Craig recently wrote about his mixed opinions about OKRs. The crux of his argument, I think, is that communicating goals is the important thing, and that OKRs are a heavyweight tool (with limited success).

I agree, somewhat; this post is a “yes, and”:

OKRs (when done well) do one other important thing: force explicit conversations about performance. Talking about goals can be fairly easy compared to talking about performance. But talking about performance is a basic management responsibility, and unfortunately it’s frequently done poorly (if at all). This can leave staff and management with wildly different views on what “good” looks like, which can cause all sorts of problems. Even if you’re totally aligned on goals, if your team doesn’t understand what good performance is, you might never hit those goals. As a manager, you have to talk about performance. Any tool you use is fine. OKRs, like Craig says, are heavyweight. But heck, if that’s what you need to force a conversation about performance, then fine.

Django handles lots of traffic with ease; Django sites have survived slashdottings, farkings, and more. Here are some notes on how we tweak our servers to get that type of high performance.