Google, one of the most innovative companies in the world, started using OKR, Objectives, and Key Results when they were only 40 people. After 23 years, they are over 70,000 people and they still innovate as if they are a startup, using the best innovation management system. You can master it as well.
Human capacity is limitless. What limits our capacity is how we create and manage our goals, how we execute them, and how we manage our time. If we learn how to set truly challenging, yet achievable goals, executing a plan around them, and building the discipline to check on them regularly, we can 10x our performance, and this is what this book is about.
According to John Doerr, one of the key personalities for making OKRs a global phenomenon: “Ideas are easy, execution is everything.”
When I turn my eyes onto how huge companies, such as Google, works, it always amazes me how they can innovate consistently for many years when I know that most people have a hard time managing their own lives for continuous growth.
The story of OKRs and how it’s just getting started.
How come a company with over 70,000 employees work and achieve goals as one living organism while keeping innovative as if they are a small startup? The answer is about defining What and How clearly for each bearing in mind the end goal or vision of the company created by the executive team and taking their own role to build the system for the company to achieve that goal.
I have long been saying that if Google does it, I use it. Google’s culture of simplistic sophistication is clear as you use all their services starting from the search engine to its Google Drive, Gmail, and many more services.
And behind all those giant businesses within the company, lies the OKR system’s incredibly effective performance framework that is as simple and effective as the Google search home page itself, which hardly changed since 1998.
OKRs work with Objectives (What?), Key Results (How?), and Initiatives (Actions taken to achieve KRs) OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. Basically, for a company, the executive team's first objectives or top priorities, which correspond to the “What” of the company, and KRs, Key Results, work as “How” of the company.
Today, hundreds of top companies from all fields adopted OKRs as their performance tool to achieve their goals as an organization. Some examples include Amazon, Spotify, Linkedin, Box, Salesforce, Netflix, Twitter, Vice Media, Uber, and many more.
The OKR performance framework can be used for any size company and it can also be a very effective tool for individual use. OKR makes the goal-setting and metrics to achieve those goals simply to create, check and implement by creating the individual and team discipline around the top priorities.
OKRs run annually led by the top management and objectives.
According to Larry Page, the co-founder and former CEO of Google, “OKRs have helped us to 10x growth, many times over. They’ve helped make our crazily bold mission of organizing the world’s information perhaps even achievable. They’ve kept me and the rest of the company on time and track when it mattered the most.
This book is to gain you an understanding of how OKR works concisely so that you can also use it to boost your company’s and your own performance by 10x as many top companies and individuals have done.
You can read the sample and buy the book using this Amazon link.
I wrote the book to share my experience, insight, and the knowledge you need to apply it to your company and personal lives.
Table of Contents
OKR Story
MBOs
SMART
KPIs
The Evolution of OKRs
The Anatomy of OKRs
How OKR Works and Why It Became a Global Management Performance Phenomenon
Objectives
Key Results (KRs)
Initiatives
OKR Benefits
Focus
Establishes Indicators for Measuring Progress
Creates Organizational Discipline by Alignment
Builds Community and Fulfilling Experience
The 4 Principles of OKRs
1- Focus and Commit to Priorities
2. Align and Connect for Teamwork
3. Track for Accountability
4.Stretch Goals. Rethinking What’s Possible
How Google Perfected OKRs
The Google Chrome Story
The Gmail Story
The Youtube Story
The Top Ideation Tools to Create OKRs
1. Brainwriting vs. Brainstorming
Brainwriting Steps
The Top Softwares for Brainwriting
2. Design Thinking
The 5 Stages of Design Thinking
1. Empathize
2. Define (The Problem)
3. Ideate
4. Prototype
5. Test
How to Implement Design Thinking into Your Organization
1. Focus on the Problem.
2. Encourage Design Thinking on Your Team.
3. Encourage Rapid Failure
4. Mind Mapping
How Companies 10x Their Performance via OKRs
Defining the Top Objectives
The Hierarchy of OKRs
Setting Company OKRs
Setting Team and Individual OKRs
Key Characteristics of Objectives
Key Characteristics of Key Results
Key Characteristics of Initiatives
OKR CHECKLIST
General
Objectives
Key Results
Initiatives
Timeline
How Grading Works
How to Create a Sustainable OKR Environment
How to Become an OKR Expert
Individual OKR Examples
Business
Family
Personal
How to Master OKR as a Company
Consistency
Ambitious
Feedback Loop
Open Culture
Free Space
How to Implement CFR for Continuous Performance Management
Conversations
Feedback
Recognition
The Best Free and Paid OKR Tools / Softwares
Google Docs / Google Sheets
Koan
Coda
Weekdone
Plai
OKRs vs Other Top Performance Systems
OKRs vs KPIs
KPI Examples
OKRs vs SMART
OKRs vs Balanced Scorecard
Top Reads
Top OKR Sources
OKR and Performance Related Top Books
Author’s Books
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