Introduction to OKRs

by Christina Wodtke

There’s no question that the goal-setting methodology OKR (Objectives and Key Results) helps companies achieve substantial goals—just ask Google, LinkedIn, and Twitter—but some organizations have struggled to make it work. This O’Reilly report explains how companies use OKRs to create focus, unity, and velocity within their teams, and how your company can succeed with this methodology.
With examples from several companies, including Google, Duxter, and Zynga, author and consultant Christina Wodtke walks you through the process of selecting short and aspirational objectives, along with difficult-but-achievable key results to quantify each objective. You’ll also learn how to inspire team members by baking OKRs into the daily and weekly cadence of your team.
- Create team objectives that are qualitative, inspirational, time-bound, and independently actionable
- Quantify and define the success of each objective with three key results
- Adopt OKRs to help your team achieve focus, alignment, or acceleration
- Learn a practical method for having your team choose objectives each quarter
- Track and evaluate OKRs through weekly confidence ratings, Friday "wins" meetings, and end-of-quarter grading
- Introduce OKRs in your organization gradually to help your team master the process

Genres: Management, Business, Leadership, Productivity, Nonfiction

37 pages, ebook

Published June 3, 2016

About the author

An established thought leader in Silicon Valley, Christina is a “curious human” with a serious resume. Her past work includes re-design and initial product offerings with LinkedIn, MySpace, Zynga, Yahoo! and others, as well as founding three startups, an online design magazine called Boxes and Arrows, and co-founding the Information Architecture Institute. She is currently a Lecturer at Stanford in the HCI group in the Computer Science department.

Christina teaches worldwide on the intersection of human innovation and high-performing teams. She uses the power of story to connect with audiences and readers through speaking and her Amazon category-bestselling books. Christina’s work is personable, insightful, knowledgeable, and engaging.

Her books include Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web, Pencil Me In, and The Team that Managed Itself. Her bestselling book is a business fable called Radical Focus, which tackles the OKR movement through the powerful story of Hanna and Jack’s struggling tea startup. When the two receive an ultimatum from their only investor, they must learn how to employ OKRs and radical focus to get the right things done.
To connect with Christina or to get more information on how to become a whole-mind, high performing team, visit http://cwodtke.com/ or http://www.eleganthack.com.

Reviews

[Dave]

Very short (37 pages), available free online. A concise intro to OKRs.

[Esso]

Great summary of the practical advice from "Radical Focus"

[James Stewart]

Nice simple introduction that I'm sharing with many people on my team. It doesn't go very deep but works well as a primer before diving into other material available online.

[Sean]

A good, brief overview of what OKRs are and how to use them for motivating productive work.

[Liam Norton]

Good short guide to OKR, great for management inclined individuals and team focused people

[Alex Gostev]

The starting point for adopting goal setting technique Objectives and Key Results. The book is short and actionable, I genuinely recommend this hour-long read to get into.

[Ramnath]

Great read - crash course introduction to OKRs!

[Senthil]

This is a short book (34 pages) with a great introduction to OKR - I read this after reading "Measure What Matters by John Doerr" although this was published earlier...

This book is a great value, particularly considering the amount of information it manages to pack into 30 odd pages.

You will get to know:

a. Brief History of OKR
b. Definition of Objectives and Key Results with multiple examples
c. How to hold weekly review meetings with OKRs
d. How to plan quarterly planning and review meetings with OKRs
e. List of silicon valley companies using OKRs

The references to valuable material like rework (Google) and Ben Lamorte's work adds to the value of the book...

Highly recommended.....

[Mike]

A good primer on what an OKR is and how they can be an effective approach to helping a team achieve better focus, alignment, and communication so that they can achieve more each quarter as they work together.

[Rodrigo]

Great simple guide to implement OKR at your organization.

[Josh]

Reasonable intro

[Agoes]

Great for people starting out OKRs in their company. It's not too thick and not too technical but it's quite adequate for explaining the concepts.

[Charlie Meneses]

Concise, clear. Only con is that there are no examples of a set of OKRs. But is good only to understand OKR