🎯 Measure What Matters: Unlocking the Power of OKRs
🏢 The Origins of OKRs
Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins, first encountered OKRs at Intel in the 1970s under the leadership of Andy Grove, whom he described as running “the best-run company I’d ever seen.” Since then, Doerr has introduced OKRs to over 50 companies, including tech giants like Oracle, Apple, Dropbox, and Spotify, as well as global corporations such as Anheuser-Busch, BMW, Exxon, and Samsung.
In his 2018 book, Measure What Matters, Doerr shares compelling case studies of organizations that implemented OKRs to establish structured management paths from the outset.
🎯 Objectives and Key Results Explained
According to Doerr,
“OKRs are a management methodology that helps to ensure the company focuses efforts on the same important issues throughout the organisation.”
Objectives – WHAT is to be achieved. They are significant, concrete, action-oriented, and inspirational. Objectives act as a vaccine against fussy thinking and execution.
Key Results – HOW to achieve the Objective. They are specific, time-bound, aggressive yet realistic, and measurable. By the end of the period, you know whether the objective has been achieved. ✅
📈 Success Stories
Doerr’s book is full of examples showing OKRs in action:
🔹YouTube – Focused on key metrics to reach a billion hours of watch time daily, achieving tenfold growth.
🔹Intuit – Helped the company secure recognition as the 4th most admired in its industry.
🔹Gates Foundation – Uses OKRs to track progress toward eradicating malaria by 2040.
My personal favourite is the story behind an app called “Remind”.
🔹Remind App – Started by a student with ADHD and dyslexia, Brett Kopf who with brother David, leveraged the smartphones in every student’s pocket to build a secure and practical communication system for principals, teachers, students and parents.
“When a student lags, it can take weeks or months for a parent to find out; Remind solves this problem—by focusing on what matters.”
These stories illustrate the power of OKRs to create Focus, Alignment, Tracking, and Stretching for excellence.✨
💪 Four OKR Superpowers
The examples in the book support and convincingly demonstrate Doerr’s contention that OKRs imbue the organisation with four superpowers; focus, align, track and stretch
1. Focus and Commit to Priorities – Concentrate on what truly matters.
2. Align and Connect for Teamwork – Transparent goals enable coordination across departments.
3. Track with Data – Frequent check-ins and grading keep progress measurable and actionable.
4. Stretch for Amazing – Encourage teams to exceed expectations, fostering creativity and innovation. ✨
💬 CFRs: Conversations, Feedback, and Recognition (CFRs)
OKRs work best alongside continuous performance management. CFRs replace outdated annual reviews with regular discussions between managers and team members, boosting transparency, accountability, and empowerment. As Doerr emphasizes:
“Healthy culture and structured goal setting are interdependent. They are natural partners in the quest for operating excellence.”
🔮 Forecasting: The Financial Backbone
Another essential element of operational excellence is a robust corporate financial forecast, with actuals integrated promptly, and results and variances reported quickly.
