OKR (Objectives & Key Results) is used by industry-leading companies like Google, LinkedIn, Intel, Zynga, Twitter and Oracle for successful planning.
OKR is a simple process of defining objectives on company, team and personal level and connecting each objective with measurable results. OKR help providing the bigger picture for everyone at the company and to understand who is working on what and more importantly why.
Also check out Rick Klau's presentation at the Google Startup Lab "How Google sets goals: OKRs": https://library.gv.com/how-google-sets-goals-okrs-a1f69b0b72c7
2. History
1970
Developed & implemented by Andrew Grove at Intel.
1999
John Doerr introduced OKRs to Google.
Used today by leading companies
Google, Zynga, LinkedIn, Twitter, Oracle
3. Objectives
Qualitative
Major goals the organization or individual want to accomplish.
High-level
Derived from company vision, mission, strategy.
Ambitious
Objectives should be challenging but achievable.
4. Key Results
Specific & Concrete
Key results describe how you will accomplish the related objective.
Quantifiable & Measurable
Add a key performance indicator (KPI) to reflect and improve on.
5. OKR Guidelines
Cadence
OKRs are typically used to be defined every 3 months.
Focus
Define 3-5 objectives with 3-4 key results maximum per quarter.
Review
Quarterly, monthly or weekly.
6. OKR Guidelines
OKRs are public
Everyone in the company is able to see what everyone else is
focusing on (and what they focused on in the past).
Challenging but achievable
Google suggests employees should achieve 70% of results each
quarter.
Collective company conviction
OKRs should connect and support each other through the company,
team and personal level.
7. Company OKR Example
Objective
Increase brand recognition and awareness.
Key Results
Increase engagement on social media by 30%.
Place 2 guest articles per week on industry-related sites.
Increase monthly webpage views by 30%.
9. Why use OKRs?
Simple to implement.
Clear standards for measuring progress on objectives and key results.
Helps keeping the vision and goals for everyone at the company.
Helps to understand what you & everyone else is focusing on and
more importantly why.
10. Rick Klau
Partner at Google Ventures
“OKRs tell you & your team
what you’re doing this
quarter and importantly,
measure whether
you’re there or not.”
Photo credit gv.com
11. OKR Resources
How Google sets goals
OKRs - The Fundamentals
The Art of the OKR
OKR Mistakes (and how to fix them)
OKR Examples
OKR Template
OKR - Wikipedia