Hitting OKRs vs. Doing Your Job

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Role of OKRs vs. Real Work

  • Many describe OKRs as diverging from “doing your job,” especially for reactive or specialized roles (support, infra, internal tools) where work is driven by incoming issues, not quarterly goals.
  • When compensation, stack ranking, and promotions are tied to OKRs, people optimize for the appearance of impact, self‑promotion, and “visible work” rather than customer value or core responsibilities.
  • Some note that in practice people rewrite or massage OKRs retroactively to show success.

Metrics, Goodhart’s Law, and Gaming

  • Multiple comments invoke Goodhart’s and Campbell’s laws: once a metric becomes a target, its link to real value degrades and it is manipulated.
  • Examples: suicide prevention metrics, GPU FPS targets, bug-report counts, or engagement scores becoming disconnected from genuine outcomes and user well‑being.
  • Metrics can become a psychological game: people chase high scores, not impact; important unmeasured work gets neglected.

When OKRs/KPIs Work (According to Supporters)

  • Some argue OKRs can be useful if:
    • Objectives are customer- and business-centric, not “ship feature X.”
    • Key results are loosely coupled metrics, used as feedback and “political cover” to say no to distractions, not as strict quotas.
    • They operate at team/product level, not at individual IC level.
    • They drive alignment and conversations across large organizations rather than micromanage individuals.
  • A few share positive experiences where metrics were used only for visibility and learning, not for bonuses or performance ratings.

Organizational Scale, Culture, and Management

  • Many see OKRs as a response to scale: once companies grow beyond ~80–100 people, informal alignment fails and processes arise.
  • Critics say the real problem is poor management: lack of trust, overreliance on dashboards, and avoidance of hard judgment calls.
  • Some see OKRs, KPIs, and similar frameworks as consulting cargo cults that absorb time (“planning palooza”) and entrench bureaucracy.

Alternatives and Nuanced Views

  • Suggestions include: conversation-driven management, high-level qualitative goals, empowered teams with transparent metrics, and managers with “good gut” supported (not replaced) by data.
  • Several emphasize that intrinsic motivation, local judgment, and decentralized problem solving often outperform rigid metric systems—if leadership is competent and trusts teams.