Book Summary —Measure What Matter

🚀 The Book in 3 Sentences

1. A book about OKR was written by an OKR inventor, John Doerr.
2. Provide some example companies which are successful because of OKR.
3. Talk about the 4 superpowers of OKR

🎨 Impressions

This book explains the history of OKR and OKR capability. Several successful companies using OKR are mentioned. The story is insightful because it is a personal experience of the writer. However, while I was reading, I sometimes thought that “Are those companies successful because they implement OKR or they could succeed without using it anyway?” since there is little mention about other factors of business success.

🙎‍ Who Should Read It?

This book could be beneficial for team leaders to set OKR for their team members. Anyway, everyone can read this book to understand OKR and may set personal OKR.

✍️ My Top 3 Quotes

• OKRs must be transparent and accessible to everyone.
• OKRs could be proposed by the frontman.
• Culture must precede OKRs

📒 Summary + Notes

👵 OKR History

Histoty of OKR: MBO → iMBO → OKR

MBO (Management by Objective and Self-control): Objectives are set by top management and allocated to a lower level

iMBO (Intel MBO): Set objective and evaluate

OKR (Objective and Key Results):

• Objectives are set by all employees working together.
• Specify key results that can complete the objectives.
• Objectives must be challenging.

🎯 Superpower 1: Focus & Commit to Priorities

• Set only the objectives around the company’s focus.
• Specify 3–5 objectives/quarter.
• There should be 3–5 key results/objective.
• OKRs can be changed any time when the previous OKR is not proper.

👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 Superpower 2: Align and Connect for Teamwork

• OKRs must be transparent and could be accessed by everyone in the company.
• When OKRs are transparent, problems could be detected early and it will be easier to reject works that are not contributing to OKR.
• OKRs must be aligned within the company, both vertical and horizontal.
• OKRs could be proposed at any level in the company hierarchy.

📜 Superpower 3: Track for Accountability

• OKRs system should be easily accessed and user-friendly.
• Use a traffic light (red, yellow, green) to track the status of each key result.
• Summarize the result → Develop → Repeat
• Conduct reflection every quarter: self-evaluation, discuss with leader.
• Scores of each key result will be evaluated based on %progress, challenge level, and results.

↔️ Superpower 4: Stretch for Amazing

• “Stretch Goal” follows BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goals).
• Goals should be clear, challenging, and easy to understand.
• Objectives are divided into 2 categories: committed and aspirational
• A committed objective is a normal job that we need to do.
• The aspirational objective is risky but could lead to exponential growth.
• Allocate 2 objective categories to balance risk and growth.

💵 OKR & CFR

• Continuous performance management is applied to evaluate OKR. It uses CFR as a tool.
• CFR = Conversation Feedback Recognition
• Conversation: Exchange opinions between manager and employee (coaching)
• Feedback: Exchange opinions between employee
• Recognition: expression of appreciation to a deserving person.

🌲 Culture

• Culture is a bridge between OKR + CFRs and employees.
• Great culture must precede OKR and CFR to make OKR implementation successful.