Goal Setting (OKRs)
Most recent OKRs
Our Hiring Roadmap
What are OKRs?
Like many successful companies (such as Box, Google, Intel, Salesforce, and many more), Aptible uses OKRs. Objectives and Key Results, or OKRs, is a framework devised by Andy Grove of Intel, based on Peter Drucker’s The Practice of Management. (You can read more about the history of OKRs in Measure What Matters.) Google re:Work provides a quick summary of how OKRs work.
OKR Process
We’ve updated our process from time to time, flexing based on what we believe will be most useful to support the company’s success at any given time. Right now, we are optimizing for a high rate of experimentation and learning. Our process can be summarized as:
- About 1 month before the beginning of each quarter, our CEO (with the help of our COO and others) sets shares with the leadership team guidance as to our planned objectives and key results for the coming quarter.
- Within the next 2 or so weeks, the leadership team provides any feedback to the CEO. This includes any updates required for our financial projections and looking at projected changes to our key operating metrics as a result of objectives.
- After discussion and debate, the leadership team agrees on company-wide quarterly OKRs and shares these goals as well as the thinking behind these goals during a company-wide all hands
How OKRs are used
Each Key Result (or, in some cases, Objective), generally becomes a Milestone in Shortcut. During Sprint Planning, teams organize their work into Epics that align with a particular Milestone, allowing the leadership team to monitor progress executing against and achieving each OKR.
Progress Updates
During each all-hands, we review our company-wide OKRs and discuss progress against achieving each OKR. Teams also complete a show-and-tell about their work during the previous sprint, and describe how their work moved Aptible closer to achieving its goals