I think it’s for the desire to have measurable outcomes that are non-binary. So they can be put into a dial, etc on an executives dashboard. And be managed so that decisions can be made and tested to see how they affect the metric, etc.
The Objective part of OKR is the goal I guess you could say. The KR part are the measurable tactics used to achieve the goal.
Last year, I had a personal OKR to take a course on OKRs (yes a little bit meta). I was surprised to learn that the instructor suggested less emphasis on measurability. The reason being, that if one only focuses on measurable things a lot can be missed.
Did the instructor recommend having mutually exclusive or at least opposing KRs? I wonder if a mandate to define some of them like that would help with Goodheart’s law.
The Objective part of OKR is the goal I guess you could say. The KR part are the measurable tactics used to achieve the goal.