OKRs and revenue

A portfolio of green projects that moves no business metric is a common and expensive situation. These two features exist to make the link between the work and its purpose visible, so the question “why are we doing this?” has an answer on the page.

OKRs

An objective is the outcome you want. Key results are the measurable things that would show you got it — each with a target number and a current number, so progress is a fact rather than an opinion.

1. 1Create an objective under OKRs.
2. 2Add key results, each with a target.
3. 3Update the current figure as it moves. Progress is derived from current against target.
4. 4Link the projects that are meant to move it, from the project's own OKR panel.

The linking step is the valuable one. It lets you ask the two questions that matter: which objectives have no projects behind them, and which projects serve no objective. Both answers are usually uncomfortable and worth having.

Revenue tracking

A project can carry a revenue target and a revenue actual. Those roll up across programs and spaces, and the history is kept so you can see the figure move rather than just its latest value.

This suits work with a direct commercial number attached — a product launch, a pricing change, a market entry. It suits platform and infrastructure work badly, and inventing an attributed figure for those is worse than leaving it blank.

A note on both

These are the two features most likely to be set up once and never touched again. If you are not going to update key results or revenue actuals, it is better not to start — stale outcome data is read as a sign the whole portfolio view is stale.