[getoffmyyawn]

In my experience, the vast majority of companies that use OKRs do it incorrectly, misunderstand the point, and cause more harm than good. As a member of the management team, I was able to get my current company to leave them behind, by giving a well sourced presentation on what OKR is for and when/how to use them. After 1 quarter the lights went on and nobody wanted to use them anymore.

Here are the biggest mistakes I commonly see.

1. Use OKRs are for quarterly or year targets. No, OKRs are for managing big changes to things. Never for Business as Usual activities.

2. Require every team to write OKRs for every quarter / interval. See number 1.

3. Focus on the Key Results instead of the Objective. If the Key Results can be achieved without achieving the Objective, that's a broken OKR.

Overall, I think OKRs are a tool that has its uses but its misuse causes far more problems than its absence.

Update: typos