The ultimate guide to OKRs | Christina Wodtke (Stanford)
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Published 2023-03-16
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Find the full transcript here: www.lennyspodcast.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-okrs-c…
Where to find Christina Wodtke:
• Twitter: twitter.com/cwodtke
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/christinawodtke/
• Website: eleganthack.com/
Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: www.lennysnewsletter.com/
• Twitter: twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
Referenced:
• Yahoo’s peanut butter memo: www.wsj.com/articles/SB116379821933826657
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable: www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-F…
• Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results: www.amazon.com/Radical-Focus-Achieving-Important-O…
• Pencil Me In: www.amazon.com/Pencil-Me-Christina-Wodtke-ebook/dp…
• The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures: www.amazon.com/Back-Napkin-Expanded-Problems-Pictu…
• The Minto Pyramid Principle: www.barbaraminto.com/
• Lane Shackleton’s guest post on Lenny’s Newsletter: www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-coda-builds-product
• The Product Trio by Teresa Torres: www.producttalk.org/2021/05/product-trio/
• Ken Norton’s website: www.bringthedonuts.com/about/
• The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth: www.amazon.com/Fearless-Organization-Psychological…
• The Overstory: www.amazon.com/Overstory-Novel-Richard-Powers/dp/0…
• Cloud Atlas: www.amazon.com/Cloud-Atlas-Novel-David-Mitchell/dp…
• Black Panther: Wakanda Forever: www.imdb.com/title/tt9114286/
• The Team That Managed Itself: A Story of Leadership: www.amazon.com/Team-that-Managed-Itself-Leadership…
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Christina’s background
(04:54) How Christina uses OKRs to manage her personal life
(07:42) The purpose of OKRs
(16:15) Mission, vision, roadmaps, and OKRs
(20:57) How strategy ties in
(22:39) Why OKRs should be kept simple, and the ideal way to express key results
(23:45) The importance of customer satisfaction and why you need a qualitative researcher
(24:58) Common mistakes people make when writing OKRs
(26:14) An example of writing OKRs for an online magazine about interior design
(29:28) The importance of repetition
(33:17) The 5 whys
(36:40) Why you should start OKRs with your best multi-disciplinary team
(38:44) Christina’s book, Radical Focus
(40:26) The importance of storytelling and drawing (even badly!)
(43:21) Tips to become a better storyteller
(44:29) Using the Minto method for storytelling
(46:02) The cadence of OKRs and the importance of celebrations
(51:09) A different kind of approval process to get OKRs done more efficiently
(53:01) Why the focus on learning is more important than grading
(54:29) Why you should set ambitious goals
(57:47) Where to start
(1:00:48) The overemphasis of UX in product management education and the importance of business sense
(1:03:01) Advice for people seeking a career in product management
(1:05:44) Lightning round
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