title: TPA-RFC-13: Use OKRs for the 2022 roadmapSummary: switch to OKRs and GitLab milestones to organise the 2022 TPA roadmap. Avoid a 2022 user survey. Delegate the OKR design to the team lead.
Background
For the 2021 roadmap, we have established a roadmap made of "Must have", "Need to have", and "Non-goals", along with a quarterly breakdown. Part of the roadmap was also based on a user survey.
Recently, TPI started a process of setting OKRs for each team. Recently, the TPA team lead was asked to provide OKRs for the team and is working alongside other team leads to learn how to establish those, in peer-review meetings happening weekly. The TPA OKRs need to be presented at the October 20th, 2021 all hands.
Concerns with the roadmap process
The 2021 roadmap is big. Even looking at the top-level checklist items, there are 7 "Must have" and "11 need to have". Those are a lot of bullet points, and it is hard to wrap your head around.
The document is 6000 words long (although that includes the survey results analysis).
The survey takes a long time to create, takes time for users to fill up, and takes time to analyse.
Concerns with the survey
The survey is also big. It takes a long time to create, fill up, and even more to process the results. It was a big undertaking the last time.
Proposal
Adopt the OKR process for 2022-Q1 and 2022-Q2
For 2022, we want to try something different. Instead of the long "to-do list of death", we try to follow the "Objectives and Key-results" process (OKR) which basically establishes three to five broad objectives and, under each one, 3 key results.
Part of the idea of using OKRs is that there are less of them: 3 to 5 fits well in working memory.
Key results also provide clear, easy to review items to see if the objectives has been filled. We should expect 60 to 70% of the key results to be completed by the end of the timeline.
Skip the survey for 2022
We also skip the survey process this year. We hope this will save some time for other productive work. We can always do another survey later in 2022.
Delegate the OKR design to the team lead
Because the OKRs need to be presented at the all hands on October 20th, the team lead (anarcat) will make the call of the final list that will be presented there. The OKRs have already been presented to the team and most concerns have been addressed, but ultimately the team lead will decide what the final OKRs will look like.
Timeline
- 2021-10-07: OKRs discussed within TPA
- 2021-10-12: OKRs peer review, phase 2
- 2021-10-14: this proposal adopted, unless objections
- 2021-10-19: OKRs peer review, phase 3
- 2021-10-20: OKRs presented at the all hands
- 2021-Q4: still organised around the 2021 Q4 roadmap
- 2022-Q1, 2022-Q2: scope of the OKRs
- mid-2022: OKR reviews, second round of 2022 OKRs
Deadline
Considering the tight deadline of the OKR process, this proposal will be considered adopted within one week, by October 14th 2021.
Status
This proposal is currently in the proposed state.
References
See those introductions to OKRs and how they work: