Succeeding with OKRs in Agile: How to Create & Deliver Objectives & Key Results for Teams

by Allan Kelly

Get aligned, work seamlessly and hit goals efficiently - what are you waiting for?

OKRs are about goals bigger than the next story, or even epic. They prioritise purpose and strategy over the ever looming, high maintenance backlogs we all know too well.

OKRs are important to agile teams because they deal with the big things, they inspire forward thinking, encourage engage senior leaders, and help debug strategy.

Acclaimed author Allan Kelly describes why you should use OKRs, how to write them successfully, how to set measurable KRs, execute against OKRs in an agile environment to deliver outcomes, and the pitfalls and problems to avoid so you can deliver your outcomes.

Unlike other books, this is not designed to sell you OKRs, Allan reveals decades of honest, hands on experience working with agile teams adopting OKRs, day-by-day, sprint-by-sprint, quarter-by-quarter.

Genres: Business, Management

Audible Audio

Published December 7, 2023

About the author

Allan Kelly has held just about every job in the software world, from system admin to development manager by way of programmer and product manager. Today he works helping teams adopt and deepen Agile practices, and writing far too much. He specialises in working with software product companies and aligning products and processes with company strategy.

He is the author of three books: "Xanpan - reflections on agile and software development" (https://leanpub.com/xanpan), "Business Patterns for Software Developers" and “Changing Software Development: Learning to be Agile”; the originator of Retrospective Dialogue Sheets (http://www.dialoguesheets.com), a regular conference speaker and frequent contributor to journals.

More about Allan at http://www.allankelly.net and on Twitter as @allankellynet (http://twitter.com/allankellynet).

Reviews

[Toni SCRUMptious · Rating 5 out of 5]

I give a five star review if I believe that I will re-read or repeatedly refer back to a book and I am likely to recommend it to colleagues as essential reading.

Allan Kelly takes us on a logical and comprehensive journey through the whys and wherefores of OKRs, including some of the off-the-wall humour that we have come to expect of him.

My reading of this book was, as always, very active – my copy is full of high-lights and I wrote out 27 pages of A4 notes. As such it is rather difficult to distil down what I particularly liked about it. In the closing section of the book, AK states that he has written the book he wishes he had when he started his OKR journey. I am grateful that he has done so, as this is a truly excellent spring-board for the rest of us.

[Tim Dellas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good pretty compendium, but one that still leaves some questions open for me as the author didn't really have long term experience with OKRs. Mainly this book seems to be a good choice understanding OKRs as the other books seem not great too. I would have liked more methodical guidelines, which are not common in this book.

I heard the Englisch audiobook where I didn't like the reading so much, so I might get the real book as this is still a very good compendium.

[Richard & · Rating 5 out of 5]

OKRs brought to life beautifully as a lived journey

Having read other books that argue strongly for OKRs as a panacea to achieve a high-performing organisation, the perspectives here from Allan are balanced, informed by lived experience and provide patterns and anti-patterns to watch for. Insightful and powerful - thank you Allan for sharing such well-considered feedback.

[Abhilash Shah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good read on OKR and has some great actionable advices. Specially liked the suggestions on how to handle BAUs and Tech debts.
A chapter on how to and how not to frame OKRs would have been great addition. Even after reading this book I am not sure if I know any better on how to frame OKRs. However recommend this book for tech teams and product managers/owners.

[Asdasdasdasda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked it.

[Nathalie Karasek · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives advice how to make OKR work with sprints and backlogs and how to incorporate it in daily wok.

[Nopadol Rompho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book if you want to learn what OKRs are all about.

[Jeremy Noble · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought and read this book very quickly. Agile and OKRs are two very powerful, contemporary tools for effective project management. Allan Kelly gets to grips with some of the key opportunities and concerns in this short and to the book text.

I use highlights a lot and when I was - as in this case feverishly marking stuff in the first few pages I knew it was the right book at the right time.