A 1-day interactive workshop examining OKRs with Agile.

OKRs – Objectives and Key Results – are rapidly becoming a standard addition to the agile toolkit. But while enthusiastic authors claim OKRs can deliver “superpowers” most teams face a more prosaic question of “How do we implement OKRs?”

When Agile teams use OKRs they need to reconcile the OKR cycle with sprints and backlogs. And while Agile teams embrace autonomy and self-organizing some interpret OKRs in a top-down command-and-control fashion which undermines agile.

This short interactive workshop aims to equip attendees to write, understand, and deliver OKRs when working in an agile style. A combination of exercise, discussion and lecture are used to explore the use of OKRs while OKR history and background is minimized.

Attendees will write OKRs and learn how to make them quantifiable. Participants will explore the OKR cycle and how to integrate sprints to the best effect. Additionally participants will learn to recognize, and manage the tension that exist between the ideas of ambition present in OKRs and predictability expected in many businesses.

• What OKRs are an how they fill the “middle planning horizon” problem in Agile
• How to integrate OKRs with Agile/Scrum
• How to work with OKRs in sprint planning, reconcile the product backlog and OKRs, integrate the OKR cycle and sprint routines and think about objectives and key results in Agile compatible terms.
• The leading role played by the product owner in setting OKRs.
• Techniques for writing quantified OKRs.
• Recognizing ambition vs predictability conflict between OKRs and stakeholders and how to address the conflict.
• Why BAU – “business as usual” – or “keeping the lights on” presents problems for OKRs and how to overcome. Essential for DevOps teams and those who must support production products!