The book Deep Work, by Cal Newport, introduced me to The Four Disciplines of Execution (4DX):

1. Focus on the Wildly Important, aka Prioritize
2. Act on the Lead Measures
3. Keep a Compelling Scoreboard, aka Measure progress
4. Create a Cadence of Accountability, aka Have cadence meetings

I’ve found each of these practices helpful, but hadn’t seen them listed succinctly.

I think the second point (“Act on Lead Measures”) provides interesting context for OKRs, which several teams I’ve been on have used. 4DX describes lead vs lag metrics. For example, we have to wait thirty days to know if we’ve increased thirty-day active users, so there’s a thirty day lag in the metric. As opposed to other metrics, e.g., signups per day, features built, etc., that can be measured on a smaller scale and correlate with increasing thirty-day actives. Objectives seem like lag metrics, and KRs like lead metrics.