Introducing OKIs

What is your key objective? What is the biggest impediment to achieving that objective? Why is it important to fix it now? Everyone talks about your OKRs, but what about your KI’s, your key impediments? They prevent you from achieving your OKRs.

Every organization needs to address its key impediments (KI’s) in a systematic way. Typical KI’s  include lack of resources, unrealistic time-frames, and unclear requirements or objectives.

Within a project or development team, I always want to be able to answer the OKI questions:

• What is our singular most important objective?
• What is the biggest impediment to achieving that objective?
• Why is it important to fix it now?

Clear and concise answers to these questions will help you enlist the support of others in the organization to get your problem fixed. Why drives prioritization decisions?

As a leader outside the project team, I would ask KI questions, and add:

• What are you doing to fix this problem?
• What support do you need to fix this problem?

What are you OKI’s. How long have you had them, and what are you doing to fix them?