End of quarter hits, and each team rushes to define their own OKRs. Too often, this leads to a siloed approach that misses the mark. Teams become laser-focused on their own objectives, neglecting the interconnected nature of their work.  This lack of transparency and shared commitment breeds misalignment, ultimately hindering the quality of planned outcomes. 

This post dives into practical strategies for sharing OKRs across teams, fostering clarity, and maximizing impact.

1- Write it down - If it's not written in the OKRs, it probably won't get done!

We're one big team and eventually, many of us, across teams will converge to work and collaborate on shared objectives, KRs and initiatives. These are shared OKRs, which include any team that must materially participate in this OKR. If front end, back end and design teams must collaborate to deliver KR1, then each of these teams should explicitly outline, in their OKRs, their commitment to deliver their part for the KR or initiative.

2- Don't sweat the format - do what works for you

Many teams get hung up on the way to write their OKRs. Whatever format you use, the key is to keep it aligned with the spirit of OKRs: clear, measurable and aligned. My advice is to use a format that is clearly understood by the various stakeholders and contributors. Here are three different formats that you could use depending on 1) your needs and 2) the OKR level

3- Clarity on ownership 

Even with multi-team involvement, designate a clear owner responsible for driving the shared OKR from planning to launch.

Imagine launching a new category page for an ecommerce website; front end, back end (sorting and ML recommendations) and design teams all contribute. Even though perfectly shared, OKRs will require a clear owner, who ensures everyone stays aligned, avoids uncoordinated efforts, and prevents bugs and a subpar user experience.

4- Agree on scope 

Teams will be working on both shared and nonshared OKRs. In this context, it is important to agree on the scope of the shared work to ensure everyone has the same understanding and agrees on the planned work to be accomplished. Without clear understanding of effort, teams will struggle to draft complete and realistic OKRs. 

5- Prioritize and align  

After agreeing on a common understanding of the shared OKR, you now have more clarity on how to prioritize it, with respect to all other items in your OKRs: 

1- Prioritize your list of initiatives to allocate resources and attention accordingly.

2- Align with other teams on your priority of the shared work to ensure cohesive action and resource allocation across the organization. 

3- Plan dependencies and know when to begin, determining the appropriate starting point for the shared work ensures seamless execution.  

If it's not prioritized, it’s a wishlist that is likely not happening!

6- Estimate capacity   

For the prioritization to be realistic, you will need to estimate your planned work, based on your teams’ capacity. This is important for shared resources, such as the design team, who often end up being oversubscribed. You can start with a high level t-shirt sizing, which offers valuable insights into the workload distribution across different teams. Unfortunately, shared work is frequently overlooked in this estimation process, leading to unforeseen delays and oversights.

Understanding the capacity and the feasibility of our OKRs should trigger multiple discussions: 

• To which extent are we subscribed? (over, under, acceptable)
• Can the scope of initiatives and KRs change? Can we do further prioritization within the agreed scope? 
• Do we need to re-prioritise or de-prioritise some initiatives and KRs? 
• Who should be involved and informed about the decisions above?
• Capacity discussions together with stakeholders about additional staffing
• Did all teams, who share OKRs, estimate capacity?

Here’s an output example of your capacity planning effort. You can clearly see that, to deliver all P0 and P1 initiatives, “Team B” is oversubscribed. This insight prompts necessary actions such as reprioritization, hiring, re-allocating engineers, etc. 

‍

These six strategies empower you, as a team lead or company lead, to implement shared OKRs effectively, fostering alignment and visibility across teams.   Remember, we're one team with a shared goal: to deliver exceptional value to our users and customers. By leveraging shared OKRs, you'll transform from a collection of solo acts into a high-performing orchestra, playing in perfect harmony.