How Product Leaders Can
Guide Their Team's OKRs

For the scope of this essay, I will define Product Leaders as members of a Product Management function with people management responsibilities (e.g., Director of Product, Head of Product, VP of Product, etc.).

​Product leaders and individual contributors must understand their responsibilities during OKR drafting to avoid getting in each other’s way.

Suggested tactics for what Product Leaders are supposed to do during (but not limited to) the definition of Product Team OKRs often read like this:

“Product Leaders have to provide the Objective.”

“Product Leaders have to tell a team what problem to solve.”

“Product Leaders must ensure the team cannot reach 100% of their goals.”

In my experience, it’s none of the above. At least not in such a narrowly defined way. Instead, if you strip away the tactics, it comes down to one responsibility:

All Product Leaders have to do during OKR drafting is to limit a Team’s Playing Field for the next goal cycle by providing Strategic Context.”

This can come in many shapes or forms.

Aide the Translation of Higher Level Strategy and OKRs

Whoever is in charge of the strategy and OKRs defined at a company or business unit level must take the stage before a team’s drafting. If these aren't clear, you cannot expect a team to articulate their contribution to higher-level priorities. Having the chance to clarify the goals from the level “above” through a live conversation is crucial. And that’s a responsibility product leaders have to own.

Sharing Context from Other Teams

Ensuring just enough overlap among teams is a tricky aspect for all larger companies. Instead of having all teams talk to each other individually, product leaders, as an overarching institution, can aid this by conversing with their peers. They should bring this context to a team’s OKR drafting, so they know what areas to focus on and where teams have to collaborate.

Challenging the Choice of Key Results

Instead of focusing on the values of a Key Result, the bigger benefit product leaders can provide is to challenge the nature of Key Results. It’s all too easy to get lost in the tactical metrics in front of you. Having someone help you see truly holistic measures of success is more valuable.

Did you enjoy this one or have feedback? Do reply. It's motivating. I'm not a robot; I read and respond to every subscriber email I get (just ask around). If this newsletter isn't for you anymore, you can unsubscribe here.

Thank you for Practicing Product,

​Tim​

PS.: Three friends of mine released their books in the past weeks, and I believe you should check them out (non-paid, non-affiliate - just a fan of good work):

1. ​Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden published Who does what by How Much - A Practical Guide to Customer-Centric OKRs (well-suited for the fundamental and company-level practice of OKRs).
2. ​Erin Weigel published Design for Impact - Your Guide to Designing Effective Product Experiments (a fun guide to testing like you're wrong but designing like you're right).

How to Dive Deeper into Product OKRs

Learn the strategies and tactics you need to use OKRs in a way that helps product teams prioritize work based on user problems and business goals—instead of replicating existing feature backlogs.

My Outcome OKRs for Product Teams Course enables product teams to use OKRs as a tool for decision-making in the context of Product Strategy, Product Discovery, and Scrum. Without the fluff, but with a focus on practicality in everyday work.

Content I found Practical This Week

The "Definitive" Lise of Things Startups Did that didn't Scale Read it here

What did you think of this week's newsletter?

Who is Tim Herbig?

As a Product Management Coach, I guide Product Teams to measure the progress of their evidence-informed decisions.

I identify and share the patterns among better practices to connect the dots of Product Strategy, Product OKRs, and Product Discovery.