OKR management was originally designed for all levels.

Both of the seminal books (above) mention individual OKRs often.  In fact, the book “Measure what Matters” describes Google executives requesting all employees to submit OKRs before the planning period.  This is company-wide OKR implementation. But how did that turn out at the individual levels?  We will discuss it later.

Curiously, OKR management framework is NOT project management.

Top level OKRs establish strategic Objectives and what they must achieve to get there (Key Results). Here’s an example of an OKR for a tech project.

Objective: Develop a revolutionary AI based Python Coding software.

Key Results:

• Show 5 ways that AI coding can cut coding time 50%
• Demonstrate how AI coding can cut costs 35%
• Prove how AI coding can reduce bugs by 75%

As you see, OKRs only point the way.  The actual engineering efforts (project management) of achieving those KRs are left up to the RD teams. It means a large part of company activities are not part of the OKR realm.  And it makes sense – see “ What is OKR in Project Management?

So it seemed that OKRs were not suited for individuals.

What does experience say about individual OKRs?

Ben Lamorte mentions, in “The OKRs Field Book”, that Google all-hands OKR implementation was only partially effective at the individual level – some benefitted, while other Googlers thought it was a waste of time.

He also mentioned:

• That OKRs at the lower levels often appeared as to-do lists, not aspirational stretch-goals.
• Some individuals downplayed their OKR goals so they could readily achieve their results, otherwise known as “sandbagging”.
• Sometimes OKRs are an awkward fit. This was noted in a case when a manager of a team of call-desk staff already had a tracking software that was working well, and worried that implementing individual OKRs on top of that would be counterproductive.

Lamorte advises that individual OKRs simply be an optional choice.

What do the statistics say?

There are not many statistics about OKR implementations, but in a Study by OKR International, it states that in 2024, only 23% of the implementations apply OKRs across the entire company.

Some companies do company-wide OKRs, and some companies only partial implementations.  Why is that?

Company infrastructures and operations are diverse

From all the literature, we want to believe that if we follow the tenets of OKRs throughout our organization, our companies can grow and thrive.  But it’s never that simple.

Working environments are so diverse and situational that it’s not practical to jam OKRs into every aspect of an existing business.  The company size will also determine the practicality of company deployment.

However, you will learn that OKRs are quite malleable. It means you are allowed to shape OKRs to fit your unique organization. Additionally, you can implement OKR conceptually throughout an organization without mandating the details across all levels.

Some teams are well-suited for OKRs.

When discussing or teaching OKRs, sports are often cited as an example.  Why? Because sports are all about numbers that are measurable and trackable – hits, RBIs, wins-losses, walks, innings pitched.  In OKRs, it’s easy to set, track and monitor numbers.

There are some aspects of business also suitable for numbers.  Sales.  Why? Because a lot of sales is about numbers – how many sales, how man sales calls, how man meetings, how many leads, and cost-per-clicks.  Sales is often measurable and trackable, very conducive to OKRs, even to individual levels.

Engineering is not suitable for OKRs.

I found engineering is not suited for OKRs at the individual levels.   Why?  Because a lot of engineering projects is a series of tasks – research, design, coding, prototyping, testing.  And OKRs are not a “task list”.

Sure, you can attempt to apply measurable results to all those aspects, but I think this is the futility some Googlers felt as “a waste of time”.

I don’t tell engineers they need to be goal-oriented, and measurable in everything that they do – but I tell them to be aware of and try for the sake of OKRs.

But the concepts of OKRs can still be applied to engineering.

In Taiwan Tech companies, RD projects are not always thoughtfully managed.   Tasks and dates are only intuitively estimated, resulting in departmental conflict, delays and changing project parameters – it’s frustrating.

To remedy this, we used the OKR bottom-up approach for our engineers.

• We taught them basic task break-down and scheduling.
• We showed them how to write down their plans, check-in and monitor their projects (OKR progress-based) once a week.
• We encouraged them to reflect on their wins and losses (OKR improvement & critical thinking).

Basically, we used OKR concepts to turn everyone into self-managers, which becomes the training for future promotions (OKR growth).

Individuals should be highly encouraged to participate in OKRs

Who wants to be on the phone eight hours a day at a call center?   OKRs allows everyone a chance to learn, grow and achieve in line with company goals.   It’s about aspirations and reaching them – be the Excel expert in the company, learn AI skills, become a better presenter, learn digital-marketing.

We encourage everyone to have at least one personal OKR per quarter to increase their work performance, improve their value, avoid layoffs, and give them a chance to move up the ladder.

We witnessed remarkable changes – notably, ordinary salespeople, became knowledgeable, capable company representatives, giving awesome presentations, and surpassing sales quotas.