Cross-functional projects?
Cross-functional projects are designed to replace OKRs and narrow our focus down to the most actionable and impactful things we can do to improve our product and business strategy.
Cross-functional projects are organized around working groups that are monitored and tracked at the executive level and are expected to be completed within 1 - 2 quarters of their creation.
Any person or any working group can request a “cross-functional” designation that will ensure its elevated importance and subsequent prioritization of people, resources, and time.
Why are we moving away from OKRs?
When it comes down to it, OKRs are a tool, and not all tools work for every job. At Sourcegraph, OKRs have not been an effective tool for driving alignment and focus as we have consistently:
- Lagged behind setting quarterly objectives
- Failed to create meaningful and measurable KRs that can be achieved within the quarter
- Missed on creating processes and systems that enable us to track our OKR’s efficacy, and
- Received feedback across the organization that creating OKRs has become a tedious process that doesn’t focus on what’s actually important.
- A lack of meaningful progress or tangible outcomes to the company strategy since the adoption of OKRs
Instead, we will focus on cross-functional projects. These are more tangible, actionable, and impactful to our company strategy.
How are cross-functional projects different from OKRs?
- Cross functional projects are focused on tangible outcomes and actions. No more “meta” objectives that lead to a lack of accountability, ill-defined outcomes, and spurious measures of success.
- Cross-functional projects are not bound by arbitrary quarterly cycles Cross-functional projects should target short-to-medium term deliverables (roughly 1 - 2 quarters) and can be spun up / elevated or deprioritized as needed. This will shift our focus from asking “what can we do within this quarter” to “what should we do to drive the most impact in as short a time as possible?”
- Cross-functional projects are focused on dynamic cross-functional teamwork We will no longer waste time trying to align every department to Objectives and Key Results. Sometimes departments aren’t involved in really important projects and that’s OK. Instead, we will leverage working groups and entrust those teams to make the best decisions for the overall success of each project.
Accountability and cross-functional projects
Each cross-functional project has a DRI and Executive Sponsor who are ultimately accountable for the success or failure of the project.
Directly Responsible Individuals (DRIs)
DRIs are responsible for:
- Creating scalable processes for tracking and managing data
- Reporting to executive leadership on a weekly basis
- Creating and maintaining a high-functioning, cross-functional working group
Executive Sponsors
The exec team member who is sponsoring the project is responsible for:
- Supporting the DRI in securing and aligning resources and removing bottlenecks
- Supporting escalations as needed
- Attend all company goal working group meetings
- Act as an exec team liaison to ensure appropriate insight and alignment to other projects, initiatives, or programs.
Current cross-functional projects
| Project Name | Engaged Departments | DRI | Exec Sponsor | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deliver a world class admin experience | engineering, sales, CE | Aimee Menne | Aimee Menne | |
| Launch code security for security teams | engineering, sales, CE | Malo Marrec | ??? | |
| Create a strategic segment operating model | sales, CE, ops, people | ??? | Gregg Stone | |
| Enhance customer success and health operating model | sales, CE | ??? | Aimee Menne | |
| Kickstart demand generation and content engine | sales, marketing, ops | ??? | Gregg Stone | |
| Create new performance management culture | ops, sales, CE, engineering, talent, people, marketing | ??? | Carly Jones | |
| Make cloud the preferred deployment method | engineering, sales, CE, marketing | ??? | Quinn Slack | |
| Achieve SOC2 type 2 certification | security, ops, engineering | ??? | Quinn Slack | |
| Revamp pricing and packaging | sales, CE, ops, engineering, marketing | ??? | Gregg Stone | |
| Improve our data collection | engineering, ops | ??? | Dan Adler | |
| Create operational reviews | ops, sales, CE, engineering, talent, people, marketing | ??? | Connor O’Brien | |
| Fix self-hosted deployment | Eng, CE | ??? | Beyang Liu |