Retro on ORKs: Quarter 3 (July - October)

ia Participants (apologies Ida):

  • Gert (facilitator)
  • Rebecka
  • Rasmus
  • Luise
  • Olga 
  • Jan
  • Chris

The team has evaluated how helpful OKRs were in making decision by putting the dot on the scale. Majority answered somewhat helpful. 


BadGood
  • Objectives spread too thin and too high ambitions (4 pts)
  • Colloquium is a milestone, YES/NO? (5 pts)
  • Organizational targets do not represent organizational priorities (2 pts)
  • Objective 2.2 is too open. Not clear enough and not updated (2 pt)
  • Some of the targets were too binary
  • OKRs are not visible for the team (1pt)
  • Should we have switched from GRADEpro sooner if focus was on OKRs (1pt)
  • Objective 1.3 can only be measured at the end of the quarter (1pt) 


  • PO used OKRs for every planning (1pt)
  • OKRs are integrated into Sprint Review, and we are more transparent with the stakeholders
  • MEs more involved (1pt)


Discussion: Colloquium is a milestone, YES/NO?

Is it really that important to deliver something new and shiny for the colloquium or governance meeting? For user engagement, it's more important to communicate well outside of these events, and e.g. webinars reach more people than a colloquium workshop. However these events are important for discussing progress and direction with senior stakeholders so we do consider them when setting objectives. Lack of cross-department awareness of work streams is an issue for setting expectations correctly at these meetings.

Discussion: Objectives spread too thin and too high ambitions.

We had a very wide range of viewpoints going into Q3 objective setting and although we did manage to bring those together, there was still insufficient focus and too much flexibility in the OKRs we set. We agreed we should have re-evaluated the OKRs as soon as the GRADEpro work became known - although it did fit under objective 2.2 it had a big impact on how realistic the other objectives were. We felt 1.3 was an important objective, but weren't really ready to set it - we did not have the data. Having MEs at the table for objective setting might have allowed us to set a more concrete objective. We should aim to set more specific objectives with less inherent flexibility, so that we can assess feasibility better.

Action points:

  • Have key stakeholders at the table for future objective setting
  • Set more concrete/specific objectives - no wildcards
  • Bring MEs Survey to Q4 planning as input

Links to the supplementary documents: