Learner. Teacher. Developer.
Jarrod Parkes

review 2018-08-04 English

Measure What Matters

review

“Measure What Matters” by John Doerr

My Notes

Intro

  • terms
    • objective: what to achieve
    • key results: how to achieve the objective
  • example
    • objective: prove our value to customers FAST!
    • key results: (1) reduce the time to “commit and purchase” by 50% (2) 90% of new users purchase within the first 24 hours
  • life always gives you plenty to do, don’t forget the things that matter
  • alignment: does this activity align to reach our company goal?
  • focus, align, track, and stretch
  • ideas are easy; execution is everything
  • “put more wood behind fewer arrows”
  • “micro management is mismanagement”

OKRs

  • OKRs are intended to give us direction as individuals and teams
  • OKRs are meant to inspire ideas, stretch what we think is possible, and quantify what it will take to get us there - OKRs at the top-level can inspire your personal work and goals; they give you alignment with company goals
  • OKRs help you know how your role contributes to our overall mission
  • OKRs should be outcome focused: to measure what really matters, we need to focus on the outcomes we want to achieve.
  • OKR’s should list results that drive towards an outcome; for example, “Increase video watch time from X to Y.” is a good, quantifiable KR that could map to the objective “Users prefer watching videos on our platform more than any competitor.”
  • Top-level OKRs should be supported by department-level ones
  • OKRs should be challenged, metrics should be challenged

OKR Implementation

  • possible implementation
    • 2 weeks before a quarter starts, the company-level OKRs should be defined, challenged, set, and sent out to the company
    • once a quarter starts, the department-level OKRs should be defined, challenged, set, and sent out to the company
    • 2 weeks after a quarter starts, individual OKRs should be defined, challenged, set, and shared with your direct report

OKR Pitfalls

  • you don’t commit or use them
  • OKRs are “business as usual” goals, but not focused around providing more value to customers/company
  • OKRs are eventual, way-out-there goals vs being something that can help provide value in the next quarter
  • sandbagging OKRs that really don’t challenge anyone
  • insufficient KR’s to track progress
  • the transition into an OKR-driven company isn’t night and day