Big A Little a

Chris, 

Early man walked away 
as modern man took control
their minds weren't all the same
to conquer was his goal
so he built his great empire
he slaughtered his own kind.
Then he died a confused man, 
killed himself with his own mind
GO!

Bad Religion (We're only going to die)

You're talking about OKRs and KPIs and using SMART Goals to complete them, these are things for the bookkeeping, not the work. The conversation always ends with how do we achieve this stuff cause no one knows how, it's just the things that need to get done. Any OKR that talks about team dynamics is going to fail, cause that's not what OKRs are for. It falls apart at the KR, you can't measure something like "team dynamics improved" in any meaningful way.

The conversation that I think you're alluding to in the letter is the one about the health of the people in general. Which that's a rare conversation to have cause companies don't generally look at their employees as people, It's not a People and individuals department, it's Human Resources. Most companies and this shows drastically in the dichotomy of managers that they don't care how you hit the OKR they just want it taken care of. Beat the team or praise the team as long as they deliver. 

One of the underlying themes I'm noticing from our conversations is that we both agree with agile, not Agile. The ideals of people over process is antithetical to OKRs, we should instead be fostering a community of continual growth at the cost of product schedule. Which that would work on some privately held organizations but is actively harmful to one with shareholder supremacy.

Lets try a more realistic SMART goal.

Specific: I want my team to come to me with problems they encounter

Measurable: I'll take a tally of how many times this happens during my 1:1s and during meetings

Achievable: The goal isn't to solve the problems but mark them down and help how I can.

Relevant: This will show there is an inherent trust building between me and the team.

Timely: I'll chart this for a baseline for a time block and see if it improves over the same time period after.

That has nothing to do with any companies OKRs directly but it will help you get a sense of where the team is. This isn't a goal to be shared with the team. I find most smart goals are like pocket aces held close to the chest and never actually get played.

OKRs and KPIs should go into the team agreements. That's also working off the miracle that the OKRs aren't abandoned a week after they're made. "We all want to meet the requirements for the business to move forward so that we can at least hit the bar to not be put on a PIP" That's usually the one that I suggest to teams. I usually have to then talk about how raises and bonuses are more controlled by the finance department than anything they contribute to the code.

Going back to the differences, big a Agile is very much concerned with frameworks and ways to make sure KPIs are taken care of and OKRs are completed. The frameworks and ceremonies are all about making sure the backlog is built around what the company wants to build. This creates the profit motives that allows shareholders to get dividends and increases in their stock prices.

Little a agile is more concerned with the company lasting longer and a direct focus on the customer. Creating a space where the people working on the product have the autonomy to not have to deal with OKRs but have a direct line to what will make the business successful according to its balance sheets. It's much harder to quantify and put into a spreadsheet because the people at the top have less and less control. Which leads to big a Agile and a tightening of the reins to make the horse go faster even when you're really telling it to slow down. 

"We're only going to die from our own arrogance."

Bad Religion (We're only going to die)

You're right that there is a conversation that has been brewing for a long time that isn't being said around managers.It's how to treat human resources as people instead of just resources.agile shines a light on this pretty starkly and it's one of the things that businesses still aren't quite taking seriously.The amount of layoffs for no good reason is proof enough for that.

With all the frameworks and you creating your own what are you doing to keep the humanity and presence of agile in your teams? Lord knows there are a million people trying to sell you snake oil frameworks, and I'm proud you're forging your own, but what lessons are you learning from the big ones?

I hope that helps.