Cascading OKRs align teams without micromanaging how
A company OKR might be 'double platform adoption.' The product team owns an OKR that contributes to that: 'increase new user sign-ups 3x and improve day-7 retention to 30%.' The infrastructure team owns a different OKR supporting adoption: 'reduce API latency to <100ms p99 and achieve 99.99% uptime.' Each team cascades their OKR down further. The product team's sign-up goal becomes an acquisition team OKR and a retention team OKR. The beauty of cascade is that each team is solving for a shared goal while maintaining autonomy on execution. If a team later finds a different way to improve retention (say, better onboarding instead of faster API), they can reprioritize without asking permission, because the OKR is the outcome, not the method.
Cascade discipline and the risk of top-down gaming
Cascade only works if OKRs are written as outcomes, not activities ('improve retention' not 'ship onboarding feature'). It requires trust: if leadership micromanages which features each team ships, cascade becomes theater and teams tune out the framework. It also requires honest disagreement: if a team believes the company OKR is misguided, they should say so and advocate for a different cascade, not nod and execute something they think will fail. The most common failure is cascading too rigidly: a company strategy might need only 3-4 important OKRs at the top, with each team owning 1-2 below. Cascading 10 company OKRs to 50 team OKRs creates a management nightmare and dilutes focus.