Metric Driven Governance

Objectives and Key Results have been around since 1983 when Andy Grove used them to help steer Intel. Later they were adopted by Google, then the Gates Foundation, and now countless other companies are using them to unlock the potential of the people they have hired.

You can read about it more in the book, “Measure what matters” by John Doerr. It tells the story of how companies use a simple set of rules to provide governance across their organizations. The set of rules allows for extremely fast responses to change and unlocks all of the employees at an individual level.

Lately I have become obsessed with the question, “What would happen if this was applied to a government?”

The thought experiment

This is what I copied directly from the wikipedia article about Objectives and Key Results.

OKRs comprise of an objective—a clearly defined goal—and 3-5 key results—specific measures used to track the achievement of that goal.

The goal of OKR is to define how to achieve objectives through concrete, specific and measurable actions.

Key results can be measured on a 0-100% scale or any numerical unit (e.g. dollar amount, %, items, etc.).

Objectives should also be supported by initiatives, which are the measurable plans and activities that help to achieve the objective and move forward the key results.

Why don’t political candidates talk about the Objectives they want to accomplish? Why don’t we have Key Results for measuring if this was successful?

The following is the idea that a presidential candidate makes this part of their platform. If they are able to describe their vision as a clear set of objectives I believe will be able to unlock our country at a profound level.

OKR Governance Rules v 0.1

I started by thinking about how you would apply this business management concept to a political system.

Every Presidential Platform should be comprised of Objectives: I want to see a list of what each Presidential candidate wants to accomplish. If the Objectives they list are to “Provide every American with Health Care”, or to “Provide every American with 3 new opportunities each year”, it is much easier for me to get excited about them and understand what they intend to accomplish.

Objectives should tie directly to a National vision: If a leader can clearly explain their vision then they should also have a list of Objectives that will get us there. The Vision shows us the aspirational end state, the Objectives are the How that outlines the path to get from where we are to the future state.

Every Objective should be memorable: They should be “tweet” size and written so that everybody can remember it looking it up.

Every Objective must have 3-5 Key Results that are used to measure its success: The objectives must be measured so this can be tracked to determine if it was achieved. It doesn’t work to figure this out in hindsight. Candidates should put in the effort to figure out how they can be graded.

Less Objectives show more focus: Every new objective takes focus away from the other objectives. One objective shows the most focus. At 10 objectives it gets hard to figure out what the focus is. If everything is important, then nothing is important.

Objectives can be cancelled: It is possible to change the Objective before it finishes the time frame because new information was realized. However this should be well explained and transparent.

Objectives can chain: High level objectives have Key Results, these Key Results become the Objectives for a smaller group. This allows delegation to be used to scale the high level objectives across an organization. This is also how you can scale this system to every branch of the government.

Objectives should be graded on a regular basis: It is good practice to decide how success will be graded quarterly. This creates the right conversations around how the objectives are being accomplished and if these were the right objectives.

Use Key Results with numbers, not just as a task list: Real numbers will unlock the creativity of your team and make the team more agile. Deciding up front the task list to check off will prescribe the path of the team and makes the plan more brittle. Sometimes this can’t be avoided but it should be acknowledged.

Use multiple Key Results to prevent manipulation of success: It is possible to fake an accomplishment by gaming a Key Result. That is why you want to use more than one way to measure success.

More to come as I explore this concept further…

What a Platform would look like

Below I listed of example visions for a Presidential Platform and the corresponding OKRs. The point is that this starts to create the right conversations to get us moving in a better direction than we are currently.

What if the Vision United States that was safer to fail in?

  • Objective: Establish a safety net for individuals
    • Key Result: Reduce the number of people who loose their home due to loss of a job
    • Key Result: Reduce the number of people who loose their home due to failed health conditions
  • Objective: Give people a second chance financially
    • Key Result: Track number of people from failed business that file for new businesses
    • Key Result: Track the number of people who got new houses after having to give up their old houses.
  • Objective: A US Citizen should be able to come back from a health care scare
    • Key Result: Track the number of people on Medicaid
    • Key Result: Key Result: Track the number of people who show a return to work

What if the Vision was a United States was for us to feel safer from harm?

  • Objective: A US Citizen should never feel like they have to face dangers in their neighborhood alone.
    • Key Result: Track that the people who ask for help from the police feel like the job was handled well.
    • Key Result: Survey all citizens to see if they feel comfortable asking for help.

What if the Vision was a United States configured for innovation?

  • Objective: US Patents are a true source of innovation information
    • Key Result: Track how many times the patents in the USPTO are used to build business after they expire.
  • Objective: US Citizens benefit from innovating
    • Key Result: Track how much income a patent holder gets from the patent they filed.

Ultimate Vision

It would be amazing if a candidate clearly stated their vision and the objectives to get there. It would even be more amazing if they made the data they were judging success by transparent, so that the rest of us could follow along at home.

I dream of a government where citizens could understand why decisions are made the way they are. I would love to see a government that could respond to issues in the moment and not 10 years later. I would also like to know that we can see farther forward than the next election season.

It is my belief that borrowing these ideas from the world of business of measured visions and transparency will unlock a world that is profoundly better than the one we are in currently.