Let’s be honest. Despite all the literature, guidance, and thought leadership advice, very few teams and companies are measuring their work right now. And for those that are, there are many different reasons why measuring works for them. There's no silver bullet answer.
It's easier to debate the value of design than encounter the real problems: bad faith arguments, poor leadership, and broken promises. These debates are both expressions of trauma and expressions of frustration. But, your work does not speak for itself.
Measuring forces us to be more accountable for our decisions, is outside our comfort zones, and gives us less room to hide behind our decisions. Measuring pushes us away from where we feel safe. Measuring highlights the missteps of leaders in positions of power.
I have rarely met a leader in a seat of power willing to expose themselves in a way that might be personally detrimental to their position or their power. Hiding behind their past and present decisions is an act of fear. And yet, when we can't convince them to act otherwise, we feel as though we've failed. We're stuck.
Why you should read this stuff?
- Your job is help your company win in new ways
- You job is to know what great is
- Your job is show how your decisions impact business results
- It’s hard to track and monitor how you do that stuff
- The POKR framework is the bridge you need
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Who is this for?
This book is for you. Perhaps you're a designer focused on value beyond revenue, a PM trying to be more than a task manager, a researcher whose insights are overlooked, or a manager trying to model something you've never experienced or seen.
POKRs are great for:
- Those who don’t have the advantages of systematic power
- Those who are on the hook to execute someone else's dodgy strategy
- Those who want to challenge your organizations to do better
- Those who want to feel like you're being heard
- Those who want to inspire teams to aim higher
- Those want to know when it's all a house of cards and it's time to leave
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This book is also for me. I've been teaching this stuff for a long time. My students are getting results, but it's pretty shitty of me to only share this with people who can pay for my courses or 1:1 time. I want the values I uphold, the truths I believe in, and the subjects we don't really talk about to be part of the book too. For those reasons, I need to self-publish.
I already have ~8k words written and the newsletters will go out every Friday. Once done, I'll publish the complete work as a book. I really look forward to learning with you.
Ryan Rumsey
Founder @ Second Wave Dive​
