OKR Roadmap
What is an OKR roadmap?
OKR roadmap definition
When it comes to developing new digital products, product managers and their teams are spoiled for choice. With countless project tracking and decision-making frameworks to choose from, it’s no wonder lines sometimes get blurry. That’s just what’s happened with the fabled “OKR roadmap”. In reality, OKRs and roadmaps are two different concepts that are often conflated, meaning an “OKR roadmap” doesn’t strictly exist.
What is OKR in product management?
To bring some clarity to the topic, let’s start by breaking down the definition of each:
OKR, or Objectives & Key Results, is a goal-tracking framework originally pioneered during the early days of Google. It’s best used to track goals over longer time-frames, ideally quarters, and allows PMs to define the Objectives (long-term goals) along with the Key Results, which are the measurable outcomes of the efforts to reach those goals.
Roadmaps are a visual representation of a project timeline. There are many different variations, but in this context, the product roadmap is the most common. They are used to visualize and prioritize tasks and milestones as product development progresses.
Can OKRs replace roadmaps?
Since both of these concepts deal with practical outcomes of product development, there’s certainly plenty of crossover between the two — but could one replace the other?
In truth, OKRs aren’t well-suited for a direct replacement of the product roadmap, mainly because they’re tracking different things — but that doesn’t mean the two can’t be used in parallel.
What many product teams do is use OKRs as part of the product roadmap. After all, the roadmap is, at its essence, a list of deliverables: product features, updates, and so on. In contrast, an OKR may be focused on more strategic goals such as “Encourage more users to download our app”. There’s no direct 1:1 mapping between the two, but OKRs can certainly be transposed onto a product roadmap with a little work on the PM’s part.
Here is a list of 9 product roadmap tools to consider for creating your roadmaps.
Including OKRs in roadmaps examples
To use OKRs within product roadmaps, teams should isolate the set of OKRs to one phase of development — say a month at a time — then decide what they want the tasks on the roadmap to be. If this is, for example, a new mobile version of an application, a PM might use the OKR framework to pursue the Objective “Successfully launch a beta test of our mobile app”, with the Key Results being focused around the specific number of tests with successful outcomes.
This same logic can then be applied to specific areas of the application, leveraging the OKR framework to achieve the key milestones within the roadmap, despite the two technically being different systems.
Here are just a few examples of how you can use OKRs in roadmaps.
Use OKRs to prioritize product roadmap
You can use the OKR framework to prioritize product roadmaps and focus on the most impactful initiatives that contribute to your business’s strategic objectives. You can easily break down large objectives into more manageable, actionable goals by including OKRs in your product roadmap.
To implement OKRs in your product roadmap, you need to transform user problems into Objectives and create Key Results that will use relevant metrics. Make sure to hold regular cross-functional OKR reviews and update the roadmap every week to ensure things are running as they should.
Combine OKRs with initiatives
One of the issues with OKRs is that a bit in the middle is missing. You have your objective and how you will measure success, but there’s nothing about how you will get there. Mapping initiatives onto your roadmap will help you communicate how you’ll achieve your objectives.
Initiatives only come into play once you have set your OKRs. It will take creative brainstorming to discover the initiatives that will work towards your Objectives based on the Key Results you hope to see.
Use OKRs to engage your team
Setting goals with concrete and measurable results can shift your team into the next gear. Most teams will thrive with objectives that push their limits and allow them to get creative with their solutions. OKRs are an excellent tool for this because it’s incredibly clear what the team needs to achieve. There’s no ambiguity, just concrete results to work towards.
Holding regular OKR reviews also serves to boost the team’s engagement. These reviews will uncover any areas where they are falling behind so you can shift your focus if required. On the other hand, the reviews can be a celebration of wins and a way of acknowledging great work by your team.
Check out our product roadmap template as well as our downloadable OKR template.
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