A Simple Way to Get a Grip on Your Goals
A practical framework for getting clarity on goals before rushing to OKRs or any goal-setting system. The clarity exercise that separates directional intent from measurable outcomes.
Insights Topic
OKRs
OKRs should be a steering system, not an administrative tax. Move from lists of tasks to ownership of business outcomes.
On this page:
This page outlines my framework for fixing OKRs. Below, I’ll share how to diagnose OKR theater, how to connect strategy to team-level execution, and how to manage the lifecycle of your objectives.
OKR Theater
How do you diagnose and fix OKR Theater?
OKR Theater is when teams rewrite their existing project task lists into OKR formats, creating the appearance of outcome tracking while continuing to execute outputs without strategic steering.
Many OKR rollouts start with great hype, only to devolve into a massive spreadsheet of task lists. People spend weeks debating key result wording, check the box at the end of the quarter, and repeat. It becomes another alignment tax rather than a tool for focus.
To fix this, we focus on first principles. OKRs are about learning. A key result must represent a measurable change in user or system behavior, not the completion of a milestone. If you cannot measure the key result weekly to steer your actions, it is a project milestone, not an OKR.
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OKR Kanban
How do you steer OKRs in the flow of value?
Governing OKRs in the flow means integrating OKR reviews into weekly operational cycles using Kanban systems, actively managing work-in-progress, and adapting priorities as evidence accumulates.
The biggest mistake in OKR implementations is the "set-and-forget" pattern. OKRs are set at the beginning of the quarter and only reviewed at the end. By that time, it is too late to steer.
We use OKR Kanban systems to bridge the gap. We map our strategic bets, limit active WIP, and review key result progress in weekly cross-functional meetings. This allows leadership to adjust priorities dynamically based on real-world evidence.
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Recommended Books
Books to help you think about flow, alignment, and constraints
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The Art of Action by Stephen Bungay
Bungay's "Mission Command" concept is the intellectual foundation for OKRs: defining the intent (what and why) and leaving the execution (how) to the teams.
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Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman
Explains how to build organizational accountability and a weekly operational cadence to ensure strategic objectives do not get lost in daily firefighting.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Why do OKRs fail in most organizations?
OKRs usually fail because they are treated as a top-down command-and-control reporting system, rather than a decentralized steering system. Teams end up tracking milestone outputs instead of actual outcome metrics.
What is the relationship between OKRs and KPIs?
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) measure the ongoing health of the system (running business). OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) measure the changes you want to make to the system (growing/improving business) to move the needle on those KPIs.
Insights Database
All OKRs Articles
Browse the complete archive of articles and case studies related to okrs.
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Fixing Your OKRs Using AI
AI tools can help diagnose weak OKRs — identifying vanity metrics, output-focused objectives, and key results that lack measurability. A practical guide to AI-assisted OKR improvement.
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How To Break Process Theater Using Outcome Orientation
When teams follow the rituals but business impact never materializes, you're in Process Theater. How outcome mapping closes the missing middle layer between process compliance and real organizational traction.
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Tackling Strategy Theater - Fractals To The Rescue (Yet Again)
Strategic themes gathering dust like unused New Year's resolutions? How to apply the same outcome-oriented, empirical patterns used at the team and portfolio level to break strategy theater at the enterprise level.
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What Do You Do When OKRs Become Too Much Administrative Work?
When OKRs become a burden, the problem is usually misapplication, not the framework itself. Practical ways to go lightweight on OKR process while still enabling aligned autonomy as you scale.
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· FlowOrganizational Traction w/ an OKRs Kanban
Treating OKRs as a Kanban system: visualizing strategic work, limiting WIP at the leadership level, and using Kanban cadences to review and adapt strategic priorities.
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De-Risk Product Development w/ Leading Indicators
Outcome OKRs aren't enough — without leading indicators, you're just doing waterfall with better labels. How to build hypothesis-driven leading indicators that enable real steering in uncertain product development.
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From Inclusive to Focused Goals using Even Over statements
Inclusive culture is good. Inclusive goals are not. How Even Over statements force the trade-off conversations your OKRs need to have real teeth and drive actual focus.
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How do you fix OKRs that have lost the plot?
How do you fix OKRs that have lost the plot? This session resets OKRs around business outcomes, focus, and real steering instead of reporting theater.
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‘”OKRs S&%k, but we don’t know anything better” - Scaling Founder Mode by Fixing OKRs’
‘When scaleup leaders say OKRs are broken but can’’t find anything better, the real problem is usually misapplication. How fixing OKRs back to first principles enables the aligned autonomy founder mode can’’t scale without.’
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Should SAFe Strategic Themes include gradable Key Results?
SAFe Strategic Themes are not OKRs — and treating them like OKRs creates confusion. When to use gradable Key Results vs directional strategic themes in SAFe.
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The Fixing OKRs Live Stream Series
A live stream series on diagnosing and fixing broken OKR implementations — covering goal-setting pitfalls, cascade traps, and how to reconnect OKRs to real strategic outcomes.
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OKR Implementation Tips
OKRs become the new silver bullet until implementation goes wrong. Common OKR anti-patterns — activity-based key results, siloed OKRs, relabeled project lists — and the best practices that make OKRs actually work.
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How do OKRs and Scrum work together?
How do OKRs and Scrum work together? This session shows how goals, inspection, and delivery can reinforce each other without turning OKRs into reporting theater.
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Exploring the Connection Between Business Agility, OKRs and Private Equity - Interview w/ Yuval on the Quantive Dreams with Deadlines Podcast
The connection between business agility, OKRs, and private equity returns — a podcast interview on how PE portfolio companies can use OKRs to create real strategic traction.
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· AgilityFix Your OKRs - Back to First Principles
OKRs have become theater in most organizations — another alignment tax with little real substance. This is the reset: why OKRs work when they work, how to diagnose what's broken, and what principled OKR implementation actually looks like.
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Connecting OKRs, KPIs, OVSs, and DVSs in SAFe® — Scaled Agile
OKRs, KPIs, Operational Value Streams, and Development Value Streams in SAFe — how they connect, where people confuse them, and how to align them effectively.
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· AgilityImproving Focus and Alignment by Organizing around OKRs and managing OKR Flow
OKRs and Product Goals are both alignment tools — but they operate at different levels. How to use them together to create coherence from portfolio to team without double-counting.
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Fixing OKR Theater Using Scrum
OKR theater is when OKRs become tasks, key results become outputs, and the whole system devolves into admin. How Scrum's empirical principles — inspect, adapt, transparency — can fix what's broken in your OKR process.
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· AgilityOrganizing around Outcomes with OKRs and Scrum
How to align Scrum team topology to strategy using OKRs and Product Goals — connecting outcome-oriented goal setting to how Scrum teams should be structured and what they should focus on.
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Entrepreneurial Operating System® / Traction®- How does it relate to Agile/Scrum?
EOS/Traction and Agile: two operating systems for running a business. How they compare, where they complement each other, and what each gets right about organizational execution.