In this article I want to share some key insights I had when reading "Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs" by John Doerr.

This is not supposed to be a complete summary of the book, it's just the book experience from my point of view. If you don't know what OKRs are, I recommend you to watch this TED Talk.

Inspirational objectives

An inspiring objective pushes the team engagement forward, so for example, it shouldn't be simply a business focused goal, but how this goal will impact users.

Alignment and prioritization

The objective described in OKRs should be clear and direct. This creates a great alignment and avoids useless discussions and meetings, and the work result has more impact because every person on team is on the same prioritization.

Flexible

OKRs can be changed or removed if they are not working or lost business relevance. So if you have quarterly OKRs you don't have to wait until the next quarter to review your OKRs.

Work quality OKRs

The key results usually focus on what's most strategic to the business, but this can lead to poor work quality. To balance this, the author suggests to add KRs that reflects directly on quality. For example, in a software development company, the business KR could be achieve a certain quantity of active users while the quality KR could be a maximum quantity of bugs.

Public and transparent

All OKRs and its progress should be easily accessible to everyone in the company. The result is more accountability as stated in "The 4 disciplines of execution" book: "People and teams play differently when they are keeping score, and the right kind of scoreboards motivate the players to win.".

The book suggests the usage of online tools to keep track of all company OKRs, like Better Works.

Conclusion

OKRs has simple rules but small implementation details. It's a powerful tool when used effectively.