Season 02 - Newsletter 03 --> Discipline, Focus and who gets to set OKRs
Friends,
We’ve had quite a few additions to the subscriber list so thank you to all of the newcomers and thank you to those loyal readers who have stayed
As always we appreciate you sharing this newsletter if you think it could help a peer of yours improve their product skillset.
This month’s newsletter covers the not often talked about topic of being disciplined in a macro and microenvironment filled with distractions. It ends with a question from a reader about who gets to set Objectives and Key Results 👇
Q: As a product manager, what are your thoughts on Elon Musk attempt to purchase Twitter?
For those of us who aren’t on the Twitter drama, SpaceX founder Elon Musk has stated his intentions to purchase the Twitter Platform for $43 Billion and take it private. He added his intentions, once that is done to make the platform more transparent. That news has created a lot of conversation among media pundits, billionaires, famous product people, and many others on the merits or not of the bid.
Let me be clear. The topic is a distraction for product managers (especially if you work at Twitter). The drama that is ensuing is a great reminder that at organizations big and small, there are a ton of opportunities for us to be distracted, by events. It could be a rumored re-organization, a potential new priority to name a few. These events are characterized as seemingly important if not interesting, but they represent opportunities for us to be distracted.
The lesson here is simple but very powerful - stay focused on the variables you can control and influence. Stay focused as that is your superpower as a product manager.
Q: While the business has set forth a vision, Objectives and Key Results have not been created at the team level. Being a tech-centric team should we be creating our own OKRs as that feels a little bit like grading your own exam?
Before we unpack that question, and there is a lot to unpack, we’ve written about how to operationalize OKRs, best practices, and how to structure the way you work to check on them often.
OKRs interestingly continue to generate a lot of discussions, perhaps because it’s looked upon as a cure-all and frankly tend to be implemented often badly if at all. Let the unpacking begin:
The first item to unpack is that many of us don’t work in high-functioning organizations where aspirational objectives have been set at the top and key results are laddered both up and down. But being empowered, curious product managers and with a bias towards action should cause us to not wait for a mandate from the top to try and implement OKRs. If the organization has objectives already defined, then we should focus on whether we can attach key results to those or define some sub-objectives. The chart below illustrating the Football analogies leveraged by John Doerr is a great example. (apologies to my non-American product managers
The second item to unpack is whether a part of the team should take the initiative to try and define Key Results prior to Product Management input. Again, if the team is empowered, ideas, can and should come from every member. of the team regardless of skillset (ie technical vs creative vs product). So absolutely is my response. The addition would be that whichever portion of the team initiates the discussion, there should be a forum/opportunity where the entire team can edit, challenge, and adopt the OKRs.
The last item to unpack is the notion that having the team set their own OKR is not a good practice. That it is akin to enabling the team to cheat the system. That is an interesting sentiment and one which to me tells me that OKRs are fundamentally misunderstood by this particular reader. While OKRs align your team to an overall organization vision or goal, it opens a far more important world to teams. OKRs allow for continuous performance management, meaningful coaching, and career growth, and perhaps more importantly provides the team with a way to not just measure what they do, but the impact of what they have done. That last one, in particular, measuring your team’s impact on the business, stakeholders and the customer is what should get any red-blooded product manager up in the morning.
Q: What is new on the Product Hustle Stack?
Honestly not a ton this month. But we’re working on an update. If you would like to contribute links resources please hit reply and let us know…