The “No Surprises” Rule and the Importance of Transparency in OKRs

Hey folks, 

We’ve reached midsummer already—much to probably everyone’s chagrin. Mine so far has been filled with good travel and family time as well as some good work on business projects, old and new. 

Some of that “good work” has been taking notice of things that aren’t working and having transparent conversations about the issues at play and what to do to fix them. While having those conversations—or, addressing issues at all—isn’t necessarily pleasant, it’s vital to see better results and continued success. That’s true for every business. 

The good thing is, I know a pretty great framework that helps facilitate that transparency among organizations and teams and gets people comfortable with addressing issues as soon as they notice them. In today’s newsletter, I dive into how OKRs enable transparency and the “no surprises” rule Josh and I encourage to help teams stay transparent at all times.

- Jeff

P.S. If you have already purchased and read the book, we’d be so grateful if you’d head on over to Amazon and leave a review. Reviews help us spread the word and get the book out to more people and teams that it could help. Thank you! (P.S. – We love to see posts like this one.)

Article: The “No Surprises” Rule and the Importance of Transparency in OKRs

Perhaps one of the less discussed benefits of OKRs is their ability to  facilitate transparency in organizations, among teams and between leaders and their teams. This creates alignment and more informed, faster decision-making and course-correction. OKRs do this in part by requiring measurement and data tracking and sharing as well as regular check-ins on teams’ progress. The linchpin that helps it all happen? The “no surprises” rule.

Let’s discuss.

Facilitating transparency through measuring and data tracking

Too often, organizations aren’t set up to create real transparency throughout their ranks because certain information is gate-kept at the top, access to data is limited, and teams aren’t sharing their progress regularly. Using OKRs, however, gives teams and leaders the opportunity—even the mandate—to share more broadly, in consistent and tangible terms, the goals of the organization, each team within it, and the progress along the way.

To gauge progress, OKRs require that you describe success in terms of measurable key results. Obviously (hopefully), that means you have to measure things—the outcomes of your work and experiments—which further requires organizations to track data, both quantitative and qualitative, and provide widespread access to that data. These two components, measuring things and sharing the data, promote transparency in many ways by creating informed conversations about your work and that of dependent teams, and accurately assessing your progress including the challenges you face.

Driving transparency through check-ins

Let’s talk about those conversations. For OKRs to work to their full potential, teams must communicate constantly—amongst themselves, with other teams and business units, and with their leaders. Some of this communication comes in the form of data sharing, as described above. But a large amount of it happens in regular check-in meetings, which function as punctuation in the continuous flow of the OKR Cycle – they mark the end of the timeboxed periods of executing and learning.

Most organizations use two different kinds of check-ins: monthly and quarterly. The monthly check-ins are smaller and less formal meetings with your team, immediate stakeholders, and key collaborators to look at the results you’ve generated so far, share what you’ve learned along the way, evaluate your progress, and then decide on any tactical adjustments you might need to make. Quarterly check-ins are typically more structured, with a greater emphasis on strategic course-correction, especially in the instances (and there will be instances) where you’ve learned something over the quarter that would cause you to reevaluate not just your tactics but also your OKRs themselves.

But there’s another interval for check-ins that helps drive alignment and transparency: weekly. These meetings aren’t for stakeholders (though you can communicate a summary to them), nor are they for problem-solving. Weekly check-ins are 30-minute status meetings for immediate teams to share learnings and catch issues before they turn into big ones.

The “no surprises” rule

Speaking of catching issues…it should be obvious that the main point of these check-ins is to keep everyone aware of what’s happening and moving in the same direction. That awareness means there should be no surprises late in the game—not for your team or for your stakeholders. Any big things you notice or catch in your weekly meetings should be reported to your stakeholders right away. 

Big issues should never show up for the first time in monthly or quarterly meetings. When they do, it not only erodes trust between leadership and teams, but it also slows progress in massive ways. Communicate issues you notice as broadly as you think is appropriate as soon as you notice them. That way, everyone can come to the monthly and quarterly meetings aware of what’s already transpired and ready to decide next steps.

No surprises on changing course either

Sometimes you may discover things that prompt a discussion about changing course entirely—not just your tactics but also the OKRs themselves. That can be a daunting conversation to have with your stakeholders, especially since they are likely on the hook for whatever goals you originally committed to.

To maximize your chances of success in the conversation, keep the “no surprises” rule front and center at all times. Nothing you share should be new information to them. You should be continuously sharing your learnings, decisions, and risks with your stakeholders so that if and when it’s time to have the big conversation about actually changing your OKRs, they’ll already have the context, data, and evidence they need to take in your request. And even when they’ve seen the evidence before, they may need a refresher. Always come to the conversation prepared with a presentation of the data that backs up your request to change goals and ensure that you can provide the paper trail if needed.

Radical transparency, over-communication, no surprises ever

The moral of the story here is, to facilitate transparency, you have to (ahem) be transparent. Teams need to constantly share progress with one another and their leaders. When teams don’t share their progress consistently, or when data isn’t broadly accessible in the organization, teams can default to limited communication, which causes duplicate efforts, conflicting or competing work, missed results and opportunities, and an overall lack of alignment across teams, not to mention distrust and perhaps micromanagement from leadership. 

So, over-communicate. Don’t wait to be asked for updates. Don’t wait to share new information. Aim to have no surprises in critical meetings—ever.

What’s new on the blog

Connecting Lean UX, Sense & Respond, and OKRs: A Customer-Centric Journey – The three books Josh Seiden and I have written together have a very important through line: a focus on the customer. But each one addresses customer-centricity at different levels. In this blog, I share what each of those levels look like, the significance of the customer-centric theme, and what folks can take away from each book.

What Is an OKR? A Video Tutorial – I recorded a 10-minute tutorial breaking down OKRs into their component pieces. I explain what an Objective is, what a Key Result is, and how these two pieces fit together to make a customer-centric goal for your teams to achieve. You can watch the video on the blog or on my YouTube channel (lots of good stuff there). It’s a good one to forward to your bosses too.