Do OKRs need to be hierarchical?

OKRs
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1

I read the Google uses OKRs at the company level which drives OKRs at the employee levels.

Should OKRs be hierarchical and interrelated? Or can they be flat , at any level of the organization?

Also what’s the difference between a hierarchy of okrs and a Cascade of okrs !?

2

Nope, I’d actually advise against seeing OKRs as an inverted tree with a corporate OKR at the top and an employee OKRs at the bottom.

Sure it helps to have corporate and annual OKRs - sometimes called a North Star. And I’d like team OKRs to build towards the broader ones but the arrangement is looser.

I’d also advise against employee level OKRs.
If you are an employee and you have a personal OKR what is the relationship with the team OKR?

  • is the team OKR more important than the individual one?
  • or your individual one more important than the team?

If you find you have 2 hours to spare, which OKR will you work on?

The individual one might be a distraction from the team one - they could even conflict!

Conversely, if the individual one is completely aligned with the team one then what is the point?

3

Ok cool. I think you are saying team is the right level of granularity. Got it !