Stage 02
Measures & OKRs
Define the outcomes that show real progress — beyond budget, timeline, and feature completion. What gets measured shapes what gets done.
Measuring what matters
OKRs only work as part of a wider system
Traditional delivery measures — budget spent, milestones hit, features delivered — tell you what happened. They don't tell you whether it mattered.
OKRs were designed to fill that gap: to connect activity to outcomes, and to give leadership a real-time signal of whether strategy is working. But OKRs are only as good as the system they sit inside.
Without a clear strategic intent to measure against, OKRs become a list. Without a portfolio process that aligns work to key results, they become irrelevant. Without honest review rhythms, they become a performance exercise.
My approach to measures and OKRs builds them as part of the wider system — connected upward to strategy and downward to the work teams actually do. I also run a specialist OKR practice through The OKR Hub for organisations who need deeper OKR implementation support.
What this stage includes
- Designing a meaningful measurement framework for leadership teams
- OKR design, facilitation, and quality review
- Separating outcome measures from activity and output tracking
- Connecting key results to strategic intent
- Building review rhythms that make OKRs useful
- OKR training and capability building for teams and leaders
Is this you?
Signs your measurement approach needs work
You use OKRs but they feel like a compliance exercise rather than a real tool
Key results are consistently hit but nothing seems to be changing
Leadership and teams measure different things and rarely discuss them together
You track outputs (features shipped, tasks completed) but not outcomes
You have lots of data but can't answer 'are we making progress?'
Also from Mike
Need deeper OKR support?
The OKR Hub is my specialist OKR practice — offering consulting, training programmes, and facilitated implementation for organisations working seriously with OKRs.
Visit The OKR HubWant to understand how your measurement approach stacks up?
The Strategy to Execution diagnostic includes a section on measures and OKR quality.