Hitting OKRs vs Doing Your Job
In Engineering, quarterly OKRs (Objectives & Key Results) can feel like a duplication of product planning. Basically, they say “Ship the Roadmap.” What new information are they communicating in that case? And if the OKRs say anything else, they’re in conflict the roadmap!
In Marketing, quarterly OKRs express our intentions clearly. They work really well to describe the focus for this time period. Marketing doesn’t complain about having to make OKRs.
Partly: Marketing is closer to project work, while Engineering (at places like Honeycomb) is product work. Projects like Marketing campaigns fit within a quarter or two, while product work is an ongoing rhythm of updates.
There’s an ongoing rhythm of work in Marketing, too! There are ads to run, webinars to run, emails to send, events to staff. OKRs express which ads and webinars and events — who we’re targeting and with what message.
Does this duplicate the campaign briefs? … yes. Therefore, OKRs often mention only new campaigns, new audiences or channels. They say what we’re spending money and time on this quarter, that we don’t do every quarter.
