OKRs at Google
“So at the beginning of each quarter, Larry sets OKRs for the company, triggering everyone else to make sure their own personal OKRs roughly sync with Google’s. We don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Once you see the company’s goals, it’s easy enough to compare them to your own. If they’re wildly out of step, either there’s a good reason or you refocus. In addition, everyone’s OKRs are visible to everyone else in the company on our internal website, right next to their phone number and office location. It’s important that there’s a way to find out what other people and teams are doing, and motivating to see how you fit into the broader picture of what Google is trying to achieve. Finally, Larry’s OKRs, followed by his quarterly report on how the company has performed, set the standard for transparency in communication and an appropriately high bar for our goals.” Bock, Laszlo. Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead
Don’t cascade goals or OKRs
“On the topic of goals, the academic research agrees with your intuition: Having goals improves performance. Spending hours cascading goals up and down the company, however, does not. It takes way too much time and it’s too hard to make sure all the goals line up. We have a market-based approach, where over time our goals all converge, because the top OKRs are known and everyone else’s OKRs are visible. Teams that are grossly out of alignment stand out, and the few major initiatives that touch everyone are easy enough to manage directly. So far, so good!” Laszlo Bock, in Work Rules
atiim.com/okr-goals-objectives-and-key-results/
OKRs need to be SMART
John Doerr’s formula is a good approach to use when writing OKRs. Note that OKRs need to be measurable.
“I will accomplish ‘X’ Objective as Measured by ‘Y’ Key Results.”
OKR resources
atiim.com/okr-goals-objectives-and-key-results/
