When to recognize
Your OKR Planning takes too long

Dear Reader,

It's week three of Q4 planning. Your team has revised the OKRs five times. Leadership wants one more alignment session. The quarter starts in a week, but you haven't actually begun working toward the goals yet.

The moment you're tweaking wording instead of committing to a strategic goal, you've crossed from Real Progress into Alibi Progress. OKR planning takes too long when teams get distracted by the technicalities instead of focusing on the value these goals should provide.

Here's how to spot when you've hit the point of diminishing returns:

You're Polishing Instead of Deciding

When teams debate whether "improve" or "increase" sounds better in an objective, or whether a Key Result is "outcome enough."

Teams worry more about what fits in their OKR tool than what value it provides. But OKRs are simply a way to communicate metrics when it comes to measuring progress toward strategic priorities. Once you've identified metrics that answer "X months from now, which three metrics would tell us this strategy choice has worked?"—you're done. Everything else is polish that delays action.

Your Process Interferes with the 10% Guiding

If your OKR cycle is quarterly (13 weeks), Lane Shackleton recommends planning should take roughly 10% of that time—about 52 team hours total. When you're spending weeks in alignment workshops and revision cycles, you've blown past this threshold. The process has become the product.

One of my favorite ways of helping teams pressure-test their OKRs is by trying to predict the future. I want them to think about the answer to “Imagine a check-in 4 weeks down the road. With whom will you look at these OKRs and discussion emerges from looking at the changed values and confidence?”

This is similar to a premortem exercise. By predicting the future, teams can anticipate how useful their OKRs are for making decisions.

The Real Problem Isn't the OKRs

Excessive OKR planning is usually a symptom of deeper issues. The solution isn't better templates or more sophisticated tooling. It's recognizing when you've crossed from strategic clarity into OKR theater—and having the courage to say: "These are directionally good enough. Let's start."

OKRs don't need to be perfect to be useful. They need to be clear enough to guide daily decisions and specific enough to reveal what you're NOT doing. Can team members explain the intent behind each OKR? Do they help you say no to work that doesn't advance them? Can you trace each Key Result back to a specific strategic choice?

If yes, they're good enough.

Remember: OKRs should help teams measure progress toward strategic priorities. That's it. When the planning process prevents progress, you've lost the plot.

What Readers Say about my Book

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“In a PM world with ever more frameworks and approaches, Tim’s book is a breath of fresh air: build a strong and intertwined basis of strategy, OKRs and discovery, but be pragmatic and choose frameworks and tools that work for you to make real progress in your context.” Thomas Leitermann, Lead Product Manager at Personio

Thank you for Practicing Product,

Tim

Join my In-Person Workshops in Berlin

I'm excited to bring my beloved in-person workshops back to Berlin in January 2026. You can choose between 1-day workshops on Product Strategy, Product OKRs, or Product Discovery, or opt for the full 3-day experience for you or your team.

(reach out for custom team quotes)

If you consume one thing this week, make it this...

Who is Tim Herbig?

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

I focus on better practices to connect the dots of Product Strategy, Product OKRs, and Product Discovery.