Measure What Matters got its way into my library back in 2021. I randomly took a part of Effective Altruism’s online reading group of Radical Markets. That day was my first and last participation at any EA event. I remember, that Measure What Matters was listed as a related resource so I ordered it along the Radical Markets straight away.
First read left quite an impact on me. Back then, I was a part-time ML researcher at Rossum (I had just started my MSc degree). Rossum was around 40 people at the time, and sometimes, I left lost with my work. OKRs felt just like the tool that we were missing.
In a reply to the original Slack message, I’m saying that my thinking was influenced by reading Measure What Matters. And that I recommend the book to everybody.
Since then, Rossum had implemented OKRs, I have given a copy of the book to my best friend, and recommended it countless times. Later on, I even became responsible for managing the OKR process at Rossum. OKRs are a powerful framework1 which can help guide companies towards a shared goal. The execution, however, is everything.
- GitLab implements the OKRs and is very transparent about them. ↩︎
OKRs 101
If you don’t know where you’re going, you might not get there.
Yogi Berra
OKRs is short for Objectives and Key Results. OKRs are a “A management methodology that helps to ensure that the company focuses efforts on the same important issues through the organisation.
- Objective is simply WHAT is to be achieved. Objectives are significant, concrete, action oriented, and (ideally) inspirational. They are a vaccine against fuzzy thinking, and fuzzy execution. What are our main priorities for the coming period? Nothing moves us forward like a deadline. Ideal number of quarterly OKRs is typically 3 to 5. OKRs like “increase revenue” – to make wealthy person wealthier – lack intrinsic motivation. Every OKR has a single owner. Co-ownership weakens accountability. Whenever O/KR becomes obsolete or impractical, feel free to end it midstream. For best result, OKRs should be scrutinised multiple times per quartal.
- 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. “It’s not a key result unless it has a number.” If you measure something, you are telling people that it matters. Completion of all key results must result in attainment of the objective. If not, it’s not an OKR.
Actions–and data–speak louder than words.
John Doerr
In god we trust; all others must bring data.
W. Edwards Deming
OKRs surface your primary goals. They channel efforts and coordination. They link diverse operations, lending purpose and unity to the entire organisation. OKRs link goals to a team’s broader mission. Four superpowers of OKRs are focus, align, track and stretch:
- Focus and Commit to Priorities: High-performance organisations home in on work that’s important, and are equally clear on what doesn’t matter.
- Align and Connect for Teamwork: Everyone’s goals–from the CEO down–are openly shared. Top-down alignment brings meaning to work. Bottom-up OKRs foster engagement and innovation. Public goals are more likely to be attained than the private ones. OKRs promote vertical alignment. As key results cascade, my key results will become their objectives. Healthy organisations encourage some goals to be bottom-up. “Innovation tends to dwell less at the center of the organisation than at its edges.”
- Track for Accountability: OKRs are driven by data in spirit of no-judgement accountability.
- Stretch for Amazing: OKRs motivate us to excel by doing more than we’d though possible.
Hard goals drive performance more effectively than easy goals. Second, specific hard goals “produce a higher level of output” than vaguely worded ones. Productivity is enhanced by well defined, challenging goals. Goals create alignment, clarity and job satisfaction.
Innovation means saying no to one thousand things.
Steve Jobs
At smaller startups, OKRs are a survival tool. At medium-sized, rapidly scaling organisations, OKRs are a shared language for execution. They keep employees aligned. In larger enterprises, OKRs are neon-lit road signs. They demolish silos and cultivate connections among far-flung contributors. By providing frontline autonomy, they give rise to fresh solutions.
Don’t allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
Voltaire
The flatter the org-chart, greater frontline autonomy and more fertile soil for the next breakthrough. OKRs make these things possible.
Ideas are easy, execution is everything.
John Doerr
OKR Scoring is adding a subjective self-asesment number to each OKR. It
Continuous Performance Management. Quarterly/Yearly performance reviews carry recency bias. Individuals also cannot be reduced to numbers.
- Conversations: Authentic exchange between manager and contributor aimed at driving performance.
- Feedback: Bidirectional communication among peers to evaluate progress and guide future improvement
- Recognition: Appreciation of individuals for contribution of all sizes. Continuous recognition is powerful driver of engagement. Tie recognition to company goals. Share recognition stories. Achievement not employee of the month. When people challenge leaderships decisions, always stop and make a huge big deal about how impressive it is that the person spoke up.
When you are tired of saying it, people are starting to hear it.
Jeff Weiner
CFRs and OKRs are mutually reinforcing. People are more likely to feel fulfilled when they have clear and aligned goals.
OKRs should be decoupled from the compensation (raises and bonuses). They should be distinct conversations. When goals are used and abused for compensation, employees can be counted on to sandbag. They start playing defence. They stop stretching for amazing. They get bored for lack of a challenge. At google OKRs amount to less than 1/3 of performance ratings.
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
Albert Einstein
OKRs are a superb training tool for executives and managers. They teach you to manage your business within existing limits. They are great tool to build executives before company scales.
We don’t hire smart people to tell them what to do. We hire smart people so that they can tell us what to do.
Steve Jobs
Best thing about OKRs is that all people start thinking macro. They force individual contributors to think about business. How do I contribute to the scheme of things?
You don’t push towards a goal just because the boss gave you an order. You do it because every OKR is transparently important to the company, and to the colleagues who count on you.
Self-governing organisation is a place where long-term legacy trumps the next quarter ROI. These organisations don’t merely engage their workers. They inspire them. Carrots and sticks are supplanted by a common sense of purpose.
There are so many people working so hard and achieving so little.
Andy Grove
Entrepreneurs are those who do more than anybody thinks possible … with less than anybody thinks possible.
John Doerr
If you set a crazy, ambitious goal and miss it, you’ll still achieve something remarkable.
Larry Page
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