Hello World!

New website, new year, new goals. It wasn't until mid this year that I realized that I've always made goals. It was never anything formal, but they were clear and always had a measurable result to determine if I achieved my goal. It wasn't until I was introduced to the concept of OKRs (Objective and Key Results) at work that I decided to formalize it by writing it down and making them public.

The tl;dr of OKRs is to create a set of objectives with measurable ambitious key results that dictate its achievement; ambitious being the most important aspect for me. In my mind, having an easy goal is not really a goal; it's more a feel good thing. Apart from giving you more focus, goals should be ambitious so that if you even do not achieve it you've made significant improvements.

So that being said, these are my OKRs for 2017 and the results of my OKRs for 2016.

2017 OKRs

Objective: Be a better product manager

Work with partners learn their pain points and scope product requirements
Bring to market 2 products that address a known market
To be able to define my product(s) with a 15s pitch
Operate sprint team(s) with 0 employee turnover until product release

Objective: Be a better athlete

Compete in at least 4 triathlons
Place Top 5 in age group in at least one triathlon
Hit average splits of <1:40min/100m swim, >33km/hr bike, and 4:20min/km run
Compete in at least 4 fun races with at least the same ranking as previous seasons

Objective: Be a better photographer

Do at least 5 jobs that could have been paid work
Have at least one photo published in a known media distributor

Objective: Be a better person

Read at least 4 non-fiction books
Go veg 1 day per week

2016 OKRs

Objective: Complete a trialthon

Key Results:

Complete a single Olympic distance Triathlon
Place Top 5 in the age group
Hit average splits of <2min/100m swim, >30km/hr bike, and 4:30min/km run

Results:

I did not compete in an Olympic distance Triathlon; I raced in the Subaru Guelph Lake II Sprint Triathlon (it wasn't an actual sprint, it was slightly more. 750m Swim, 30km bike, 7.5km run). I ended placing 130 overall and 8th in my age category.

My final time was: 1:52:39. My splits were

2:14/100m
29.53km/hr
4:32/km

Objective: Teach a Non-Swimmer to Swim

Key Results:

Have a non-swimmer be able to swim 1000m non-stop
Have a non-swimmer be able to compete in a triathlon

Results: Starting in February, I trained a friend to overcome his fear of water. He started off with not being able to submerge his head under water to complete the Guelph Lake II Sprint Triathlon. His final time was: 2:05:29 with the following splits:

3:05/100m
28.23km/hr
4:48/km

Objective: Be a Better Climber

Key Results:

Complete a V5

Results: Not only did I complete a V5, but I also completed 2 and became comfortable projecting V4! I also redid the V5s the following week as proof to myself that it wasn't just a fluke. That was a good day. Unfortunately now that was the end of my climbing since I've moved downtown. When I pick it up again, it will be a long journey again and I'm looking forward to it.

Objective: Be a product manager

Key Results:

Define what it means to be a product manager
Bring a product to market

Results: I still don't know what a product manager means; it seems very vague and consists of a large gamut of work ranging from customer support to product requirements to development to quality control. Despite not knowing this, I managed to bring the Nymi Companion Device Application to market; I was the initial designer/programmer/tester that built the application in preparation for one of Microsoft's international conferences. I was able to see the product being demoed on stage by a Microsoft speaker.