Pair metrics with counter metrics

Great tip for writing OKRs:

There is natural pressure and temptation to achieve progress at all costs. There have been innumerable examples in the corporate world, with Enron and Wells Fargo being the most recent, where the drive to achieve a particular outcome, such as “Open more accounts,” compromised the company’s core values.

To guard against such adverse outcomes, you can pair metrics with counter-metrics. For example, Wells Fargo could have paired “number of active accounts” with defensive metrics such as “each account must be active,” “each account must have a certain balance,” “no more than X accounts per person in a week.”

In product-feature land, there is a natural pairing of growth-based KRs and quality-based KRs.

KR1: Feature X will have 100 users by the end of the quarter.
KR2: 7-day retention for Feature X will be 90%.
KR3: P0 and P1 bugs will be closed within a day.

Rushabh Doshi