Let’s break it: Why OKRs fail
How to stop teams from working in silos
You have defined a roadmap, you have assigned squads, you have created OKRs, and yet you still feel that each team is doing its own thing. Marketing wants one thing, product wants something else, and technology prioritizes another. If everything is theoretically aligned, why does it seem in practice that each team is rowing in a different direction?
It is not always easy to find a shared direction among so many presentations and documents. You can have the mission and quarterly goals very well defined, but if there is no clear and visual common objective that everyone understands, it is very likely that each area will work on its own KPIs, priorities will shift suddenly due to internal politics, and strategic decisions will get blocked because no one wants to compromise on their own goals. In short, without a concrete and global target, each person invents their own.
And it is completely normal for this to happen in large and small organizations. Your job as a leader is to define strategic objectives that are so clear and concrete that they cannot be misunderstood. How?
Make the objective concrete, measurable, and relevant: You only need to answer as clearly as possible. What do we want to achieve? Why does it truly matter for the user and for the business? What deadlines and constraints do we have to meet it?
Connect each team to the shared objective: Once defined, each team can ask itself, How can we contribute to that objective?
Drive collaboration between teams: Having one or several shared objectives does not eliminate conflict, it makes it useful. Instead of arguing about who is right, the discussion shifts to which decision brings us closer to the common goal.
With these three actions, you will help teams listen carefully before deciding, promote solutions for the common good, and be willing to give up part of their agenda in favor of the whole.
Obviously, you should not be naive and you will surely encounter resistance. You will have to repeat and return to the objectives many times, and you will not always find easy answers to difficult decisions.
But one thing is clear. Designing clear shared objectives is the foundation for leading product, teams, and impactful decision making. If you do not have that foundation, good luck.