good ideas with great execution are how you make magic. And that’s where OKRs come in. (Location 97)
Tags: execution
Note: .execution good ideas and great execution
Part One OKRS IN ACTION
Ideas are easy. Execution is everything. (Location 159)
Tags: execution
Note: .execution
An OBJECTIVE, I explained, is simply WHAT is to be achieved, no more and no less. By definition, objectives are significant, concrete, action oriented, and (ideally) inspirational. (Location 171)
Tags: okr
Note: .okr
KEY RESULTS benchmark and monitor HOW we get to the objective. Effective KRs are specific and time-bound, aggressive yet realistic. Most of all, they are measurable and verifiable. (Location 174)
Tags: okr
Note: .okr
You either meet a key result’s requirements or you don’t; there is no gray area, no room for doubt. At the end of the designated period, typically a quarter, we declare the key result fulfilled or not. Where an objective can be long-lived, rolled over for a year or longer, key results evolve as the work progresses. (Location 176)
Tags: okr
Note: .okr key resukts are numeric. You can measure whether you hit it or not
four OKR “superpowers”: focus, align, track, and stretch. (Location 302)
Tags: okr
Note: .okr
): High-performance organizations home in on work that’s important, and are equally clear on what doesn’t matter. OKRs impel leaders to make hard choices. They’re a precision communication tool for departments, teams, and individual contributors. By dispelling confusion, OKRs give us the focus needed to win. (Location 305)
Tags: priotitise, focus
Note: .focus .priotitise be clear on what matters most amd what does not matter
Superpower #2—Align and Connect for Teamwork (chapters 7, 8, and 9): With OKR transparency, everyone’s goals—from the CEO down—are openly shared. Individuals link their objectives to the company’s game plan, identify cross-dependencies, and coordinate with other teams. By connecting each contributor to the organization’s success, top-down alignment brings meaning to work. By deepening people’s sense of ownership, bottom-up OKRs foster engagement and innovation. (Location 309)
Tags: collaboration, visibility, goals
Note: .goals .visibility .collaboration see what objectives others have
Superpower #3—Track for Accountability (chapters 10 and 11): OKRs are driven by data. They are animated by periodic check-ins, objective grading, and continuous reassessment—all in a spirit of no-judgment accountability. An endangered key result triggers action to get it back on track, or to revise or replace it if warranted. (Location 315)
Superpower #4—Stretch for Amazing (chapters 12, 13, and 14): OKRs motivate us to excel by doing more than we’d thought possible. By testing our limits and affording the freedom to fail, they release our most creative, ambitious selves. (Location 320)
Hence the company’s slogan: “Intel delivers.” It almost doesn’t matter what you know …. To claim that knowledge was secondary and execution all-important—well, I wouldn’t learn that at Harvard. (Location 380)
Tags: execution
Note: .execution
The key result has to be measurable. But at the end you can look, and without any arguments: Did I do that or did I not do it? Yes? No? Simple. No judgments in it. (Location 390)
Tags: okr
Note: .okr key results must be clearly measurable annd easy to see if achieved or not
On an assembly line, it’s easy enough to distinguish output from activity. It gets trickier when employees are paid to think. (Location 426)
Tags: output
Note: .output
The best way to solve a management problem, he believed, was through “creative confrontation”—by facing people “bluntly, directly, and unapologetically.” (Location 495)
Intel managers “leave our stripes outside when we go into a meeting.” Every big decision, he believed, should begin with a “free discussion stage … an inherently egalitarian process.” The way to get his respect was to disagree and stand your ground and, ideally, be shown to be right in the end. (Location 499)
Tags: honesty, decisions
Note: .decisions .honesty
healthy OKR culture—ruthless intellectual honesty, a disregard for self-interest, deep allegiance to the team—flowed (Location 527)
Tags: honesty, okr
Note: .okr .honesty
Less is more. “A few extremely well-chosen objectives,” Grove wrote, “impart a clear message about what we say ‘yes’ to and what we say ‘no’ to.” A limit of three to five OKRs per cycle leads companies, teams, and individuals to choose what matters most. In general, each objective should be tied to five or fewer key results. (Location 530)
Tags: okr
Note: .okr 3-5 okrs, tied to up to 5 results
Set goals from the bottom up. To promote engagement, teams and individuals should be encouraged to create roughly half of their own OKRs, in consultation with managers. When all goals are set top-down, motivation is corroded. (Location 533)
No dictating. OKRs are a cooperative social contract to establish priorities and define how progress will be measured. Even after company objectives are closed to debate, their key results continue to be negotiated. Collective agreement is essential to maximum goal achievement. (Location 536)
Stay flexible. If the climate has changed and an objective no longer seems practical or relevant as written, key results can be modified or even discarded mid-cycle. (Location 539)
Note: Adapt to changes and updated your OKRs accordingly.
(See chapter 10, “Superpower #3: Track for Accountability.”) Dare to fail. “Output will tend to be greater,” Grove wrote, “when everybody strives for a level of achievement beyond [their] immediate grasp …. Such goal-setting is extremely important if what you want is peak performance from yourself and your subordinates.” While certain operational objectives must be met in full, aspirational OKRs should be uncomfortable and possibly unattainable. “Stretched goals,” (Location 540)
Tags: stretchgoals, okr
Note: .okr .stretchgoals
Bill grafted the critical connective tissue—the phrase “as measured by,” or a.m.b.—into Intel’s company OKRs. For example, “We will achieve a certain OBJECTIVE as measured by the following KEY RESULTS ….” Bill’s a.m.b made the implicit explicit to all. (Location 583)
Measuring what matters begins with the question: What is most important for the next three (or six, or twelve) months? Successful organizations focus on the handful of initiatives that can make a real difference, deferring less urgent ones. (Location 697)
Tags: prioritise
Note: .prioritise what is most important over the next x months
Leaders must get across the why as well as the what. Their people need more than milestones for motivation. They are thirsting for meaning, to understand how their goals relate to the mission. And the process can’t stop with unveiling top-line OKRs at a quarterly all-hands meeting. As LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner likes to say, “When you are tired of saying it, people are starting to hear it.” (Location 733)
Objectives and key results are the yin and yang of goal setting—principle and practice, vision and execution. Objectives are the stuff of inspiration and far horizons. Key results are more earthbound and metric-driven. They typically include hard numbers for one or more gauges: revenue, growth, active users, quality, safety, market share, customer engagement. To make reliable progress, as Peter Drucker noted, a manager “must be able to measure … performance and results against the goal.” (Location 737)
Tags: okr
Note: .okr
Finally, completion of all key results must result in attainment of the objective. If not, it’s not an OKR. (Location 793)
With hindsight, I would have started with our leadership team of five. For structured goal setting to prosper, as our company learned the hard way, executives need to commit to the process. It may take a quarter or two to overcome your managers’ resistance and get them acclimated to OKRs—to view them not as a necessary evil, or some perfunctory exercise, but as a practical tool to fulfill your organization’s top priorities. (Location 1001)
(on the Google scale of 0.0 to 1.0) (Location 1014)
Aaron Levie, founder and CEO of Box, the enterprise cloud company. “At any given time,” Aaron said, “some significant percentage of people are working on the wrong things. The challenge is knowing which ones.” (Location 1060)
Tags: focus, prioritise
Note: .prioritise .focus
As general manager, I cascade my goal down to the next level of management, the head coach and the senior vice president of marketing. My key results become their objectives. (Location 1106)
Even as modern goal setting successfully transcends the org chart, unacknowledged dependencies remain the number one cause of project slippage. The cure is lateral, cross-functional connectivity, peer-to-peer and team-to-team. (Location 1179)
Tags: delivery, dependencies
Note: .dependencies .delivery unknown dependencies are on of the greatest causes of project delays
At MyFitnessPal, every OKR has a single owner, with other teams linking up as needed. As I see it, co-ownership weakens accountability. If an OKR fails, I don’t want two people blaming each other. Even when two or more teams have parallel objectives, their key results should be distinct. (Location 1273)
Tags: ownership
Note: .ownership
In God we trust; all others must bring data. —W. Edwards Deming (Location 1481)
Tags: trust, data
Note: .data .trust
Daniel Pink, the author of Drive, agrees: “The single greatest motivator is ‘making progress in one’s work.’ The days that people make progress are the days they feel most motivated and engaged.” (Location 1535)
Tags: progress, goals, motivation
Note: .motivation .goals .progress we feel best on days where we make progress
The simplest, cleanest way to score an objective is by averaging the percentage completion rates of its associated key results. Google uses a scale of 0 to 1.0: • 0.7 to 1.0 = green.fn2 (We delivered.) • 0.4 to 0.6 = yellow. (We made progress, but fell short of completion.) • 0.0 to 0.3 = red. (We failed to make real progress.) (Location 1582)
We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience.” (Location 1633)
Tags: hc46, experience, learning
Note: .learning .experience .hc46
Google divides its OKRs into two categories, committed goals and aspirational (or “stretch”) goals. It’s a distinction with a real difference. Committed objectives are tied to Google’s metrics: product releases, bookings, hiring, customers. Management sets them at the company level, employees at the departmental level. In general, these committed objectives—such as sales and revenue goals—are to be achieved in full (100 percent) within a set time frame. Aspirational objectives reflect bigger-picture, higher-risk, more future-tilting ideas. They originate from any tier and aim to mobilize the entire organization. By definition, they are challenging to achieve. Failures—at an average rate of 40 percent—are part of Google’s territory. (Location 1762)
Tags: goals, google, okr
Note: .okr .google .goals 2 buckets, committed and aspirational
the Big Rocks Theory, which was popularized by Stephen Covey. Say you have some rocks, and a bunch of pebbles, and some sand, and your goal is to fit as much of everything as you can into a wide-mouth, one-gallon jar. If you start with the sand, and then the pebbles, the jar will run out of room for all the rocks. But when you start with the rocks, add the pebbles, and save the sand for last, the sand fills the spaces between the rocks—everything fits. In other words, the most important things need to get done first or they won’t get done at all. (Location 2044)
Tags: prioritise
Note: .prioritise
Annual performance reviews are costly, exhausting, and mostly futile. On average, they swallow 7.5 hours of manager time for each direct report. Yet only 12 percent of HR leaders deem the process “highly effective” in driving business value. Only 6 percent think it’s worth the time it takes. Distorted recency bias, burdened by stack rankings and bell curves, these end-of-year evaluations can’t possibly be fair or well measured. (Location 2195)
Tags: annualperformance
Note: .annualperformance
the contemporary alternative to annual reviews, is continuous performance management. It is implemented with an instrument called CFRs, for: • Conversations: an authentic, richly textured exchange between manager and contributor, aimed at driving performance • Feedback: bidirectional or networked communication among peers to evaluate progress and guide future improvement • Recognition: expressions of appreciation to deserving individuals for contributions of all sizes (Location 2206)
Let’s say objectives are the goalposts, the targets you’re aiming for, and key results the incremental yard markers for getting there. To flourish as a group, players and coaches need something more, something vital to any collective endeavor. CFRs embody all the interactions that tie the team together from one game to the next. They’re the Monday videotape postmortems, the midweek intrasquad meetings, the preplay huddles—and the end-zone celebrations for jobs well done. (Location 2223)
Tags: okr
Note: .okr
forward-looking dialogue between leaders and contributors. It centers on five questions: • What are you working on? • How are you doing; how are your OKRs coming along? • Is there anything impeding your work? • What do you need from me to be (more) successful? • How do you need to grow to achieve your career goals? (Location 2267)
Tags: manager, bam
Note: .bam .manager
From Adobe’s experience, I’d say that a continuous performance management system has three requirements. The first is executive support. The second is clarity on company objectives and how they align with individual priorities—as set out in our “goals and expectations,” which equate to OKRs. The third is an investment in training to equip managers and leaders to be more effective. We’re not shipping people out to courses. We’re steering them to one-hour sessions online, with role-played vignettes: “Do you need to give difficult feedback? Here are the steps.” (Location 2423)
Alex: Every two weeks, each person at Zume has a one-hour, one-on-one conversation with whomever they report to. (Julia and I converse with each other.) It’s a sacred time. You cannot be late; you cannot cancel. There’s only one other rule: You don’t talk about work. The agenda is you, the individual, and what you are trying to accomplish personally over the next two to three years, and how you’re breaking that into a two-week plan. I like to start with three questions: What makes you very happy? What saps your energy? How would you describe your dream job? (Location 2582)
Tags: manager, checkin
Note: .checkin .manager what makkes you happy, what saps your energy, whhat is your dream job
Net Promoter Score (Location 2612)
Tags: bam
Note: .bam
In Project Aristotle, an internal Google study of 180 teams, standout performance correlated to affirmative responses to these five questions: 1. Structure and clarity: Are goals, roles, and execution plans on our team clear? 2. Psychological safety: Can we take risks on this team without feeling insecure or embarrassed? 3. Meaning of work: Are we working on something that is personally important for each of us? 4. Dependability: Can we count on each other to do high-quality work on time? 5. Impact of work: Do we fundamentally believe that the work we’re doing matters? (Location 2655)
Tags: google
Note: .google
As continuous performance management rises to the fore, once-a-year employee surveys are giving way to real-time feedback. One frontier is pulsing, an online snapshot of your workplace culture. These signal-capturing questionnaires may be scheduled weekly or monthly by HR or made part of an ongoing “drip” campaign. Either way, pulses are simple, quick, and wide-ranging. For example: Are you getting enough sleep? Have you met recently with your manager to discuss goals and expectations? Do you have a clear sense of your career path? Are you getting enough challenge and motivation and energy—are you feeling “in the zone”? (Location 2681)
Tags: manager, feedback
Note: .feedback .manager
Tapping into a vast trove of patient data, Lumeris helps partner organizations convert traditional, fee-for-service, volume-based “sick care” into something else entirely: a health care delivery system that incentivizes prevention and discourages needless tests or detrimental hospital stays. Under this value-based model, primary-care doctors take responsibility for their patients, cradle to grave. The goal is to improve quality of life while conserving precious resources and dollars. At Lumeris they’ve shown how those objectives can work hand in hand. (Location 2763)
Tags: health, karina, prevention
Note: .prevention .karina .health
The reviews run for three hours, with a dozen senior executives taking their turn. Little time is spent on people’s greens. Instead, they “sell” their reds. The team votes on the most important at-risk OKRs for the company as a whole, then brainstorms together as long as it takes to get the objectives back on track. In the spirit of cross-departmental solidarity, individuals volunteer to “buy” their colleagues’ reds. As Art says, “We’re all here to help. We’re all in the same bathwater.” As far as I know, “selling your reds” is a unique use of OKRs, and one well worth emulating. (Location 2866)
We use OKRs to plan what people are going to produce, track their progress vs. plan, and coordinate priorities and milestones between people and teams. We also use OKRs to help people stay focused on the most important goals, and help them avoid being distracted by urgent but less important goals. (Location 3373)
Tags: okr
Note: .okr
OKRs are big, not incremental—we don’t expect to hit all of them. (If we do, we’re not setting them aggressively enough.) We grade them with a color scale to measure how well we did: 0.0–0.3 is red 0.4–0.6 is yellow 0.7–1.0 is green (Location 3375)
Tags: okr
Note: .okr okrs are ambitious
Objectives are the “Whats.” They: • express goals and intents; • are aggressive yet realistic; • must be tangible, objective, and unambiguous; should be obvious to a rational observer whether an objective has been achieved. • The successful achievement of an objective must provide clear value for Google. (Location 3381)
Tags: objectives, okr
Note: .okr .objectives
Key Results are the “Hows.” They: • express measurable milestones which, if achieved, will advance objective(s) in a useful manner to their constituents; • must describe outcomes, not activities. If your KRs include words like “consult,” “help,” “analyze,” or “participate,” they describe activities. Instead, describe the end-user impact of these activities: “publish average and tail latency measurements from six Colossus cells by March 7,” rather than “assess Colossus latency”; • must include evidence of completion. This evidence must be available, credible, and easily discoverable. Examples of evidence include change lists, links to docs, notes, and published metrics reports. (Location 3388)
Tags: results, okr
Note: .okr .results
Commitments are OKRs that we agree will be achieved, and we will be willing to adjust schedules and resources to ensure that they are delivered. • The expected score for a committed OKR is 1.0; a score of less than 1.0 requires explanation for the miss, as it shows errors in planning and/or execution. (Location 3402)
Tags: okr
Note: .okr
By contrast, aspirational OKRs express how we’d like the world to look, even though we have no clear idea how to get there and/or the resources necessary to deliver the OKR. • Aspirational OKRs have an expected average score of 0.7, with high variance. (Location 3405)
Tags: okr
Note: .okr
TRAP #2: Business-as-usual OKRs. • OKRs are often written principally based on what the team believes it can achieve without changing anything they’re currently doing, as opposed to what the team or its customers really want. (Location 3414)
TRAP #6: Insufficient KRs for committed Os. • OKRs are divided into the desired outcome (the objective) and the measurable steps required to achieve that outcome (the key results). It is critical that KRs are written such that scoring 1.0 on all key results generates a 1.0 score for the objective. (Location 3438)
Teams who cannot credibly promise to deliver a 1.0 on a committed OKR must escalate promptly. This is a key point: Escalating in this (common) situation is not only OK, it is required. (Location 3452)
Note: Escalate quickly if you vant achieve a 1 on a committed okr
• If your KRs are expressed in team-internal terms (“Launch Foo 4.1”), they probably aren’t good. What matters isn’t the launch, but its impact. Why is Foo 4.1 important? Better: “Launch Foo 4.1 to improve sign-ups by 25 percent.” Or simply: “Improve sign-ups by 25 percent.” (Location 3482)
Make sure the metrics are unambiguous. If you say “1 million users,” is that all-time users or seven-day actives? (Location 3489)
Progress Updates To get the contributor talking, a manager might pose these questions: • How are your OKRs coming along? • What critical capabilities do you need to be successful? • Is there anything stopping you from attaining your objectives? • What OKRs need to be adjusted—or added, or eliminated—in light of shifting priorities? (Location 3527)
Upward Feedback To elicit candid input from a contributor, the manager might ask: • What are you getting from me that you find helpful? • What are you getting from me that impedes your ability to be effective? • What could I do for you that would help you to be more successful? (Location 3542)
Tags: feedback, manager
Note: .manager .feedback
Prepping for Performance Conversations Before launching a performance conversation with a contributor, some prep work is in order. Specifically, leaders should consider the following: • What were the contributor’s main objectives and responsibilities in the period in question? • How has the contributor performed? • If the contributor is underperforming, how should he or she course-correct? • If the contributor is performing well or exceeding expectations, what can I do to sustain a high level of performance without burnout? • When is the contributor most engaged? • When is the contributor least engaged? • What strengths does the contributor bring to the work? • What types of learning experience might benefit this contributor? • Over the next six months, what should the contributor’s focus be? Meeting expectations in his or her current role? Maximizing contributions in the current role? Or preparing for the next opportunity—be it a new project, expanded responsibility, or new role? (Location 3554)
Tags: manager
Note: .manager