@anon10525910, thank you for your contribution. Reading your posts convinced me to join the IndexCoop DAO. It’s rare to find such execution quality in DAO or, even in more traditional organizations. I have reviewed the Q1 OKR as well, as the post regarding North Stars and Core KPI.
I love that the community is using OKR. It’s tough to set up OKR and keep the rhythm over time. I stumbled a lot of times, at different organizations, before having wide adoption of good quality OKR. The difficulty is worth it because lack of alignment, particularly in DAO, is the number-one obstacle between strategy and execution. Also, having contributors thinking about the whole business is a massive accelerator regarding a team’s output. As Eric Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, noted: “OKR changed the course of the company forever.”
Timing & Review
That’s great that IndexCoop has a quarterly OKR cadence because it’s best suited to keep pace with the fast-changing crypto market. Do we have a quarterly meeting to discuss OKR results? I have only found this post so far. It’s crucial to reflect and challenge ourselves on why some OKRs were achieved and others not. We also have to answer questions regarding obstacles we encounter or the quality of the OKR of the previous quarter.
Objectives
According to the book Measure What Matters, one of the best book on OKR, objectives are the “what”.
They express goals and intents, are aggressive yet realistic, must be tangible , objective , and unambiguous ; should be obvious to a rational observer whether an objective has been achieved. The successful achievement of an objective must provide clear value for the company.
Reading your post, I understand that our three objectives are:
- Product growth - The Coop solidifies its lead as the #1 DeFi index manager.
- Community autonomy - The Coop has evolved into an even more autonomous organization. A diverse and engaged community is an unforkable advantage for long-term success.
- Protocol sustainability - Protocol resources are managed in a trust-building & resilient manner. Trust, security, careful risk management, and treasury management are crucial pillars.
I don’t have enough knowledge yet to judge the relevance of the objectives - they seem all smart - but I think we can improve the readability. It’s essential to have clear and concise objectives that all teammates can memorize. For instance, it could be:
Objective 1: Be the #1 DeFi index manager
Objective 2: Grow and strengthen our community
Objective 3: Manage the protocol resources carefully
Key Results
Key results are the “How”. Key results have an ambitious number to hit as well as a deadline. There is no place for approximation or half commitment—only outputs matter.
According to the book Measure What Matters, they:
- express measurable milestones which, if achieved, will advance objective(s) in a useful manner to their constituents;
- must describe outcomes, not activities . If your KRs include words like “consult,” “help,” “analyze,” or “participate,” they describe activities.
- Instead, describe the end-user impact of these activities: " publish average and tail latency measurements from six Colossus cells by March 7 ," rather than “assess Colossus latency”;
- must include evidence of completion. This evidence must be available, credible, and easily discoverable. Examples of evidence include change lists, links to docs, notes, and published metrics reports.
There are two types of KR, committed and aspirational. Committed ones must be met 100%, while aspirational ones should be uncomfortable and possibly unattainable. Aspirational KR pushes the organization to reach new heights - to grow 10x, not 10%. It’s the kind of “next big challenge” that @pet3rpan mentioned. I believe IndexCoop’s key results should be very hard because it drives performance more effectively than semi-ambitious goals. An easy way to draft KR is to start with the objectives and add “as measured by”. For instance, it could be:
Objective 1: Be the #1 DeFi index manager
Key Result 1: as measured by, reach $500M AUM before August 31
Key Result 2: as measured by, supply 400,000 DPI units before August 31
I’m worried that our key results aren’t ambitious enough. Forty-one days before the end of the quarter, we have almost already reached most of our key results. By the way, thank you, @anon10525910, for the following posts giving a status update. I also suggest that we start measuring, not with the growth quarter over quarter but, with a percentage of OKR success. For instance, it could be:
Objective 1: Be the #1 DeFi index manager
Key Result 1: as measured by, reach $500M AUM before August 31 => 61% so far
Key Result 2: as measured by, supply 400,000 DPI units before August 31 => 65% so far
Cascading OKR
Ideally, the DAO will have its higher lever OKR, and different teams will have specific OKR that cascade from those high-level OKR. Theoretically, a key result of IndexCoop general OKR should be an objective for a particular section such as the Business Development team. In an ideal situation, @LemonadeAlpha’s team should have its own OKR that cascade from the DAO’s main OKR.
Modyfing OKR during a cycle
It’s hard to nail OKR each quarter. We should be allowed to modify them if an objective or a key result no longer makes sense. Sometimes the right key result surfaces weeks after it’s put into play.
Recommendations:
1/ Set-up quarterly meeting to review OKRs
2/ Review OKR progresses every Monday to drive alignment
3/ Rewrite our three objectives to increase readability
4/ Find three ambitious key results, with a deadline, for each objective
5/ Create OKR for every team
I propose to scale what we are already doing. I’m no OKR guru but I have set up OKR several times at different organizations. I’m ready to help if it’s needed 