outcomeryUnder the bench
What we believe about outcomes.
Every verdict on the bench comes from a handful of beliefs. We didn't read our way to them. We wrote the other kind of Key Result first: hit the date, shipped the thing, and watched customers carry on exactly as before. This page is what that taught us.
- 01
An outcome is a change in what someone does.
Not a feature, a date, or a feeling. Someone outside your team does something differently from before, and that change is worth something to the business. If nobody's behavior moves, nothing happened, however good the release notes read.
- 02
Shipping is where the question starts.
An output is done when it merges. An outcome is done when customers act. Both are real work, and a team needs both. Only one of them is the goal. The other one gets the launch party.
- 03
The dangerous Key Result is the one that looks right.
A plain output is honest. “Launch the new onboarding wizard by the end of Q3” hides nothing, and everyone in the room knows it's a delivery. The one to worry about wears outcome words: “Ship a smoother mobile checkout that customers will love by Q2.” It sounds like a customer is in it, and it passes the planning review. But it is finished the day it ships, whatever customers do next. That's the output in disguise, and it's the reason the bench exists.
- 04
One question sorts almost every Key Result.
Could the team call it done just by finishing its own work, while everyone outside the team carries on exactly as before?
If yes, it's an output, whatever words it's wearing. If no, someone outside the team has to act, and now it's worth looking hard at the number.
- 05
A number that moves is not always a number that matters.
Clicks, visits, logins and views go up when people look. They don't say whether anyone was helped. The same goes for a baseline nobody measured, or a bar the team sets and then marks itself. Each one can hit its target while nothing changes for the customer. We're from the country that let the world call its fries French. Trust us, we know about measuring the wrong thing.
- 06
Behavior, direction, number.
A Key Result worth keeping says who does what, whether it goes up or down, and from where to where. Here is one, rewritten on the same subject:
WrittenLaunch the new onboarding wizard by the end of Q3.
ReworkedRaise the share of new accounts that finish setup in their first week from today's baseline to 60% by the end of Q3.
The wizard is still in there. It just stopped being the finish line and became the bet on how to get there.
- 07
A bad Key Result is a draft, not a diagnosis.
Most Key Results aren't outcomes on the first try. Ours weren't either. They get written under deadlines, inside companies that reward shipping, by people who knew better and had a planning doc due Friday. What fixes one is a rewrite, not a lecture.
- 08
You don't need an empowered team to write a better goal.
Empowered product teams are the ideal, and most of us won't get one this year. We know a little about waiting: Belgium once took 541 days to form a government. Waiting for your empowered team doesn't have to stop you. A Key Result is a sentence you write yourself, and one better sentence changes what your team argues about at the next review. Start with one.
Shipped ≠ done.