About me
My name is Mauro Bagnato and for over 15 years I have been leading tech organizations.
When I first stepped into leadership, I believed technical expertise was the key to being an effective leader. However, I quickly learned that organizations are living and complex systems and that leading them demands much more than just technical know-how. I believe that curiosity is at the heart of effective leadership. This is what fuels learning and experimentation, both crucial for continuous improvement. This blog aims to explore engineering leadership in all its aspects and to provide insights in a tangible and pragmatic manner. It will also be a space where I will share insights, reflections, and personal takeaways from books, podcasts, and articles that influenced and keep influencing my journey.
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I have been working with OKRs (objectives and key results) and reading about them for quite some time now and I’ve reached the following conclusion:
The most common reason why many companies fail to adopt OKRs lies in a misunderstanding of the basic principles OKRs are built on.
Here I share what I consider the top 10 OKR principles and the main pitfalls connected to them.
Principle #1. OKRs are designed to radically increase the company focus to the point that very tough decisions are to be made about what NOT to do.
Pitfall #1. OKRs are often used to try to do as many things as possible with the false hope that just by calling them OKRs, they will magically get done.
Principle #2. OKRs aim to empower teams. Once the high-level OKRs are set, leaders should trust their teams that they will come up with their own OKRs reflecting the company ones.
Pitfall #2. OKRs are often used to micromanage teams leading to an extremely long, frustrating, expensive, and inefficient cascading process.
Principle #3. OKRs are tools for aligning the entire company towards a common goal.
Pitfall #3. Alignment requires that everyone can at least remember what to align on. How can a normal human being remember 4 company OKRs, 5 department OKRs, and 3 team OKRs for a total of 12 objectives and 36 KRs?
Principle #4. OKRs are meant to be transparent and accessible to everyone in the company. They should be easy to access and open to questions and challenges.
Pitfall #4. OKRs are set by the teams and stay behind the team walls. They are never widely shared, never questioned by other teams, and never revisited. It would take too much time otherwise…
Principle #5. While OKRs are very important, they're not the only thing that matters; Key metrics like customer satisfaction or team health (to name a few) should always be monitored.
Pitfall #5. The focus should be on OKRs only. Nothing else is important and needs tracking.
Principle #6. OKRs are a very powerful tool to boost learning from both successes and (mainly) failures.
Pitfall #6. OKRs often become a great opportunity to blame individuals and teams for not achieving their goals.
Principle #7. OKRs should be very aspirational but attainable at the same time. This is extremely important to boost engagement and commitment to the goal.
Pitfall #7. OKRs are either too tough hoping that miracles can sometimes happen or too easy to ensure easy wins.
Principle #8. OKRs require discipline. Cadence is key when working with OKR. Setting, tracking, and analyzing outcomes requires specific routines and visualization tools.
Pitfall #8. OKRs can be treated as something to “set and forget” until the end of the quarter. No big deal!
Principle #9. Introducing OKRs is a big change for the whole company. A pilot is the easiest way to start and learn. The first time will most likely be a complete disaster but it will get better and better.
Pitfall #9. OKRs can be quickly implemented across the entire company in one go.
Principle #10. Clear scoring criteria for OKRs should be established in advance to remove ambiguity about outcomes.
Pitfall #10. OKRs are either achieved or not. Partial success is not an option.
