Andrew shared his experiences at Seek on introducing and working with OKRs at a panel session with Product Anonymous

1. OKRs at SEEK
May 2019
Andrew Knibbe
Head of Product
@andrewknibbe

2. How we (aim to) do it …
1. Provide commercial context for teams 6 weeks before end of Quarter
2. Teams draft and socialise OKRs until about 2 weeks before end of Quarter
3. Stream leads take a week to align and tweak where required (by exception)
4. At end of Quarter, teams presents
1. present Quarter OKRs and how they played out,
2. what this means for the longer-term vision and roadmap,
3. run though OKRs for the next Quarter
5. Progress/confidence updates throughout the Quarter
6. Mid-Quarter check-in for any resourcing/expectation adjustments

3. What’s working …
1. Creates alignment between teams and stakeholders
• Forces clarity of priorities inside a team
• Keeps discussion on What rather than How
• KRs highlight moonshots v optimisation
2. Focus on the outcome rather than the specifics of the initiative
• Provides room for broader ideation from the entire team
• Allows for further iteration and optimisation
• Fosters stronger alignment on the Why
3. Drives autonomy and empowerment
• Speed of decision making: pivot from weak to strong ideas
• Culture of performance: high performance teams really flourish
• Clear accountability: team responsible for progress

4. Things we’re still working through …
1. Providing sufficient context
• Laddering: Company Level OKRs > Team Level OKRs
• Strategic direction and alignment: customers, competitors, priorities
• Cross-team opportunities
2. OKR Setting
• Levelling of objectives (abstract v prescriptive)
• Quarterly Objectives have high switching costs
• Too many objectives. Too many KRs (perfect v directional)
• KR independency (in team's control v outside teams' control)
• KRs for new opportunity domains
3. Operationalisation
• Making OKRs part of the day-to-day
• Turning Objectives into Opportunities > Ideas > Experiments > Value
• Avoiding near-term incrementalism
• OKR adjustments within a Quarter

5. Objective: Grow number of Users per Month from XXX to YYY
Objective 1: Increase visits from SEO
Objective 2: Increase referral visits
Objective 3: Increase likelihood of visitors starting the registration process
Objective 4: Improve registration conversion process
Objective: Maximise the number of active hirers on SEEK
KR1: Grow SEO visits by XX%
KR2: Reduce SEO visit bounce-rate by YY%
KR3: Increase registrations from SEO by ZZ%
KR4: Reduce registration email confirmation drop-off rate by AA%
KR5: Reduce the number of registration fields from 7 to 3
KR6: Increase referrals from seek.com.au by BB%
KR7: Run a survey to understand why users don’t complete registration
Objective: Ensure every small business with a hiring need is using SEEK
KR: Grow number of monthly active hirers from XXX to YYY
Examples: Too Narrow, Too Wide, …..Just Right