What you are describing is the opposite of agile, and also flies in the face of devops, so it's really hard to sell it in today's management culture. However, I've never seen agile or devops development processes work. I only work on big systems with year-plus timespans.
I can imagine those processes working well for lean, piecemeal teams (like refreshing frontend site cosmetics once a year, or pumping out contract work every few weeks), or for technology-lean consumer startups building an MVP they plan to throw away once they have market fit.
When I've seen project management work well, it's always been of the form (all these bullet points are mandatory, in my experience):
- The goal for the product for the next 3-24 months is clearly articulated.
- Each sub-team's 1-6 month goals are clearly articulated.
- ICs produce a list of projects that should take one IC about a month, and that, if completed, will meet the sub-team's goal (deadline requirements are ignored during this part of planning).
- Is "Number of projects / number of ICs" significantly less than the number of months to the deadline?
- If No, this sub-team won't be able to ship, so adjust the scope, the resources, or the deadline.
- Compensation is based on the performance of the product group, not the sub-teams. Somewhere between 1-10% of new hires end up being let go within 6 months. Hiring is never perfect, and firing people less bad for morale than having people sitting around being dead weight.
Number of months varies depending on project maturity, business needs, and scope of the changes. Anything past 24 months is best done in a graduate program, not a company.
Yes - ICs have tasks, not okrs. The tasks can be intended to impact a higher-level kr which defines progress of an O and that O MUST be connected the strategy of the company or it is a crap/BS O.
I can imagine those processes working well for lean, piecemeal teams (like refreshing frontend site cosmetics once a year, or pumping out contract work every few weeks), or for technology-lean consumer startups building an MVP they plan to throw away once they have market fit.
When I've seen project management work well, it's always been of the form (all these bullet points are mandatory, in my experience):
- The goal for the product for the next 3-24 months is clearly articulated.
- Each sub-team's 1-6 month goals are clearly articulated.
- ICs produce a list of projects that should take one IC about a month, and that, if completed, will meet the sub-team's goal (deadline requirements are ignored during this part of planning).
- Is "Number of projects / number of ICs" significantly less than the number of months to the deadline?
- If No, this sub-team won't be able to ship, so adjust the scope, the resources, or the deadline.
- Compensation is based on the performance of the product group, not the sub-teams. Somewhere between 1-10% of new hires end up being let go within 6 months. Hiring is never perfect, and firing people less bad for morale than having people sitting around being dead weight.
Number of months varies depending on project maturity, business needs, and scope of the changes. Anything past 24 months is best done in a graduate program, not a company.