Videoconference: OKRs—Helpful or Harmful?

Thursday, January 20, 2022

Join here for access to the recording. You’ll receive a welcome email with a Dropbox link to our call archive.

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are a staple of Q1 goal setting, but how helpful are OKRs to achieving your team’s goals? Are they agile: do they stay relevant in a constantly shifting new normal, or does the process of getting to mutually agreed OKRs suck the innovation out of a team?

Join Bria Alexander, DesignOps 2022 curator, in conversation with Design Operations leaders Benson Low, Natalya Pemberton, and Stephanie Goldthorpe to discuss the help (or the harm) in setting OKRs.

About our panelists:

Bria Alexander is a Design Program Manager, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) consultant, and an International Speaker, Facilitator, and Interviewer. She currently supports the Brand Experience teams with Adobe’s Design organization. With over 10 years of facilitation and hosting experience, Bria has served as emcee for Adobe’s Design Summit and for Rosenfeld Media’s Design at Scale, Advancing Research and Design Operations conferences throughout 2020 and 2021. Outside of her professional commitments Bria enjoys travel, live music, and a great bottle of wine. You can find Bria on LinkedIn or on Instagram @briaismynameoh.

Benson Low is leading and scaling the UX Research practice at REA Group. For over 20 years, he led design teams across Australia with recent years help established UX Research practice at Australia Post and built user research as a core capability across key products and initiatives. Today at REA Group, he leads design capabilities on Design Ops, UX Research and Content Design, maturing for impactful outcomes.

Benson is also a board member of the ResearchOps community, organizing workshops, meetups, and has been a part of other global projects.

Find him on Twitter at @Sprae.

Natalya Pemberton (she/her) believes our systems can—and must—do better at meeting the needs of us all. She works to enhance collaboration, inclusion, and equity in organizations, bringing curiosity and critical thinking to organizational systems and operations. Currently at Meta, Natalya leads Design Operations and Communications Design teams supporting enterprise products. Prior to Meta, her career varied from financial regulation to tax law to travel and technology. She has also held board positions in non-profits, consulted with organizations navigating change, and taught organizational change and leadership to healthcare leaders.

Natalya holds an MBA in Sustainable Systems from Presidio Graduate School, and a combined Arts/Law degree from the University of Melbourne. She lives in Oakland, CA, with her husband and their pets: a sweet dog named Zydeco and an opinionated cat named Sherlock.

Stephanie Goldthorpe is starting her second year as Director of Design Operations at Adobe. Prior to Adobe, her career at Apple spanned from an interactive designer to helping establish the Design Operations team. She brings a unique perspective by pairing her passion for design with strategy and systems design to continue evolving how design-led thinking pushes business innovation.

Resources mentioned in the conversation