Exploring OKRs with Felipe Castro Agile Coaches' Corner

In this episode, Dan Neumann is excited to be joined by special guest, Felipe Castro! Felipe is an expert on OKRs or Objectives and Key Results. He is an OKR trainer, speaker, and author who helps organizations transform how they use goals by adopting OKR! He has even created his own OKR tool called the OKR Cycle which is a simple method to avoid OKR’s most common pitfalls.
 
As a master of all things OKR, Felipe Castro is here to speak about — you’ve got it — all things OKR! He goes over what OKRs are; important aspects you should consider; tips and advice regarding them; common mistakes, misunderstandings, and pitfalls; and how to overcome them.
 
Key Takeaways
What are OKRs?
Stands for Objectives and Key Results
An Agile approach to setting goals and creating alignment
OKRs are about the outcome you want to achieve
A framework for defining and tracking objectives and their outcomes
Focuses on outcome-based planning as opposed to tracking tasks and activities
Instead of giving the teams a feature to build, you are giving them a problem to solve or an opportunity to tackle
Important aspects of an OKR:
The objective should be memorable, compelling, motivating, and inspiring
The ‘why’ comes from leadership and the team figures out the ‘what’ together
Asking ‘so what?’ can help your team create better key results
Give your engineers autonomy to solve problems
Psychological safety is crucial for fostering an environment for high-performance teams
Felipe’s OKR tips and advice:
Start with targets that are regular goals (hard, but achievable)
Don’t copy another company’s method around OKR — adopting OKR is a journey that will be different for every company
Adapt the principles of OKRs for your specific context
You need to unlearn, adapt, and evolve — especially if you come from an Agile background
Common OKR mistakes, misunderstandings, and pitfalls:
Treating it as a glorified to-do list
Using OKRs as a copy of Jira (which doesn’t add any value)
Seeing the role of engineers as assisting only with the coding rather than problem-solving
That the sweet spot for achieving a target is 70% (which has zero science behind it)
 
Mentioned in this Episode:
Felipe Castro
The Beginner’s Guide to OKR, by Felipe Castro
SVPG (Silicon Valley Product Group)
INSPIRED: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love, by Marty Cagan
McKinsey’s Three Horizons Model
Doc Norton
“How Can You Test Business Ideas? Interview with David J. Bland,” by Felipe Castro
Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs, by John Doerr
 
Felipe Castro’s Book Picks:
Testing Business Ideas: A Field Guide for Rapid Experimentation, by David J. Bland
and Alexander Osterwalder
Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments: A Practical Guide to A/B Testing, by Ron Kohavi, Diane Tang, and Ya Xu
 
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