How OKRs Transformed Our Goal-Setting Process | Gosia Smoleńska

Summary

Summary of "How OKRs Transformed Our Goal-Setting Process | Gosia Smoleńska"

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Gosia Smoleńska
Release Date: November 20, 2024

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte, a seasoned Agile Coach and Certified Scrum Master, welcomes back Gosia Smoleńska, an experienced Agile practitioner. The episode delves into Gosia's transformative journey with Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) within a startup environment, highlighting the challenges faced, strategies implemented, and the impactful outcomes achieved.

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The Initial Goal-Setting Approach

Gosia begins by sharing her early experiences in startups, emphasizing the foundational desire to establish a robust goal-setting framework. Initially, the company aimed to define clear objectives to navigate from Series B to Series C funding. However, Gosia encountered resistance, particularly from one of the founders who was skeptical about adopting OKRs.

"One of the founders was not really keen on OKRs. He was like, whatever we do, I don't want to have OKRs."
— Gosia Smoleńska [01:15]

Challenges with Traditional Goals

The startup's initial attempt involved setting three annual goals, with each team expected to align their efforts accordingly. This approach proved ineffective as team members struggled to connect their individual contributions to the overarching goals. The absence of Scrum Masters and a cohesive Agile culture further compounded the confusion.

"People didn't know what to do. People didn't understand how to actually approach those goals."
— Gosia Smoleńska [01:15]

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Transition to OKRs

After a quarter of ineffective goal pursuit, Gosia and her team re-evaluated their strategy. Recognizing the limitations of their initial approach, they decided to transition to the OKR framework despite initial reservations.

"So, after three months, we did the retrospective and it turns out that OKRs could help us. We were like, yes, well, that's a change."
— Gosia Smoleńska [06:06]

Implementing OKRs

The implementation involved several key steps:

1. Rewriting Goals into the OKR Format: Transforming annual goals into actionable Objectives and quarterly Key Results.
2. Team Product Canvas: Each team defined their mission, customer needs, goals, and partnerships within the company to ensure alignment.
3. Quarterly Reviews: Establishing a routine for quarterly evaluations to assess progress and make necessary adjustments.

"We started implementing OKRs. We rewrote our goals in the OKR manner and integrated product canvases for each team to define their mission and partnerships."
— Gosia Smoleńska [06:12]

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Implementation Details

Tools and Scaling

Initially, Excel was used to track OKRs, which sufficed for a small team of 20. However, as the company expanded to 100 employees, scalability became an issue, prompting a shift to more sophisticated tools like Actionable Agile in Jira.

"We used Excel for that. It was not the best tool. And then we were growing, so we grew from 20 to 100 people. When it was 20, XL was fine. But when we grew, it was no longer sufficient."
— Gosia Smoleńska [06:12]

Enhancing Focus with Additional Metrics

Three months into the OKR implementation, Gosia identified the need for quarterly focus areas to prevent teams from spreading themselves too thin. The founders introduced specific focus points, such as increasing the number of customers, to guide efforts towards the Series C milestone.

"We needed something that would give us focus for the quarter. So we put two more things for the next quarter, which was a focus given by the founders."
— Gosia Smoleńska [07:17]

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Challenges Faced

Initial Confusion and Misalignment

The transition wasn't seamless. Teams struggled to align their contributions with the broader company goals, leading to confusion and inefficiencies. The lack of Scrum Masters and a clear understanding of how individual goals interlinked exacerbated the situation.

"It didn't work well. People didn't know what to do. People didn't understand how to actually approach those goals."
— Gosia Smoleńska [01:15]

Tool Limitations

Using Excel as the primary tool for tracking OKRs became impractical as the company scaled, necessitating a move to more robust solutions like Jira to manage the increased complexity.

"We decided to use Actionable Agile in Jira. And we started to actually realize our metrics."
— Gosia Smoleńska [09:27]

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Retrospective and Adjustments

Regular quarterly retrospectives played a crucial role in identifying shortcomings and iterating on the OKR process. Feedback mechanisms, such as surveys and team presentations, ensured that every member had a voice in refining the approach.

"Every quarter, we were presenting what we were able to do, so each team was presenting their success story and what they failed at."
— Gosia Smoleńska [09:27]

Introducing Monte Carlo Simulations

To better predict and manage goal attainment, Gosia introduced Monte Carlo simulations. This predictive modeling helped the teams understand their capacity and set more realistic expectations, moving away from the practice of overcommitting in the final quarter.

"We started to use Monte Carlo simulation for OKRs. We realized that the last month was the month everyone was speeding to fulfill all promises."
— Gosia Smoleńska [13:06]

Limiting Work in Progress

To reduce context switching and enhance focus, the team implemented a work limit, allowing each team to handle only two open initiatives at a time. This adjustment led to improved clarity and efficiency.

"Each team could only have two open initiatives at the same time to lower context switching."
— Gosia Smoleńska [13:06]

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Outcomes and Insights

The adoption of OKRs, coupled with continuous feedback and iterative adjustments, yielded significant benefits:

• Enhanced Clarity and Alignment: Teams had a clear understanding of their roles and contributions towards company goals.
• Improved Focus: Limiting initiatives and introducing focus areas helped teams prioritize effectively.
• Data-Driven Decisions: Metrics and simulations provided actionable insights, enabling informed decision-making.
• Increased Accountability and Learning: Regular presentations on successes and failures fostered a culture of transparency and continuous improvement.

"It was one of the best experiences to see that those metrics were actually useful for the developers. They were happy to see that."
— Gosia Smoleńska [13:27]

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Conclusion

Gosia Smoleńska's journey underscores the transformative power of OKRs in refining goal-setting processes within Agile environments. By embracing flexibility, leveraging appropriate tools, and fostering a culture of continuous feedback and improvement, organizations can navigate the complexities of scaling while maintaining alignment and focus.

"We have to stop promising and start thinking about how we can deliver."
— Gosia Smoleńska [13:27]

This episode serves as a valuable guide for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches seeking to implement or enhance OKR frameworks in their organizations, emphasizing the importance of adaptability and persistent refinement.

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Notable Quotes

• "One of the founders was not really keen on OKRs. He was like, whatever we do, I don't want to have OKRs."
  — Gosia Smoleńska [01:15]

• "We need something that will give us focus for the quarter."
  — Gosia Smoleńska [07:17]

• "We can't manage what we can't see."
  — Gosia Smoleńska [13:56]

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Key Takeaways

• Adopt Flexibility: Be prepared to iterate on your goal-setting frameworks based on team feedback and organizational growth.
• Leverage the Right Tools: Choose scalable tools that grow with your organization to manage complexity effectively.
• Foster Transparency: Encourage open communication and regular retrospectives to identify and address challenges promptly.
• Promote Accountability: Involve every team member in the goal-setting process to ensure alignment and ownership.

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By sharing her experiences, Gosia Smoleńska provides actionable insights for Agile practitioners aiming to refine their goal-setting processes, ultimately driving organizational success through effective OKR implementation.

Transcript

[Vasco Duart]

Hi, I'm your host, Vasco Duart. Welcome to the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast where we share tips and tricks from Scrum Masters around the world. Every day we bring you inspiring answers to important questions that all Scrum Masters.

[Host]

Face day after day. Hello everybody. Welcome to our Wednesday the Change Leadership episode. This week with Gosia Smolenska. Hey Gosia, welcome back.

[Gosia Smolenska]

Hello. Thank you for having me here again.

[Host]

Absolutely. So today's change day here on the podcast. I like to call it change leadership rather than change management because I do feel a lot of what we do is about helping others make decisions, helping others move on, rather than telling them what to do and keeping them accountable for what they are supposed to do. But coming back to the story of change, what we want you to share with us, Koshia. It's a story of change and how it went from beginning to end. And as you go through that process, highlight for us the tools, the tips, the tricks and the techniques you learned back then that you still apply today.

[Gosia Smolenska]

So I have experience in few different startups, but actually experience I will share with you is from one startup which I went the furthest. And also this was first time opportunity for me to work actually with the founders and with C level and the whole process, how the company worked with me, working with the founders, then working with the business people and the whole company on this is how we want to work, this is how we will try. And because it was a startup environment, founders were really cautious on naming everything experiments. So we did a lot of small experiments and we left only those which worked. I think this is information that you need to know before going to the experience. And where we started is that the company wanted to have goals. The company wanted to have some goal framework to actually look, are we achieving? We were in the series B and we wanted to hit the series C in the startup. So how we went to that was okay. This is what we discussed with the board members. This is what we think that we supposed to deliver till the end of this year. This is the strategy. How can we actually split it? And one important information is that one of the founders from Free was not really keen on OKRs. So he was like, whatever we do, I don't want to have okrs. I did that. This was a shaky process. Don't do it. So we started, we started with thinking, okay, so let's do some goals. And every quarter we were reviewing this process. So it was not like we set it in the stone. It was every quarter reviewed. We started with Having three goals for a year and each team in the company had to contribute to those three goals. It didn't work well. People didn't know what to do. People didn't understand how to actually approach those goals. Especially there was no Scrum masters. I was the only person in the company from other environment. The company wasn't also that big, so it didn't work. Teams didn't know how to connect their goals with other teams. They were collaborating like development teams were collaborating with business teams. They had no idea how to actually do it. So we said, okay, stop, we need to sit and think about it again. And actually after three months, so after first quarter, the person was like, no, no, we are not doing OK. So we're like, I think those OKRs could help us. We were like, yes, well, that's a change. Exactly. And we were like, finally, so let's start implementing okrs. So we rewrite our goals in the OKR manner. The company goals we started, the first of all was rewriting the okrs. Second step was actually for each team to do the product canvas. This is the small exercise with why your team was created or what, what is your mission, who is your customer, what needs you will be fulfilling, what are your goals as a team and who is your partner? So we added this part. This is your customer, but you also have partners in the company. Because we had the flow. Like there was a development teams but very closely connected to business teams who were then connected with the customers. So we actually did this with every single team so they will understand, okay, this is my partner in crime, but this is my stakeholder. And after that we started actually doing okrs. So we had OKR framework in place. We had company goals, which were yearly goals, but KRS were quarterly, so objectives were yearly. The keyers were quarterly. And we started to ask each team to contribute to key results. And because they already knew, okay, this is my partner, so we can together contribute to okr, they started to thinking about that this was the first quarter when we did okrs and when we figure out how to do it. And after. And we used Excel for that, we had no idea what to use, so we used Excel.

[Host]

It's always a good place to start. It's like pen and paper, right before you automate something, first you need to understand it.

[Gosia Smolenska]

Exactly. So we used Excel for that. It was not the best tool. And then we were growing, so we grew from 20 to 100 people. When it was 20, XL was fine. But when we grew, we were like, oh, wow, what to do so, it's not fine anymore. And again, after three months, we did the retrospective and it turns out that OKRs are fine. Key results every quarter are fine, but we still need something that will give us focus for the quarter. So we cannot focus on every single thing and we cannot promise every single customer that we will deliver that in the quarter, because we actually don't know. So we put two more things for the next quarter, which was a focus. It was given by the founders and they were like, these are the ogres. But for this quarter to be in the series C, we need to focus, for example, on the number of customers. And this is our quarter for focusing.

[Host]

How did that conversation emerge? Was it like kind of a space that you created for teams to ask questions or like, how did you trigger that type of conversation?

[Gosia Smolenska]

Every single quarter, we did gather feedback from every single person in the company we were doing. It was just a form with few questions and every single person were able to ask a question. And also for the people like product owners, business owners, we were doing full retrospective because when it was 20 people, it was pretty easy to do this. But when it was 100, we have to somehow scale. So product owners were bringing to the retrospective also voices from the team. And the same was with business owners. And also we had this forum with questions. It was like few questions. What did you like in this process? What did you miss? And how did you contribute? Because what was important for us that everyone thought that contributes? Because why should you do goals if you have nothing in common? Why should you do goals if it's not your goals? So it was important for us to understand if really we make sure that everyone in the company has little tiny thing to contribute, so they will feel and see that we are actually in this together, we are in one team.

[Host]

When you started to kind of, I guess one could call it scale the use of goal setting, right. Because the first was like just three goals and that's it. And then people were confused, how do we do this? And so on. Then you started to use OKRs and in the end, just now you said that eventually everyone in the company had a small thing they would be contributing to. And that was created through the OKR process. When you were starting to scale that, let's call it definition and follow up of goals, what do you think really worked for people to realize that, hey, wait a minute, I also need to contribute.

[Gosia Smolenska]

I think that because every quarter we were presenting what we were able to do, so each team was presenting, oh, this is my success. Story and this is what we failed and we actually put a lot of pressure on. Please show us where you failed because we can learn on that. And each team had to present and we tried to make it not product owners presenting, but team presenting. Because usually in the teams, product owners present through whole. So we taught people to present and I don't know, was it the best way of doing that. But actually people were feeling that, oh, I have to present, so it's part of my work too, so I can actually contribute. And they were sharing many different stories about how they failed. For example, they said, oh, we estimated that we will deliver this, this and this. And we actually only delivered two things. And this was also a feedback which we took. And because of that we implemented another thing. And again it was implemented with the teams. We started using actionable Agile in Jira because you know, we used Excel for that. Yeah, till this time. And we decided, okay, let's use actionable Agile in jira. And we started to actually realizing our metrics. This was the time when okay, we have goals, we try people to involve every single person in the company to that by presenting, by actually showing them how much we earned by showing them, okay, this is how close are we to deliver this. KPI and founders was doing that and board members were even joining. And then we were like, okay, we have to stop promising and start thinking about how can we deliver. So we started to use Monte Carlo simulation for okrs. So we were using Epics in Jira and Epics was like a big initiative for delivering. And we realized that we have so many teams with so many opens in open initiatives, but actually we don't deliver full initiative in the quarter. So what we did, we firstly put a work limit for the teams. So each team put only have opened two initiatives in the same time to lower the context switching for them. And for for example, the feedback we've got from developers was like, oh, now I see where are we going? Because I don't have to focus on so many things. And now we are really able to shape our company goals better. Sorry, Sprint goals better because this is the goal. I see. And I need to close this initiative because I can before I can open new one. So it did give them a bit of again focus and the Monte Carlo simulation, we were doing it before quarter to see how many items can we deliver. And then we realized that we cannot stake last month of the quarter because we realized that last month of the quarter was the month that everyone was speeding because they really wanted to fulfill all the promises. And the last month was usually making all the numbers bigger. So this was also a good length.

[Host]

This is interesting how you started with the goals, then you figured out, okay, we need metrics. And then how the metrics helped you as an organization reflect on the focus that you needed, like the number of initiatives, and that became something that the teams followed. And that eventually gave you that insight that you can't count on the last month because everybody's speeding up.

[Gosia Smolenska]

Yeah. And I was. For me personally, it was one of the best experience to see that those metrics was actually useful for the. For developer developers. And they were actually happy to see that. And before realizing the numbers, they were like, ah, no, we are doing fine. We don't have too many contacts, which, no, no, no, everything is okay. And then when we show it to them, they were like, oh, maybe it's not okay.

[Host]

Yeah, you can't manage what you can't see. Right. Like, that's so important.

[Gosia Smolenska]

Yeah. Yeah. So it was really, really nice stop point. Because we had to stop and we had to rethink everything we do. I believe that we never stopped improving this process.

[Host]

And you can't, because then the improvement becomes part of the process itself. Right. And that's where we want to be at the continuous improvement approach. Gosia, that was a great story. Thank you for sharing that.

[Gosia Smolenska]

Thank you.

[Vasco Duart]

Leading change is one of the core skills we must acquire, but it is only one of the steps towards our success as Scrum Masters. Tomorrow on Success Thursday, we will talk about how to define success for the Scrum Master role. We'll cover tips on how to measure your way to that position and most importantly, how to develop that focus on continuous improvement that is as important for Scrum Masters as it is for teams. See you tomorrow. I really hope you liked our show, and if you did, why not rate this podcast on Stitcher or itunes. Share this podcast and let other Scrum Masters know about this valuable resource for their work. Remember that sharing is caring.