okr-cascadelisted

# OKR cascade OKRs (objectives and key results) fail less because the format is hard than because the incentives around them are: people set targets they know they will hit, dress activity up as outcomes, and score generously so the numbers look good. A cascade done well aligns effort to strategy. Done as theater, it produces a quarterly ritual everyone quietly games. ## Method 1. **Write objectives as outcomes, key results as measures.** The objective is a short qualitative statement of where you want to be ("new users reach value in one session"). Each key result is a metric with a number ("cut median time-to-first-action from 9 minutes to 3"). A key result you either did or did not do is a checklist item, not a result. 2. **Align, do not literally cascade.** A team's OKRs should name which company objective they serve, but they are not the parent's key results copied down a level. Let teams express their contribution in their own terms, and combine top-down direction with bottom-up proposals so the people doing the work own the target. 3. **Separate committed from aspirational.** Mark each OKR as committed (you will deliver it, a score near 1.0 expected) or aspirational (a stretch where 0.7 is a strong result, per Google's convention). Mixing the two silently is how a missed stretch reads as failure and a sandbagged commitment reads as triumph. 4. **Kill sandbagging at review.** When every proposed key result looks certain to score 1.