Do we have space for more?”

If you want a more sophisticated system then get the stories out on the table, put them in the order they are likely to be done, then go from top to bottom asking “On a scale of 1 to 10, What are the chances we will get this story done in this sprint? – where 1 is unlikely and 10 is almost certainly.” If the probability is below 8 you probably take action, break the story down, reorder the work order or just accept that you probably won’t do everything you would like to.

In the longer term you can count the stories done to build up a record of capacity.

I would aim to do end of sprint demonstrations and better still release to live. The OKR may not be complete but the stories in the sprint can start delivering value early. As usual keep quality high, aim for zero bugs and automate everything that needs testing.

If you are new to both Scrum and OKRs then I would probably run one week sprints and a six or eight-week OKR cycle the first time. Do a retrospective at the end of the OKR cycle, after that you might move to two-week sprints and 12 week OKR cycles but keep an open mind and decide what works for you.

All the way through keep delivering benefit to customers, hitting OKRs is icing on the cake, and there are no prizes for doing perfect Scrum.

I’d like to think I outlined this recipe in Succeeding with OKRs in Agile but I suspect I wasn’t as clear as I could have been. Increasingly I’m seeing OKRs as a means of stripping agile back and simplifying it.

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