11: The OKR Approach: Defining Objectives and Key Results

In this episode of the How to Succeed in Product Management Podcast, marketing professor Jeff Shulman and The Product Management Center advisory board members Red Russak and Soumeya Benghanem welcome Murtaza Chowdhury (Amazon Web Services) to discuss Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) - a goal-setting framework for outlining and planning product objectives up to the targeted results. OKR helps product managers plan and create frameworks which are shared within the team to set clear goals to align all efforts.    Support for How to Succeed in Product Management is brought to you by Apptentive, which enables product managers to measure shifts in customer emotion and gather actionable feedback across the mobile customer journey. To learn more, go to Apptentive.com/UW.   What to Listen For: 00:00 Intro 00:42 Objective and Key Results (OKRs) and the need for alignment for outcomes and defining them 05:24 The benefits of the OKR approach 08:32 Have an objective that speaks for the company vision 11:53 Set a vision but don’t be too tactical in your approach  15:25 A sense of priority among the OKRs  19:22 Setting the objectives and key results 24:56 Everyone in the team is involved in the product team 26:44 OKR should be broken down into organizational level, team level, and then micro-teams level 28:34 Everyone working on the team has a say on the product development 31:04 User stories are what ties everything together 35:23 Solving team problems through prioritization and alignment 40:16 Everyone in the team is involved in creating the OKR 44:06 Should PMs stay in the background and let micro-teams solve the problem? 48:45 The 3 elements of an effective OKR 51:08 Set objectives that are futuristic, inspirational, and highly ambitious 52:47 Use OKRs with purpose