OKRs—targets and key outcomes—are a well-liked goal-setting method. However can and must you use OKRs on product roadmaps? What advantages does this method supply and are there any drawbacks? These are the questions I’ll reply on this article.
Hearken to the audio model of this text:
What are OKRs?
OKRs are a technique for setting and monitoring targets. The acronym stands for targets and key outcomes. The target is the aim, which describes what you need to obtain. The important thing outcomes state the particular standards that must be fulfilled to fulfill the target.
To make this extra concrete, let’s take a look at an instance:
Goal: Develop the product administration group.
Key end result 1: Three product managers are employed.
Key end result 2: The onboarding system is improved, and time-to-proficiency is diminished by 25%.
Key end result 3: The product administration processes are tailored to protect the productiveness stage of the group.
As the instance reveals, OKRs are sometimes written in order that the target is qualitative, and the important thing outcomes are quantitative. Moreover, a small variety of key outcomes is often employed.[1] Please be aware that I don’t declare to be an OKR knowledgeable. However I skilled OKRs first-hand at Intel—the place they have been initially invented—once I labored for the corporate within the late Nineteen Nineties.[2]
What makes working with outcome-based targets like OKRs highly effective—and for some organisations difficult—is that they state what must be achieved however not how. Somewhat than handing a listing of duties to individuals, targets are agreed. The people then decide how they are often met. This helps empower groups and stop micromanagement.
What are Product Roadmaps?
A product roadmap is an actionable plan that describes how a product is more likely to evolve.[3] Historically, it’s a listing of options that’s mapped onto a timeline. Happily, within the final ten years, outcome-based, goal-oriented roadmaps have turn into extra common.
Beneath is an instance of how such a product roadmap could be captured and the weather it’d comprise.
Determine 1 reveals a selected goal-oriented roadmap template I developed, the GO Product Roadmap. You possibly can obtain the template by clicking on the picture above.
Let’s take a fast take a look at the roadmap’s 5 parts. A very powerful one is the aim, and it’s positioned in the course of the template on the third row. It describes the particular profit or end result the product ought to obtain. Pattern targets are buying prospects, rising engagement, and future-proofing the product by eradicating technical debt. The opposite 4 parts supply further data: The one on the primary row captures the date or the timeframe when a aim ought to be met, for instance, within the third quarter of 2024. The second row provides you the choice to state a identify. That is helpful when assembly the product aim ends in a brand new main launch or product model, for example, iOS 17.4 and Android 14.0. The fourth row lists the product’s options. These are the outputs which can be required to fulfill the aim. The fifth and ultimate row captures the metrics to find out if a product aim has been met.
You possibly can be taught extra concerning the GO product roadmap by watching the video beneath.
Can You Mix OKRs and Roadmaps?
OKRs and outcome-based product roadmaps each assume that setting particular targets helps individuals do an ideal job. This similarity means that you can mix the 2 approaches. To take action, you will have two selections. You possibly can both work with an outcome-based roadmap just like the one in Determine 1 and examine the aim as the target and the opposite roadmap parts as the important thing outcomes. Alternatively, you’ll be able to create an OKR-based roadmap. Determine 2 reveals what such a plan may seem like.
The construction in Determine 2 gives the identical data because the one in Determine 1 apart from the identify ingredient. This turns into clearer after we use each templates facet by facet.
Determine 3 accommodates an extract of a GO Product Roadmap for a brand new healthy-eating product.[4] The preliminary providing—the MVP—ought to assist the customers perceive their consuming habits and purchase an preliminary consumer base. It ought to be obtainable within the third quarter of 2024 and supply two key options. The MVP is considered a hit if the product is without doubt one of the high 15 diabetes apps six weeks after its launch. The OKR-based roadmap reveals just about the identical data. It first states the aim, adopted by the goal timeframe, the important thing options, and the success measurement.
As this instance illustrates, you’ll be able to fortunately mix OKRs and outcome-based product roadmaps, so long as the roadmap targets are SMART, that’s, particular, measurable, achievable, related, and time-bound.[5]
So What?
What can we take away from the above dialogue? First, understanding the connection between OKRs and product roadmaps will help you progress away from feature-based plans in direction of goal-oriented ones—one thing I extremely suggest.
If your organization makes use of OKRs, you’ll be able to argue that an outcome-based roadmap brings you in step with the goal-directed planning method used all through the enterprise. You might even think about using an OKR-based roadmap just like the one in Determine 2 if this makes it simpler to cease utilizing feature-based roadmaps. Remember, although, that this may imply that you just’ll must work with quarterly roadmap targets.[6]
This doesn’t essentially must be a difficulty, as I discover that these targets usually work effectively on roadmaps. However there are circumstances the place you’d like to decide on a shorter timeframe like six weeks or two months in addition to an extended one, for instance, 4 months. The previous tends to be the case when your product is younger or experiences numerous uncertainty and alter. The latter applies when your product is in a gentle state and advantages from incremental enhancements reasonably than greater modifications.[7]
Second, it directs your consideration to the query of the place the outcomes or targets ought to come from. It’s not unusual in my expertise that stakeholders and senior managers decide the roadmap content material: The people basically inform the particular person in command of the product what to placed on their roadmap. This method, nevertheless, is problematic. Not solely does it disempower product individuals and product groups. It will possibly additionally create a Frankenstein product—an providing that may be a assortment of unrelated options, gives a horrible worth proposition, and offers rise to a horrible consumer expertise.
A greater option to decide the fitting roadmap targets is utilizing an overarching product technique, as Determine 4 reveals.[8]
The product technique in Determine 4 describes the method you’ve chosen to attain product success. It captures key selections together with the wants the product ought to tackle, the customers and prospects who ought to profit from it, the enterprise advantages it ought to generate, and the standout options which can be required to set itself other than competing choices.[9]
The product roadmap takes the technique as enter and states how will probably be carried out within the subsequent, say 12 months. Its targets and targets consequently must be aligned with the technique. To realize this, you will have two choices—which I talk about in additional element in my e book Strategize:
First, you’ll be able to derive the roadmap targets instantly from the wants and enterprise targets by breaking them into subgoals. Second, you should use your key efficiency indicators (KPIs) to find roadmap targets equivalent to bettering engagement and eradicating technical debt. On this case, make it possible for the targets allow you to certainly make progress in direction of the overarching strategic targets.
Utilizing a longer-term product technique and deriving particular intermediate targets from it isn’t dissimilar to how OKRs are used to set organisational targets. The highest-level OKRs are normally derived from the enterprise technique—or “mission” because it was referred to once I labored at Intel. When you apply an analogous method at your organization, then this could allow you to mirror the organisational planning method to your product and construct a product roadmap that’s based mostly on the product technique reasonably than particular person stakeholder requests.[10]
TL;DR
Can you utilize OKRs on a product roadmap? Sure, most definitely. Do you have to use them in your plan? It relies upon. If it helps you progress from feature-based to outcome-based roadmaps and embrace a goal-oriented product planning method, then the reply is sure. Using an OKR-based roadmap just like the one in Determine 2 is more likely to be helpful for you. In any other case, don’t fear. You possibly can merely regard the end result on the roadmap as the target and the opposite parts as the important thing outcomes—if OKRs matter to you and your organisation.
Notes
[1] See John Doerr, Measure What Issues, p. 7, and Christina Wodtke, Radical Focus, 2nd ed., p. 101.
[2] OKRs have been invented at Intel within the 1970ies and have become extra broadly used after Google began to undertake them from 1999 onwards, see John Doerr, Measure What Issues.
[3] See Roman Pichler, Strategize, 2nd ed., p. 146.
[4] For simplicity’s sake, Determine 3 makes use of solely a single aim. See the article The GO Product Roadmap for a roadmap instance with a number of targets.
[5] As I talk about within the article Ought to Product Roadmaps Have Dates, displaying dates and particular time frames is normally useful on inside roadmaps, which information and align stakeholders and groups. When you work with a public product roadmap, then I counsel utilizing imprecise time frames equivalent to within the second half of 2004 or in 2025.
[6] OKRs are normally set for 1 / 4, see Radical Focus, 2nd ed., p. 102. A product technique, in distinction, covers an extended interval, for instance, one to 2 years for digital merchandise.
[7] That’s usually the case when a product has entered the maturity stage.
[8] Determine 4 reveals a part of my product technique mannequin.
[9] Notice that I assume that the product technique has been validated, that’s, that its statements don’t comprise any vital dangers and assumptions and are backed up by empirical proof. See my e book Strategize for extra recommendation on technique validation.
[10] See the article The Technique Stack for recommendation on the right way to join the enterprise and product methods.
