When Strategy Meets Delivery: Why Your OKRs and Scrum Aren’t Playing Nice

jimapodaca
Jun 2
4 min read

Updated: Jun 3

If your organization is using both OKRs and Scrum, but still not seeing meaningful traction, you’re not alone. On paper, these two frameworks should be a powerhouse: OKRs bring strategic clarity, while Scrum delivers execution speed. But in practice, most teams feel the friction.

The strategy is set… and yet the sprints feel disconnected. The backlog is full, but nobody can trace it back to what actually matters.

What’s going wrong?

In my experience coaching both enterprise organizations and growth-stage startups, it often comes down to one thing: the bridge between strategy and delivery is broken.

Here’s why that happens—and what to do about it.

1. Misaligned OKRs and Team Backlogs: The Silent Disconnect

One of the most common reasons OKRs fail to influence sprint delivery is this: they’re written in a vacuum.

The C-suite sets ambitious, high-level objectives, often at the expense of not involving the people closest to the work. Meanwhile, product and delivery teams operate from backlogs and roadmaps that were built before the OKRs were finalized, or worse, without ever referencing them.

The result?

Teams are “busy,” but not necessarily delivering on strategic outcomes.
There’s little traceability between roadmap features and the company’s actual priorities.
Planning becomes reactive, and teams lose sight of the bigger picture.

The Fix:

Create a joint planning rhythm, when OKRs are being set, involve delivery leads.
When backlogs are being prioritized, make sure key results are visible.
Scrum teams don’t need to own the OKRs—but they do need to see themselves in them.

Lightweight ≠ Undisciplined

2. Scrum Without Discipline: When Delivery Lacks Direction

Even the best strategy can be undermined by poor execution, and that starts with how Scrum is implemented. Across dozens of organizations, I’ve seen agile teams with:

Poorly written or incomplete user stories
A lack of consistency in backlog grooming
Standups that feel performative
Retros that surface problems—but lead to no change

Scrum is often treated as a lightweight framework, but lightweight isn’t the same as undisciplined.

The result?

Teams are stuck chasing velocity over value
They burn out on delivery with no feedback loop
Teams struggle to connect sprints to broader outcomes

The Fix:

Invest in consistent agile rituals, backlog hygiene, and clear story writing practices.
Ensure each sprint links to a broader goal—not just a list of tasks.
And most importantly: train your teams. Great Scrum isn’t intuitive—it’s built with intention. If your teams are not well versed in the Scrum fundamentals and best practices, then your scrum program is part of the 70% that fail.

3. OKRs Without Teeth: The Anti-Patterns Killing Your Strategy

Just as poor Scrum habits can undermine delivery, poor OKR practices can dilute strategy before it even reaches your teams. These are the anti-patterns I see again and again.

The result?

Tasks as Key Results: “Launch new website” or “host webinar” are activities, not measurable outcomes.
Too Many OKRs: When everything is a priority, nothing is. Focus is a feature, not a bug, and remember OKRs are not everything that your teams work on. OKRs should make up ~40% to 60% of your backlog ...be sure to leave room for business as usual.
No Cadence or Rituals: OKRs are set once, then disappear until the end of the quarter.
No Training: Leaders are told to “write OKRs,” but rarely shown how to do it well.

When OKRs are vague, bloated, or not reviewed regularly, they become shelfware. Teams ignore them, leaders lose trust, and strategy becomes lost in a sea of endless tasks.

The Fix:

Coach leaders on how to write outcome-focused Key Results. What is the outcome of launching your website? That is the true measure of success, not launching the website.
Limit OKRs to 2-3 per quarter. For every OKR you create, that's another OKR you need to track. Less is more.
Build in a lightweight OKR cadence: kickoff, bi/weekly check-ins, mid-cycle review, and OKR grading and retrospectives.
Reinforce OKRs in sprint planning, demos, and team check-ins

The Bottom Line: Strategy and Delivery Should Talk to Each Other

OKRs are not a separate strategy layer. They are the strategy. And Scrum is how you bring that strategy to life.

When integrated well:

Your OKRs inform what goes into your backlog.
Your sprints drive measurable progress on key results.
Your team meetings reinforce both alignment and autonomy.

But it doesn’t happen by accident.

Final Thought — and an Invitation

If you’re using OKRs and Scrum and still not seeing results, it’s not your team’s fault. Most organizations haven’t been shown how to connect these two worlds in a way that feels natural and scalable.

That’s exactly what we do at Apodaca Consulting:.

✅ We’ve led OKR rollouts for startups and enterprise teams

✅ Coached product and engineering teams through agile transformation

✅ Delivered results including 128% YoY growth through aligned execution

Take our OKR and Scrum health assessment and learn how well your teams are performing. Or better yet, sign up for weekly office hours and learn how to unlock your teams potential.