Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs

Impressive book alot of information and learning experience

So I already knew about OKRs before getting this book. Our organisation tried to implement them a few years ago and failed. I was hoping this book would shed some light on how to create, implement, and measure OKRs efficiently in a small business such as ours.Sadly the book fails to go into any depth about how to make the most important phase, implementation, possible. There are also 2 concerns which really calls into question the practicalness and authenticity of the book.1. John recommends that we separate OKRs from employee compensation/bonuses. That's fine - I'm willing to give that a shot. But doesn't actually say what a practical alternative approach should actually be. He mentions that instead of combining performance reviews, goals, and bonuses into one group... they should be 3 separate groups (performance reviews = feedback sessions, goals = OKRs, bonuses = bonuses) which form part of your judgement on whether to give bonuses or not effectively taking the hard facts out of how compensation is given and making it based on opinion. Exactly why he says later in the book that annual performance reviews don't work! (because they're based on opinion).2. The more alarming issue is that towards the end of the book John very coyly mentions that BetterWorks' software is helping companies adopt the OKR methodology more effectively and that organisations should really think about what tech they can use to make sure OKR adoption succeeds in the business. John fails to disclose (at least during that chapter) that he in-fact is an investor in BetterWorks! The book basically feels like a 280 page whitepaper written to desperately try to help BetterWorks get more sales.If you want to learn more about OKRs and how they work, there's a great 50 minute YouTube video by Google about how they use them. Save yourself the money and time and watch that instead.

This is the first time I have felt compelled to review one of the hundreds of books I have read.John Doerr philosophy of "Ideas are easy . Execution is Everything" is interwoven throughout this the book. This is a reassuring theme of other books and I remembered this idea being put forward in Sir Ronald Cohen's  The Second Bounce Of The Ball: Turning Risk Into Opportunity .John Doerr's book is truly exceptional, detailing how he brought the concept of Objectives and Key Results to Google, something he used at both Intel and Sun.As with his philosophy, the execution of defining both Objectives and Key Results is the main focus and through the many case studies which he features in his book as to how the strategy has been successfully implemented in other well known and successful technology companies, this is clear in the Google OKR playbook section near the end of his book where he says Objectives and Key Results written poorly are a waste of time.This book will be of most use for those involved in technology startups, like myself because the examples given are directly applicable to familiar concepts like agile and continuous improvement and iteration however any business owner or manager, who truly wants to grow their business will find this book useful. The Second Bounce Of The Ball: Turning Risk Into Opportunity

John Doerr, arguably still the world’s best-known VC, is at the point where he thinks it’s time he handed down to the next generation “the commandments,” as he perceives them to have been handed down to him by (prolific author cum management guru in his own right, and) former Intel CEO Andy Grove and as perfected and imposed on hundreds of companies by himself.To judge by the people whose testimonials he has drafted to bolster / showcase the validity of his method (Objectives and Key Results, OKR for short), he was clearly running out of time to do so: sure, the foreword for the book was penned by none other than Larry Page, but Bill Gates and Bono are no longer red hot, let us say.I did almost cry when I realized what Nuna means in Korean and how it relates to the name of one of Doerr’s latest investments, but the next Google or Sun Microsystems it ain’t and neither is robot-made pizza. And the main reason I almost cried is I read this on the airplane.For a reason: this is airplane reading!To wit (and I quote from page 273):Four Superpowers of OKRs1. Focus and Commit to Priorities2. Align and Connect for Teamwork3. Track for Accountability4. Stretch for AmazingContinuous Performance ManagementImportance of Culture---> Not something you’d be want to be caught reading on terra firma, then. Or underground, on the tube, for that matter!

The book covers the key principles to OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) that make work far more empowering to yourself, your teams, your community projects and company. It also covers to the ideas a selected number of stories that became really big because of the principles. The other advantage is the book comes with the last few pages as practice resources to implement into your life. Brilliant structure, wonderful stories, understandable on every level and, as I've began implementing them into my new career and personal life, they'll become my north star. Thank you John Doerr!

This is the solution that agile and scrum processes have been screaming for. Headless sprinting and agile-because-specs-are-hard has been the bane of software development culture for at least a decade now. OKRs are the balancing pole that has been needed along the way, making sure that short sighted decisions are harder and focus flux is minimized.This book has made its way to a top company in Denmark, and its just getting started with OKRs with amazing results. OKRs should be the next golden standard in Agile.This book, although superficial in implementation details, has gotten a spot in my top 5 of all time books. The idea is simple, the implications are enormous.