Anti-Patterns

Most companies that adopt OKRs don't fail because they don't try hard enough. They fail because they follow patterns that look right but lead nowhere. These anti-patterns are everywhere — embedded in popular frameworks, taught in workshops, and reinforced by tools that optimize for process over outcomes.

The purpose of this collection isn't to be cynical. It's to name what's broken so you can avoid it. Every anti-pattern here is something we've seen in real companies, often our own. Recognizing them is the first step to building something better.

The OKR graveyard

Somewhere in almost every company is a graveyard of abandoned goal-setting initiatives. OKRs that lasted two quarters. A spreadsheet that was updated for three weeks. A tool that got bought, rolled out, and quietly forgotten.

This isn't a failure of discipline. It's a sign that something about the approach wasn't working. Usually, it's one of these patterns:

• Too much process. When updating OKRs takes longer than actually doing the work, people stop updating.
• No connection to reality. Goals that aren't linked to real metrics or delivery become aspirational statements, not operating tools.
• Review theatre. Meetings where everyone recites updates but nothing gets decided create fatigue, not clarity.
• One-time setup. OKRs treated as a quarterly ceremony rather than a weekly operating rhythm drift from reality immediately.

Common anti-patterns

These are the patterns we see most often. If any of them sound familiar, you're not alone — and you're not stuck.

Status theatre

When meetings reward performance over honesty, you get theatre. Everyone shares wins, glosses over problems, and leaves without meaningful progress. The incentive structure is broken: there's no reward for surfacing risk and no safety in admitting struggle.

Cascading complexity

The textbook says OKRs should cascade from company to team to individual. In practice, this creates a bureaucratic nightmare. Every individual goal needs to trace to a team goal needs to trace to a company goal. By the time you're done cascading, nobody's doing actual work.

Set and forget

OKRs get written at the start of the quarter and reviewed at the end. In between, they sit in a spreadsheet that nobody looks at. By week four, reality has diverged so far from the plan that the OKRs are meaningless. This isn't a discipline problem — it's a system design problem.

Vanity metrics

Key results that measure activity rather than outcomes. “Launch feature X” rather than “Increase conversion by Y%.” It feels productive to ship features, but shipping isn't the goal — impact is.

Confidence without grounding

Everyone reports high confidence on their OKRs, but there's no data behind the confidence. It's gut feel dressed up as measurement. Real confidence comes from leading indicators and delivery velocity, not optimism.

Why these patterns persist

Anti-patterns persist because they feel productive. Cascading feels thorough. Status updates feel like accountability. Annual planning feels strategic. But feeling productive and being productive are different things.

The fix isn't more discipline — it's better design. Systems that require less effort, surface reality faster, and reward honesty over performance. That's what the articles below explore: what's broken, why, and what to do instead.

How Runsheet helps

We built Runsheet specifically to avoid these anti-patterns. No cascading — just team-level objectives connected to real work. Weekly check-ins that take two minutes, not twenty. Metrics grounded in actual data, not self-reported confidence. And reviews focused on exceptions and decisions, not comprehensive status recitals.