Measure What Matters

Key Concepts

“An OBJECTIVE, I explained is times WHAT is to be achieved, no more and no less. ...KEY RESULTS benchmark and monitor HOW we get to the objective. Effective KRs are specific and time-bound, aggressive yet realistic. Most of all, they are measurable and verifiable.” (p. 7)

“First, said Edwin Locke, ‘hard goals’ drive performance more effectively than easy goals. Second, specific hard goals ‘produce a higher level of output’ than vaguely worded ones.” (p. 9)

Types of Objectives

Committed—should be achieved at 100% within a set time frame

Aspirational—should be challenging and have a failure rate of 30-40%

Focus

“A limit of three to five OKRs per cycle leads companies, teams, and individuals to choose what matters most. In general, each objective should be tied to five or fewer key results.” (p. 33)

OKRs should be led by senior leaders

“For organization-level OKRs, the buck stops with senior leadership. They must personally commit to the process.” (p. 48)

OKRs should stretch the team to higher performance

“Aspirational goals draw on every OKR superpower. Focus and commitment are a must for targeting goals that make a real difference. Only a transparent, collaborative, aligned, and connected organization can achieve so far beyond the norm. And without quantifiable tracking, how can you know when you’ve reached that amazing stretch objective?” (p. 135)

OKRs should be separate from performance management

“At Google, according to Laszlo Bock, OKRs amount to a third or less of performance ratings. They take a backseat to feedback from cross-functional teams, and most of all to context.” (p. 181)

Basic OKR Hygiene (p. 33)

Less is more—“A limit of three to five OKRs per cycle leads companies, teams, and individuals to choose what matters most. In general, each objective should be tied to five or fewer key results.”

Set goals from the bottom up—“...teams and individuals should be encouraged to create roughly half of their own OKRs”

No dictating—“OKRs are a cooperative social contract…” 

Stay flexible—“...key results can be modified or even discarded mid-cycle.”

Dare to fail—“..aspirational OKRs should be uncomfortable and possibly unattainable.”

A tool, not a weapon—“It is not a legal document upon which to base a performance review.”

Be patient; be resolute—“Every process requires trial and error.”

Quotables

“Ideas are easy. Execution is everything.” (p. 6)

“If the vectors point in different directions, they add up to zero. But if you get everybody pointing in the same direction, you maximize the results.” (p. 37-38)

“Remember that an OKR can be modified or even scrapped at any point in its cycle. Sometimes the ‘right’ key results surface weeks or months after a goal is put into play. OKRs are inherently works in progress, not commandments chiseled in stone.” (p. 54)

“...completion of all key results must result in attainment of the objective. If not, it’s not an OKR.” (p. 55)

“Or as Larry Page would say, winning organizations need to ‘put more wood behind fewer arrows.’” (p. 57)

“Even as modern goal setting successfully transcends the org chart, unacknowledged dependencies remain the number one cause of project slippage.” (p. 89)

“For an OKR system to function effectively, the team deploying it—whether a group of top executives or an entire organization—must adopt it universally. No exceptions, no opt-outs.” (p. 115)

“...a best practice is to designate one of more OKR shepherds” who will evangelize, call people out, etc. (p. 115)

“Living in the 70 percent zone entails a liberal sprinkling of moonshots and a willingness to court failure.” (p. 140)

“OKRs require organization. You need a leader to embrace the process and a lieutenant to ride herd over scoring and reviews.” (p. 157)

“OKRs are a superb training tool for executives and managers. They teach you how to manage your business within existing limits.” (p. 201)

John: “If everything’s at green, you failed.” (p. 244)