Easy Agile

Ep. 35 Jeff Gothelf on Building Outcome Driven Teams with OKRs and Trust

Episode Summary

How do you move from shipping features to delivering real outcomes? In this Easy Agile Podcast episode, CEO Mat Lawrence interviews author and consultant Jeff Gothelf about customer-centric OKRs, culture change and the leadership habits that make outcome thinking stick.

Episode Notes

How do you move from shipping features to delivering real outcomes? In this Easy Agile Podcast episode, COO Mat Lawrence interviews author and consultant Jeff Gothelf about customer-centric OKRs, culture change and the leadership habits that make outcome thinking stick.

What you will learn

• How to write outcome-based OKRs that focus on behaviour change, not task lists
• The “Who does what by how much” framing and why it de-risks delivery
• Practical steps to shift incentives from output to outcome
• Experiments over big bets: smaller, faster loops to learn and scale what works
• Fixing the output trap in planning, metrics and roadmaps
• Tactics leaders can use today: change the questions you ask, rename teams around outcomes, and model transparency
• Psychological safety and autonomy: weekly 3-bullet updates to reduce fear and increase trust
• Real examples: nonprofit campaign testing, handling exec pressure for predictability, and aligning KPIs with OKRs

About the guest

Jeff Gothelf is co-author of Lean UX and Sense & Respond, and author of Who Does What by How Much. He helps product and engineering leaders adopt outcome-centric ways of working.

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