Engineering Leadership: Crafting Technical OKRs for Operational Success

Developing technical metric-driven Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) can be a major challenge in an operational environment that often aligns with downstream objectives such as sales and churn numbers. The role of leadership is pivotal in ensuring that the engineering team’s goals are tightly integrated with the broader company objectives, requiring a strategic and collaborative approach. Having gone through this process a few times now, I’ve run across many of the stumbling blocks and learned some strategies about key aspects to focus on when developing technical-focused OKRs for an upstream department like Engineering. Hopefully, you will find some of these helpful, whether it’s your first time developing OKRs, or you are looking to refine an already established process.

Understand your downstream objectives. Start by gaining a deep understanding of the downstream objectives. Engineering doesn’t exist in a vacuum of developing new features and fixing bugs, you need to understand the company as a whole. Deep dive into everything including sales figures, customer churn targets, and other key performance indicators (KPIs). Engage in conversations with leaders from sales, marketing, and customer service to identify their priorities and pain points.

Approach engineering as a supporting role. It can be too easy to think about the engineering department as the center of the company, especially in a SaaS business. At its core though, the role of technology, and therefore engineering, is to support the pillars of the company. Try thinking about engineering as a supportive entity for example:

• Sales make the deals – how can engineering provide them with the product they need to bring in new revenue streams?
• Customer support keeps the revenue streams alive – what can engineering provide them to enable the customers?
• Product drives the roadmap forward – how can engineering best utilize its resources to support the product team’s vision?

Fostering collaboration between engineering and other departments is a crucial step before OKRs can get started. Establishing cross-functional teams or working groups that include representatives from engineering, sales, and customer service can be a major help in this direction. This ensures that technical OKRs are developed with a holistic perspective, taking into account the needs and challenges of downstream teams.

Focus on the “why?” It’s easy to get caught up in what you want to achieve and start down the path of how you want to achieve it when developing OKRs. Take a step back and ask the “why” before getting started. Why are these my department’s goals and how do they support the rest of the company’s vision? The goal is to craft technical objectives that directly contribute to achieving company-wide goals. For instance, if the company aims to increase sales figures, the engineering team could set objectives related to optimizing the performance of the product, reducing time-to-market for new features, or enhancing the scalability and reliability of the infrastructure.

Collect input before getting started. A common pitfall when starting out setting up OKRs is to get the company objectives and start diving right into how your department can measure up. Stop, breathe, and take a step back. As an engineering leader, you have plenty of ideas of what you and your team can do but start by understanding how your peers are approaching the subject. Meet with your fellow leaders and align on what the OKRs mean to them and their teams. A standard engineering project starts with requirements elicitation, setting up your OKRs is no different. Finding out what your peers need from you and your team, and as much as what you need from them is a key first step before ever starting to write out your OKRs.

Don’t leave your direct reports out of the requirements elicitation phase either! Valuable insight will come from all angles, and it’s important to make sure that not only are the needs of the company represented, but the needs of your team as well.

Use measurable metrics. Break down each technical objective into specific and measurable Key Results. These metrics should provide a clear indication of progress and success. For example, if the objective is to improve product performance, key results may include reducing response times by a certain percentage or achieving a specific level of system uptime.

Strive for a balance between short-term and long-term technical goals. While addressing immediate needs is crucial, it’s equally important to invest in initiatives that contribute to long-term stability, scalability, and innovation within the engineering department.

Regularly review your OKRs. Your OKRs are not static, this isn’t a fire-and-forget one-and-done deal, they need to be reviewed regularly. Schedule periodic check-ins to assess progress, identify challenges, and make necessary adjustments. This iterative process ensures that the engineering team remains agile and responsive to changing business dynamics.

Transparent communication is key to successful OKR alignment. Ensure that the entire organization, from engineering to sales, understands the role of the engineering team in achieving broader company objectives. Regular updates and feedback loops contribute to a culture of shared responsibility and collaboration.