“A critical thinking framework and ongoing discipline that seeks to ensure employees work together, focusing their efforts to make measurable contributions that drive the company forward”
Objectives & Key Results – Paul Niven & Ben Lamorte
History of OKRs
Andrew Grove who was the CEO of Intel during 1968
Popular in the 1970s
Silicon Valley companies, Google adopted in 1999
Anyone using them?
Adobe, Amazon, American Global Logistics, Anheuser-Busch, Asana, Baidu, BMAT, Box, CareerBuilder, Dell, Deloitte, Domo, Dropbox, Eventbrite, Facebook, FiServ, Flipboard, Gap, GE, Google, GoPro, Humanitec, InsideSales, Instructure, Intel, ISO Energy, Kelly Services, KupiVIP, LG, LinkedIn, Lookout, Lumeris, Malwarebytes, Microsoft, Moz, Mozilla, Nerd Wallet, Netflix, Oracle, Panasonic, Paperless Post, Rackspace, Salesforce.com, Samsung, Sears, Siemens, Slack, Spotify, Tableau, Trello, Twitter, Uber, Viacom, Vmware, Vox Media, Yahoo, Zynga
Why OKRs
Create alignment and engagement around measurable goals
Move From This
To This
Benefits of OKRs
Details of an OKR
Objectives
Memorable qualitative descriptions
Short, inspirational and engaging
Motivating and challenging
Key Results
Set of metrics that you measure
Ideally 2 to 5 key results per objective
Effective OKRs
Objective What do we want to achieve | Key Results How do we know we met our objective |
Qualitative | Quantitative |
Inspirational | Specific |
Attainable | Owned |
Doable in a quarter | Progress-based |
Controlled by the team | Vertically & horizontally aligned |
Provides business value |
“If it does not have a number it is not a key result”
Marissa Mayer
Former Google Vice President
Examples
Google Example
Objective:
Improve the Reputation of Blogger
Key Results:
Reach out to Blogger users personally.
Set up a Twitter account for Blogger and personally update discussions regarding the product.
Speak at three events to re-assert Blogger’s leadership in the industry.
Coordinate Blogger’s 10th anniversary with massive PR (Public Relations) efforts.
Fix the DMCA process and get rid of the music blog takedowns.
Customer Success Examples
Product Development
Customer Support
OKR Schedule and Cycle
Annual Strategy
Quarterly Goals
Aligned with Annual Stategy
OKRs With The Roadmap
Roadmap Aligned with Goals
Strategic Themes
Organisational product strategies - pointing the teams in a specific direction.
Examples “Expand our market share in Europe” or “Trust support”
There can be multiple themes running in parallel for a larger organisation.
Quarterly OKR Goals
Each team focus to help achieve the strategic theme
Teams have their own definition of success and their definition of done.
Feature/product hypotheses
The team’s best guesses as to how they will achieve this quarter’s OKR goals.
Educated guesses about what product or feature ideas they think will achieve their quarterly goals.
The boxes for Q3 and Q4 will fill up as learning from Q1 and Q2
Measuring OKRs
Timeframe & Grading Key
Q3 2019
Level | Meaning |
|---|---|
0 | No progress |
0.3 | What you would have achieved anyway |
0.5 | Almost what you hope to achieve but just short |
0.7 | What you hope to achieve in your OKR, difficult but attainable |
1.0 | Above what you were targeting, you knocked the ball out of the park |
Team | Objective 1 | Objective | Start | W1 | W2 | W3 | W4 | W5 | W6 | W7 | W8 | W9 | W10 | W11 | Finish | Owners | Needs Alignment from | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
0.75 | ||||||||||||||||||
Key Result 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.7 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||
Key Result 2 | 0 | 0 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | |||||
Key Result 3 | 0 | 0 |