OKRs: Customer Enablement vs Delivery Culture
In many organizations it is common to find a culture of delivery where the main focus is on delivering on a set of objectives with measurement of performance and efficiency of completing those objectives.
An alternative view is to consider OKRs as customer enablement objectives. In this case, the main focus is on the activities or changes in customer behaviour that we have just enabled by providing a set of features.
It is a subtle change in perspective to move from a position of measuring delivery, (and in effect measuring the team,) to measuring the customer and the positive impact that we have been able to generate. This also allows teams to creatively respond to what really matters for a customer rather than being constrained by a set of deliverables that we initially thought were important.
Tunnel Vision
When there are time or cost constraints on the work then it can be common for teams to get into a tunnel vision where they begin to only think about the deliverables rather than thinking about what they are delivering and how these will be received by the customer. Ultimately, this can result in a lot of effort spent by the team to deliver all of the features, but then are met with a mediocre response for the customer who only sees limited value of what has been delivered, despite the huge mental, physical and emotional toll paid by the teams.
Focussing on the customer instead allows the team to creatively respond to the customers' needs and find smart ways of delivering high value with less effort. This does imply a close relationship with the customer to understand who they are, what they need and how they will use the features to achieve their aims.
Delivering Rubbish Faster
If we are focused on delivering faster and measuring the teams' performance and efficiencies with a view towards process improvement alone, without considering the needs of the customer, then we can fall into the trap of delivering low value rubbish faster to the client. On paper this will look great with fantastic performance and efficiency metrics and charts, but the customer can be left bewildered by the myriad of rubbish features that are no use to them. Here the effort involved in estimation and measurement of performance has obscured our view of delivering real value to the customer.
Not All Features Are Equal
Focusing too much on delivery assumes that there is a linear relationship between the number of features delivered and the value perceived from the customer, in that, the more we deliver the happier the customer will be, which is not necessarily the case.
Teasing out what a customer really needs and where we can really add value might be an iterative process, but with a passion to discover what features really resonate with the customer can help to zone in on those key exciter features that would otherwise be lost in an obscure list of deliverables.
Throttling and Positioning Effort
Focusing on these key features then allows us to maximise our efforts to enable the customer to realise real value, and we can also begin to throttle and position our effort to work in high intensity in high value and lower intensity on less value features. This can be very useful if working within a fixed time constraint or with limited funds where every ounce of effort has to generate value for the customer.
See Also
- Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)
- Measure What Matters, OKRs: The Simple Idea That Drives 10x Growth, John Doerr, 2018
- Why The Secret To Success Is Setting The Right Goals, John Doerr, TED2018