PRODUCTHEAD: Should OKRs be boring?

okr computer #

every PRODUCTHEAD edition is online for you to refer back to

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tl;dr

Accept that some customers will never migrate to your new platform

Products do not fail in vain if you learn something valuable in the process

In 1979 Intel realigned its 2000-strong company around a new set of objectives in just 2 weeks

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hello

Another word-heavy week for me. Over the last couple of weeks, I reckon I’ve got about 12,000 words down in reports and write-ups, which to me equals a fifth of a book. If only I could translate that level of industry to actually writing a book. 🙄

I have been doing some other writing also. In case you missed it, I published a long-form article over on I Manage Products that digs deeper into the concept of coding in the open, and explores situations where going open source can also yield strategic advantages to commercial organisations. Have a read.

For you this week #

Rich Mironov’s recent article encapsulates the challenges of migration to a new platform. He calls out the common scenario when there are some (possibly high-roller) customers who will never want to move over and will use their leverage to keep you supporting the old platform in perpetuity.

Next: some products are destined to fail. The question Marc Abraham poses in his talk for Mind The Product conference is whether we will learn anything in the process or whether the product will have failed in vain.

Lastly, using a pivotal example from Intel’s rapid and coordinated response to a competitive threat in 1979, Neil Vass suggests OKRs don’t always have to be inspirational and outcome-focused and instead can be “boring” and yet effective. Do you agree?

Speak to you soon,

Jock

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what to think about this week

“When will we finish this migration so R&D teams can work on innovation?”

There’s a funny bit of split thinking that I often run into, and which came up in a recent CPO coaching discussion. It’s when we confuse delivering a new (or re-architected) platform and pushing the very last customer off the old version to free up teams that keep it alive.

Releasing the new platform is just the start of a long journey

[Rich Mironov / Mironov Consulting]

How to F.A.I.L. better in product

Discover how to turn failure into a stepping stone for success with Marc Abraham in his keynote for Mind The Product London 2023. Marc emphasizes the importance of learning early and often to turn setbacks into opportunities. He delves into identifying risks, crafting measurable hypotheses, and gathering actionable insights to ensure that even when products fall short, they fail constructively.

A tug of war between product managers who want to fail fast and the rest of the organisation, who don’t

[Marc Abraham / Mind The Product]

10 things nobody tells you about OKRs, part 2

I’m interested in the OKR origin story. They were made famous by John Doerr, an investor and venture capitalist who brought them to lots of tech companies. Lots of the companies have talked publicly about using OKRs and said they were useful, leading to even more companies adopting them. In 2017 he wrote a book, “Measure what matters”, about his experience with OKRs and how to use them well – sounds like a good place to start.

Can prosaic OKRs be effective?

[Neil Vass / Neil’s Notes]

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recent posts

Replatforming the cash cow

Recently people all seem to be encountering the same problem. Their engineering teams are choosing to work on projects that make them look busy, but which don’t actually move things forward. What they’re usually working on is a convoluted — and arguably doomed — attempt to replatform a legacy ‘cash cow’ product.

Don’t wait until decline has set in

[I Manage Products]

Is coding in the open right for your organisation?

One of the design principles that underpinned the digital renaissance in UK government was — and still is — ‘Make things open: it makes things better’.

For this article, I’ve focused specifically on the ‘coding in the open’ part. I’ll cover how it benefits public sector organisations, and how — in the right circumstances — it can yield a strategic advantage to commercial organisations also.

Increased scrutiny keeps us all a bit more honest

[I Manage Products]

How do you ensure success as a freelance product manager on a short engagement?

In contrast with permanent employment, the game changes a great deal when you know you’re only going to be in role for a relatively short period of time. That means you should think about two specific things: how you can deliver value as quickly as possible, and how to ensure you do at least the one main thing they brought you in to do.

Anything else is an added bonus

[I Manage Products]

PRODUCTHEAD is a newsletter for product people of all varieties, and is lovingly crafted from a power cut and a nuked server.