Review

Creating a good strategy is hard, executing on it is even harder. OKRs are a management methodology that helps a company focus effort on the same important issues throughout the organisation. They are made up of Objectives (WHAT is to be achieved) and Key Results (How we’ll achieve the objective and monitor progress).

OKRs aren’t perfect, but they’re a safe way to bring a strategy to life in your company. I don’t know of anything better that’s been widely adopted.

This book does a great job of bringing OKRs to life through stories from iconic individuals and companies. OKRs are easy to explain but hard to do. It takes a few iterations for individuals and teams to get good at writing OKRs.

If you can’t everyone in your company around a single table - you should read this book.

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I keep coming back to the core concepts of this book. Before reading it I thought the concept of strategy seemed vague - I appreciate the clarity and structure the author brings to the subject. The examples bring the concepts to life. Personally I feel like I'm more able to assess the quality of a strategy now.

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Key Takeaways

The 20% that gave me 80% of the value.

• Ideas are easy. Execution is everything.
• OKRs: a management methodology that helps ensure the company focuses efforts on the same important issues throughout the organisation
• Objective: is simply WHAT is to be achieved, no more and no less.
• Should be: significant, concrete, action oriented, and inspirational
• Act as a vaccine against fuzzy thinking and execution.
• Key Results: benchmark and monitor HOW we get to the objective.
• Should be: Specific, time-bound, aggressive (yet realistic), measurable and verifiable.
• Marissa Mayer: “It’s not a key result unless it has a number”
• Assessment: at the end of the period mark key results as completed or not (there shouldn’t be ambiguity). If all are completed the objective is necessarily achieved. If not all are complete - if still important roll over and evolve to reflect current progress.
• OKR super powers:
1. Focus and commit to priorities
2. Align and connect teamwork
3. Track for accountability
4. Stretch for amazing
• Edwin Locke theory:
1. Hard goals drive performance more effectively than easy goals.
2. Specific hard goals ‘produce a higher level of output’ than vaguely worded ones
• OKRs are simple - but demand rigour, commitment, clear thinking and intentional communication

• At intel the focus wasn’t on what you knew, but your effectiveness in translating that knowledge into actual results. Accomplishment > Credentials.
• Output is the key to productivity. Not activity (that’s the activity trap)
• Note to self: Decrease activity and increase output.
• OKR Hygiene tips:
• Less is more
• Set goals from the bottom up
• Stay flexible
• Fare to fail
• No dictating (negotiate - they’re a social contract)
• A tool not a weapon
• Be patient, be resolute (it’ll take time to implement them well)

• Measuring what matters begins with a simple question:
• What is most important for the next 3,6 or 12 months?
• Where should people concentrate their efforts?
• Successful organisations focus on a handful of initiatives → and leaders commit to them
• Youtube wrote down a 6 month OKR to improve the login experience. Larry liked it and made it company wide but shortened the timeline to 3 months.
• The Ying and Yang of OKRs

Objectives	Key Results
Principle	Practice
Vision	Execution
Inspiration	Earthbound
	Metric driven

• A well framed objective usually needs just 3-5 KRs to reach it
• Too many KRs will dilute focus and obscure progress
• If you’re certain you’re going to nail an OKR - then you’re not trying hard enough
• A 3 month time horizon curbs procrastination → Also makes feedback loops faster and more relevant.
• The best OKR cadence is the one that fits the context of your business
• A key risk of OKRs = Specific challenging goals will be met but at the expense of other important features that were not specified (safety, ethics, reputation).
• Pair key results with non-goals or quality goals to avoid gaming of the system
• Less is more
• Innovation means saying no to a thousand things (Steve Jobs)
• Ideal number of quarterly OKRs is between 3 and 5
• OKRs lock in commitment to high-impact goals - colleagues will then learn to commit to the process themselves.
• “At any given time, some significant % of people are working on the wrong things. The challenge is knowing which ones.” Aaron Levie.
• OKRs expose redundant efforts and save time and money
• Relying on top down cascading can:
• Reduce agility (everyone waits for them)
• Reduce flexibility (the effort to do them puts people off revising them mid-cycle)
• Marginalised contributors (shut out input from frontline employees)
• One dimensional alignment (works for vertical, but what about horizontal)
• Healthy OKRs strike a balance between alignment and autonomy.
• Unacknowledged dependencies remain the number one cause of project slippage
• Transparency helps horizontal collaboration - the management tax is zero
• Be careful of teams (like engineering) getting caught between OKRs → you need to make dependencies explicit
• Focus and alignment go together
• Occasionally a KR is so good or important it should be elevated to an objective!
• OKRs should be living and breathing organisms. Your options at any point in the cycle:
• Continue - if in the green zone
• Update - if in the yellow zone, modify
• Start - launch something new
• Stop - when in the red zone, it’s not useful anymore
• If you change an OKR mid cylce - notify everyone
• Tell them what changed / what you learnt
• AND what you’ll do differently in future
• The simple act of writing down your goal - makes you more likely to achieve it. Odds get better if you track progress.
• Satisfaction = set aggressive goals → achieve most of them → reflect on the achievement
• Reflection questions:
• Did I accomplish all of the objectives? What contributed to success?
• If not, what obstacles did I encounter?
• If I were to rewrite a goal achieve in full, what would I change?
• What have I learned that might alter my approach to the next cycle?
• OKRs push us beyond our comfort zone
• Making OKRs aspirational forces all the other desirable traits: focus + commitment + alignment + tracking
• Google uses two OKR types: Committed (achieved every time in full) and Aspirational (40% complete)

• Continuous Performance Management - the contemporary alternative to annual reviews. Implemented with CFRs:
• Conversations: authentic, textured exchange to drive performance
• Feedback: networked among peers to evaluate progress and guide future improvement
• Recognition: expressions of appreciation to deserving individuals for contributions
• They champion accountability, transparency, empowerment and teamwork.
• Author sees them as complimentary to OKRs
• Questions:
• What are you working on?
• How are you doing? how are your OKRs coming along?
• Is there anything impeding your work?
• What do you need from me to be more successful?
• How do you need to grow to achieve your goals?
• OKRs are less than 30% of performance ratings at Google
• Have regular 121s with reports
• Goal setting and reflection
• Ongoing progress updates
• Two-way coaching
• Career growth
• Lightweight performance reviews
• Feedback needs to be specific to be constructive
• Recognition
• Have a mechanism for peer to peer recognition
• Establish a clear criteria
• Share recognition stories
• Make recognition frequent and attainable
• Tie recognition to company goals and strategies

• OKRs are a great training tool for executives and managers
• Clear space and shut out the noise when thinking about OKRs
• OKRs formalise reflection
• The most powerful cultural force: Active Transparency → opening up, sharing the truth, bringing others in, being vulnerable
• You may need to fix your culture before you implement OKRs
• You need to be ready for openness and accountability
• Jim Collins in Good to Great:
• Get the right people on the bus, get the wrong people off the bus, get the right people in the right seats
• Only then do you turn the wheel and step on the gas

Deep Summary

Longer form notes, typically condensed, reworded and de-duplicated.

OKRs are a simple process that helps drive varied organisations forward. We have adapted how we use it over the years. Take it as a blueprint and make it yours, based on what you want to see happen! Larry Page

Part 1: OKRs in Action

Chapter 1: Google Meet OKRs

• Author John Doerr was a VC - he invested early in Google. 12% for $12m
• Ideas are easy. Execution is everything.
• John Doerr went to Google and other startups to teach them OKRs

• OKRs: a management methodology that helps ensure the company focuses efforts on the same important issues throughout the organisation
• Objective: is simply WHAT is to be achieved, no more and no less.
• Should be: significant, concrete, action oriented, and inspirational
• Act as a vaccine against fuzzy thinking and execution.
• Key Results: benchmark and monitor HOW we get to the objective.
• Should be: Specific, time-bound, aggressive (yet realistic), measurable and verifiable.
• Marissa Mayer: “It’s not a key result unless it has a number”
• Assessment: at the end of the period mark key results as completed or not (there shouldn’t be ambiguity). If all are completed the objective is necessarily achieved. If not all are complete - if still important roll over and evolve to reflect current progress.

• Value Proposition: Surface your goals, channel your efforts and bring unity and coordination to and organisation.
• Edwin Locke theory:
1. Hard goals drive performance more effectively than easy goals.
2. Specific hard goals ‘produce a higher level of output’ than vaguely worded ones
• Clearly defined goals drive engagement
• Effective goals need to be tied to a broader mission
• Be transparent, default to open.
• Reward ‘good fails’
• Google founders loved articulating what was most important - on a couple of pages and sending it to everyone
• OKRs are simple - but demand rigour, commitment, clear thinking and intentional communication
• OKRs were compatible with and became a vehicle for Googles ‘think big’ ethos
• OKR super powers:
1. Focus and commit to priorities
2. Align and connect teamwork
3. Track for accountability
4. Stretch for amazing

Chapter 2: The Father of OKRs

• Andy Grove = the faster of OKRs
• At intel the focus wasn’t on what you knew, but your effectiveness in translating that knowledge into actual results. Accomplishment > Credentials.
• Grove used OKRs from 1971
• Peter Drucker came up with ‘Management by objectives and self-control’. That was the foundation of Andy Grove’s OKRs.
• Andy Grove’s leap was to apply manufacturing production principles to ‘soft professions’
• Output is the key to productivity. Not activity (that’s the activity trap)
• Note to self: Decrease activity and increase output.
• OKRs were Intels lifeblood - they ran through every part of the company, all the key meetings
• OKR Hygiene tips:
• Less is more
• Set goals from the bottom up
• Stay flexible
• Fare to fail
• No dictating (negotiate - they’re a social contract)
• A tool not a weapon
• Be patient, be resolute (it’ll take time to implement them well)

Chapter 3: Operation Crush - An Intel Story

• When you’re high up in management you’re teaching
• We were all taught that if you measured it - things got better
• Intel Example (Operation Crush)
• Objective: Establish the 8086 as the highest performance 16-bit microprocessor family, as measured by
• Key Results Q2 1980
1. Develop and publish five benchmarks showing superior 8086 family performance (Applications)
2. Repackage the entire 8086 family of products (Marketing)
3. Get the 8MHz part into production (Engineering, Manufacturing)
4. Sample the arithmetic coprocessor no later than June 15 (Engineering)
• Andy told us what we had to do and why we had to do it, and that we should consider it a priority until it was done
• There were 100 people at the first meeting - within 24 hours a billion-dollar company had turned on a dime.

Chapter 4: Superpower #1 Focus and Commit to Priorities

• Measuring what matters begins with a simple question:
• What is most important for the next 3,6 or 12 months?
• Where should people concentrate their efforts?
• Successful organisations focus on a handful of initiatives → and leaders commit to them
• Gives the team compass and a method of assessment
• OKRs can come from frontline contributors too
• Youtube wrote down a 6 month OKR to improve the login experience. Larry liked it and made it company wide but shortened the timeline to 3 months.
• Leaders have to model it - you have to treat OKRs as a priority
• The Ying and Yang of OKRs

Objectives	Key Results
Principle	Practice
Vision	Execution
Inspiration	Earthbound
	Metric driven

• Key Results are the levers you pull to - the marks you hit to achieve the goal
• A well framed objective usually needs just 3-5 KRs to reach it
• Too many KRs will dilute focus and obscure progress
• If you’re certain you’re going to nail an OKR - then you’re not trying hard enough

On Time Horizons

• Dual track approach to planning short (3 month) and long term horizons (12 month)
• Clear-cut time frames intensity our focus and commitment - nothing moves us forward like a deadline
• A 3 month time horizon curbs procrastination → Also makes feedback loops faster and more relevant.
• The best OKR cadence is the one that fits the context of your business

Risk of OKRs

• Specific challenging goals will be met - but at the expense of other important features that were not specified (safety, ethics, reputation).
• Pair key results with non-goals or quality goals to avoid gaming of the system

• Don’t allow perfect to be the enemy of good
• Goal Setting Ground Rules:
• KRs should be succint, specific and measurable
• A mix of outputs and inputs is helpful
• Completion of all key results must result in attainment of the objective - if not it’s not an OKR
• Less is more
• Innovation means saying no to a thousand things (Steve Jobs)
• Ideal number of quarterly OKRs is between 3 and 5
• Top-line objectives must be significant
• “Put more wood behind fewer arrows” (Larry Page)

Chapter 5: Focus: The Remind Story

• What do you have to do today? …. OK let’s pick one and talk about it.
• Three watchwords for entrepreneurs:
• Solve a problem
• Build a simple product
• Talk to your users
• First OKR was interview 200 teachers across the US and Canada
• OKRs help once you scale to not being able to fit into the same room
• To hit your OKRs you should have to defer many other things
• You can only do one big thing really well at a time - so it’s important to know what that big thing is

Chapter 6: Commit: The Nuna Story

• Leaders mush publicly commit to objectives and stay steadfast.
• OKRs lock in commitment to high-impact goals - colleagues will then learn to commit to the process themselves.
• Build your OKR muscle gradually and incrementally - don’t try and do too much too fast.
• The more challenging an objective - the more tempting it is to abandon it
• OKRs force conversations that otherwise wouldn’t happen → you get more alignment
• Building the muscle of committing to doing what we’ve said we will do

Chapter 7: Superpower #2: Align and Connect for Teamwork

• “We don’t hire smart people to tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” (Steve Jobs)
• “At any given time, some significant % of people are working on the wrong things. The challenge is knowing which ones.” Aaron Levie.
• Full transparency of OKRs - critiques and corrections to be done in public
• OKRs expose redundant efforts and save time and money
• Alignment → tie day-to-day activities to the organisations vision
• Goal: for employees to fully understand their company’s business strategies and what’s expected of them in order to help achieve the common goals
• Individual work → team work → department work → overall mission.
• OKRs drive vertical alignment.
• Relying on top down cascading can:
• Reduce agility (everyone waits for them)
• Reduce flexibility (the effort to do them puts people off revising them mid-cycle)
• Marginalised contributors (shut out input from frontline employees)
• One dimensional alignment (works for vertical, but what about horizontal)
• Take a market based approach to goals - overtime goals converge because the top OKRs are known and the others are visible.
• Teams out of alignment stand out
• A few major initiatives touch everyone are easy enough to manage directly
• Healthy OKRs strike a balance between alignment and autonomy.
• An OKR system can free contributors to set some of their own objectives - and most or all of their key results
• When the how is defined by others - it won’t engage you to the same degree
• Unacknowledged dependencies remain the number one cause of project slippage
• Connected companies are quicker companies
• Transparency helps horizontal collaboration - the management tax is zero

Chapter 8: Align: The MyFitnessPal Story

• OKRs create networks to connect work
• Employees who align to top line goals can amplify their impact
• Hard to get OKRs right - you need to balance: high-level strategic thinking vs more granular directive communication
• Be careful of teams (like engineering) getting caught between OKRs → you need to make dependencies explicit
• Approach to dealing with too many engineering requests:
• Define capacity constraints → clarify core priorities
• Transparency → here’s are objectives and OKRs - are we missing anything
• Focus and alignment go together

Chapter 9: Connect: the Intuit Story

• Aim for enthusiastic compliance
• Use systems to use OKRs at scale - personal and team
• Powerful because it’s simple and transparent
• Intuit engineering particularly like words that start with these three words: Rationalise, modernise & secure. Got good traction by using a shared vocabulary
• Occasionally a KR is so good or important it should be elevated to an objective!

Chapter 10: Superpower #3: Track for Accountability

• OKRs can be tracked → and then revised or adapted as circumstances dictate
• OKRs should be living and breathing organisms.
• Without frequent status updates goals slide into irrelevance - the gap between plan and reality widens by the day
• OKR cloud provider tools:
• Make everyones goals more visible
• Drive engagement
• Promote internal networking
• Save time, money and frustration
• OKRs must be adopted universally - no exceptions, no opt outs → Have a couple of OKR Shepherds to get everyone inline
• The simple act of writing down your goal - makes you more likely to achieve it. Odds get better if you track progress.
• OKRs should be adaptable - they’re not meant to be chains or blinders.
• Your options at any point in the cycle:
• Continue - if in the green zone
• Update - if in the yellow zone, modify
• Start - launch something new
• Stop - when in the red zone, it’s not useful anymore
• If you change an OKR mid cylce - notify everyone
• Tell them what changed / what you learnt
• AND what you’ll do differently in future
• Scrutinise OKRs several times per quarter
• Scoring OKRs
• You can score by % completion rates of KRs
• 0.7 to 1.0 - Green - We delivered
• 0.4 to 0.6 - Yellow - We made progress, but fell short
• 0.0 to 0.3 - Red - We failed to make real progress
• Objective data is enhanced by the goal setter’s thoughtful, subjective assessment.
• Reflection
• OKRs can feel like a grim hamster wheel after a while
• Satisfaction = set aggressive goals → achieve most of them → reflect on the achievement
• Reflection questions:
• Did I accomplish all of the objectives? What contributed to success?
• If not, what obstacles did I encounter?
• If I were to rewrite a goal achieve in full, what would I change?
• What have I learned that might alter my approach to the next cycle?
• OKR wrap-ups are retrospective and forward looking.

Chapter 11: Track: The Gates Foundation Story

• Doing important work? It becomes more important to…
• track progress
• flag looming problems
• double back from dead ends
• modify goals on the run
• Gates foundation used DALYs (Disability Adjusted Life Years) as a decision making framework for measuring the impact of investments.
• Led them to vaccines
• Gates early vision for Microsoft: A computer on every desk and in every home
• Setup the Gates foundation so they had to spend at minimum of $1BN a year
• Used OKRs (Green, Yellow, Red)
• People confuse objectives with missions
• A mission is directional
• An objective has concrete steps that you’re actually trying to do. It’s fine to have an ambitious objective - but how do you scale it? Measure it?
• Objective: Global eradication of malaria by 2040
• Key Results:
1. Prove to the world that a radical cure-based approach can lead to regional elimination
2. Prepare for scale-up by creating the necessary tools
3. Sustain current global progress to ensure the environment is conducive to eradication push

Chapter 12: Superpower #4: Stretch for Amazing

• “The biggest risk of all is not taking one” - Mellody Hobson
• OKRs push us beyond comfort zones
• They unearth fresh capacity, unlock creativity
• “Big Hairy Audacious Goals”
• A BHAG is a huge daunting goal
• Clear, compelling and people get it right away
• Unifies effort to a focal point
• Galvanising people and creating team spirit
• Stretched workers are more productive, motivated and engaged
• Making OKRs aspirational forces all the other desirable traits: focus + commitment + alignment + tracking
• Google uses two OKR types: Committed (achieved every time in full) and Aspirational (40% complete)
• Stretch goals elicit maximum output
• Larry Page on thinking big:
• If you’re only 10% better you’re not going to be wildly successful
• Focus on being 10x better → forces you to rethink things
• Leaders must convey two things:
• the importance of the outcome
• the belief that it’s attainable

Chapter 13; Stretch: The Google Chrome Story

• “If you set a crazy ambitious goal and miss it, you’ll still achieve something remarkable” (Larry Page)
• If Chrome wasn’t going to be dramatically different and better and faster than the traditional browsers already on the market, there was no point in moving ahead” Sundar Pichai
• 70% achievement on average was success at Google
• Set a target for Chrome of 20m 7 day active users
• Wanted people to be uncomfortably excited, have a healthy disregard for the impossible
• OKRs give us clear, quantitative targets on the road to those qualitative leaps

Chapter 14: Stretch: The Youtube Story

• Susan Wojcicki inherited a hugely aggressive goal:
• Over 4 years, reach a billion hours of watch time a day. Would require growing by a factor of 10
• Susan actually rented her garage to Larry and Sergey. She realised she should join Google the day that it actually stopped working, and she couldn’t get her job done. It made her realise that is was going to be important to everyone.
• If you don’t have many resources - it’s even more vital to be clear on where you’re going
• Google OKRs were top-down, but with lots of back and forth on KRs
• Engineers at Google struggled to set goals:
• They hate crossing off anything they think is a good idea
• They underestimate how long it takes to get things done
• Start with rocks, add pebbles, and save the sand for the last. Most important things get done first or they won’t get done at all.
• Stretch goals are crushing if people don’t think they’re achievable
• Many at Google thought 1BN hours of watch time a day would break the internet
• Daily WatchTime = Daily Viewers x Watch Time
• Watchtime was easier to move
• Daily viewers provided more growth potential
• ^ I love the clarity of this ^
• Aspirational goals can prompt a reset for the entire organisation.

Part 2: The New World of Work

Chapter 15: Continuous Performance Management : OKRs and CFRs

• 6% of people think end of year reviews are worth the time they take
• Continuous Performance Management - the contemporary alternative to annual reviews. Implemented with CFRs:
• Conversations: authentic, textured exchange to drive performance
• Feedback: networked among peers to evaluate progress and guide future improvement
• Recognition: expressions of appreciation to deserving individuals for contributions
• They champion accountability, transparency, empowerment and teamwork.
• Author sees them as complimentary to OKRs
• Easier to make improvements throughout the year
• Divorce compensation from OKRs
• Compensation should be backward looking
• The second is ongoing, forward looking
• Questions:
• What are you working on?
• How are you doing? how are your OKRs coming along?
• Is there anything impeding your work?
• What do you need from me to be more successful?
• How do you need to grow to achieve your goals?
• OKRs are less than 30% of performance ratings at Google
• Have regular 121s with reports
• Goal setting and reflection
• Ongoing progress updates
• Two-way coaching
• Career growth
• Lightweight performance reviews
• Feedback needs to be specific to be constructive
• Recognition
• Have a mechanism for peer to peer recognition
• Establish a clear criteria
• Share recognition stories
• Make recognition frequent and attainable
• Tie recognition to company goals and strategies

Chapter 16: Ditching Annual Performance Reviews: The Adobe Story

• Take proactive ownership of the process
• Lightweight, flexible, and transparent, with minimal structure and no tracking or paperwork
• Check-in features:
• goals and expectations
• regular feedback
• career development and growth
• Sessions are called by contributors and decoupled from compensation
• Individuals want to drive their own success - they don’t want to wait until year end
• Three things you need for Continuous Performance Management: Exec buy-in, clarity on company objectives, training to equip managers

Chapter 16: Baking Better Every Day: The Zume Pizza Story

• What’s the most important thing to do?
• OKRs are a great training tool for executives and managers
• they mint stronger executives
• Everybody faces resource constraints: time, money, people
• Clear space and shut out the noise when thinking about OKRs
• OKRs formalise reflection
• On better conversations:
• What makes you very happy?
• What saps your energy?
• How would you describe your dream job?
• Set your expectations:
1. Always tell the truth
2. Always do the right thing

Chapter 18: Culture

• Culture eats strategy for breakfast
• OKRs and CFRs medium is the culture of the company
• Project Aristotle at Google. Key Questions…
• Are goals, roles and execution plans on our team clear?
• Can we take risks on this team without feeling insecure or embarrassed?
• Are we working on something that is personally important for each of us?
• Can we count on each other to do high-quality work on time?
• Do we fundamentally believe that the work we’re doing matters?
• Pulses:
• Are you getting enough sleep?
• Have you met your manager recently?
• Do you have a clear sense of your career path?
• Are you getting enough motivation and energy? Are you in the zone?
• The most powerful cultural force: Active Transparency → opening up, sharing the truth, bringing others in, being vulnerable

Chapter 19: Culture Change: The Lumeris Story

• You may need to fix your culture before you implement OKRs
• You need to be ready for openness and accountability
• Jim Collins in Good to Great:
• Get the right people on the bus, get the wrong people off the bus, get the right people in the right seats
• Only then do you turn the wheel and step on the gas
• Review OKRs at executive off-sites - talk about reds - pick a few to solve
• Moving from hero culture to team culture

Chapter 20: Culture Change: Bono’s ONE Campaign Story

• We needed a process of discipline to keep us from trying to do everything
• Forced us to think about what we could do with what we had
• They were better at the big ambitious things - than incremental stuff