I personally like OKRs, as I find them a valuable counterbalance to 1) daily standup, which can promote short term thinking, and 2) yearly "goals" in performance reviews, which, when evaluated in a binary way as completed/not completed, can deter people from taking on more ambitious and ambiguous tasks.
My big worry about OKRs is that they will descend into the same shitstorm that ruined SCRUM. Daily standups were never intended to turn into a daily opportunity for micromanagement and application of deadline pressure, but this is exactly what they became. And I can't say it was an external corruption of the process - the dangers are inherent to the technique. I always felt that saying standup and scrum are good, you just have to be careful someone external to the process doesn't corrupt it don't turn into micromanagement is like saying nitroglycerine is good, you just have to be careful some chemical reaction external to the process doesn't cause it to suddenly and unpredictably combust. The instability is inherent to the substance.
There was also a mini (or not so mini) industry of industry consultants helping people "do agile", that elevated "processes and tools" over "individuals and interactions", kind of how the 10 animal commandments in animal farm ended amended to mean the opposite of how they were written down.
I see a danger in point in OKRs, in that they're a great way for a manager to turn a casual projection into a committed estimate. I see the inversion of "Customer collaboration over contract negotiation" all over again here. The developer (or employee) is lulled into a belief that we're all friends and can trust each other, the "customer" (or client or boss) is lawyering up with a contract, and when time comes, the developer's feet will be held to the fire with firm commitments, and subjected to daily deadline pressure and micromanagement (because agile).
All I'm sayin' is, this could go sideways. But then again, so can any job.
My big worry about OKRs is that they will descend into the same shitstorm that ruined SCRUM. Daily standups were never intended to turn into a daily opportunity for micromanagement and application of deadline pressure, but this is exactly what they became. And I can't say it was an external corruption of the process - the dangers are inherent to the technique. I always felt that saying standup and scrum are good, you just have to be careful someone external to the process doesn't corrupt it don't turn into micromanagement is like saying nitroglycerine is good, you just have to be careful some chemical reaction external to the process doesn't cause it to suddenly and unpredictably combust. The instability is inherent to the substance.
There was also a mini (or not so mini) industry of industry consultants helping people "do agile", that elevated "processes and tools" over "individuals and interactions", kind of how the 10 animal commandments in animal farm ended amended to mean the opposite of how they were written down.
I see a danger in point in OKRs, in that they're a great way for a manager to turn a casual projection into a committed estimate. I see the inversion of "Customer collaboration over contract negotiation" all over again here. The developer (or employee) is lulled into a belief that we're all friends and can trust each other, the "customer" (or client or boss) is lawyering up with a contract, and when time comes, the developer's feet will be held to the fire with firm commitments, and subjected to daily deadline pressure and micromanagement (because agile).
All I'm sayin' is, this could go sideways. But then again, so can any job.