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10 things nobody tells you about OKRs, part 4
We’ve covered several things about OKRs already: Today, in part 4, we’ll look at a few things it took me quite a while to realise. It’s easy to get excited about the promise of OKRs: aim for outrageous success, and if you get anywhere close to it you’ll still have got much further than you…
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10 things nobody tells you about OKRs, part 3
This is a multi-part writeup of a talk I gave. So far we have: Let’s move on to the next thing that nobody tells you: Various companies have been vocal over the years about using OKRs and how they’ve been important to their success. Most prominent of these is Google, the first place John Doerr…
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10 things nobody tells you about OKRs, part 2
In part 1, I set the scene for this series, but didn’t get as far as ticking off any of the 10 things – let’s see if we can make more progress this time… I’m interested in the OKR origin story. They were made famous by John Doerr, an investor and venture capitalist who brought…
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10 things nobody tells you about OKRs, part 1
I gave a talk on OKRs (Objectives and Key Results, a goal-setting framework) after years of using them and looking into how to make them work better for me. I’ve written before about how useful I find writing this kind of talk: The act of just getting a talk planned helps summarise and bring together…
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Notes from Agile Cambridge 2024
I spent 3 days at Agile Cambridge conference in October 2024. Great range of sessions and attendees to spend time with, all based at Cambridge university – an ideal location to put you in a learning mood. I’ve had a few weeks to think it over, and now I’m ready to write this “What would…
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Deliver Sessions: Back to school
Deliver Sessions meetup took a Summer break, then returned in September 2024 – this time, to Auto Trader‘s office in Tony Wilson Place. We had a range of speakers sharing what they’ve learned from trying out new things at work. The power of “I don’t know” Chris Burns (head of product) has been reflecting a lot…
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Notes from Fast Flow Conf 2024
I went to London for Fast Flow Conf in September 2024. This had all kinds of ideas and experience reports related to Team Topologies, and was a great way to learn about how people are putting things into practice. Connecting ideas I’ve done a fair bit of reading / thinking about how to help supporting…
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Avoiding the Boaty McBoatface problem
You might have heard the “Boaty McBoatface” story: In 2016, there was an online poll to name a new Antarctic research vessel. Members of the public could suggest names and vote for their favourites – and the overwhelming winner was “Boaty McBoatface”. The Natural Environmental Research Council decided not to go with the popular choice,…
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A pair of podcast interviews
It’s very rare that I get asked to appear on a podcast – until recently, it had happened just once, about 5 years ago. Then, 2 came along at once! Both of these episodes got released in June 2024. I’ll tell you the same thing I tell my parents about anything I write / appear…