Measure What Matters: The Simple Idea that Drives 10x Growth

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 book itself has very little to teach you but gives you a lot to think about.

Imagine all the lessons you've been taught about goals; now imagine there is a system which combines all of them into two key tasks and a few routines; that is OKRs. What I love about this method is it is so clear, easy, measurable; no more mushy goals, no more gap between vision and implementation, no more soul-destroying long performance or ops reviews where things are discussed to death and still nobody knows what is going on; this cuts to the chase of what it is you want and how you think you'll get it, with a mixture of flexibility and accountability built in. Excellent. I think many traditionally structured companies would benefit from this learning.

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.

Too often businesses use de cure standards for their operational metrics without much diligence about how relevant they are to their customers, or their business. We see NPS as an example of blithely following what others are doing here with no consideration as to the relevance of the metric to the business. Even worse is when silly metrics are linked to compensation, encouraging foolish or selfish employee behaviors. John Doerr does a great job breaking down what you want to achieve and how you can measure that for a beneficial outcome for customers and the business.

I like the overall concept of OKR and the benefits it can bring, especially if aligned across the organization but the message is a bit repetitive in the way it is presented.

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 OKRs 1. Focus and Commit to Priorities 2. Align and Connect for Teamwork 3. Track for Accountability 4. Stretch for Amazing Continuous Performance Management Importance of Culture ---> Not something you’d be want to be caught reading on terra firma, then. Or underground, on the tube, for that matter!

I really enjoyed reading this book. Everything explained very well by author with good case studies. Great to know regarding Google case study and some other case studies. There is a lot to learn from this book. All the organisations from small, medium to large need to read this book. I strongly recommend this book to read to take your organisation to a new heights.

Impressive book alot of information and learning experience

Da viele Rezensionen hier verhältnismäßig negativ sind, fühle ich mich gezwungen ein paar Worte zu dem Buch zu schreiben. Ich bin der Meinung, dass dieses Buch ist, was man daraus macht, wie so vieles im Leben. Persönlich halte ich das Buch für wahnsinnig gut und brilliant. Was man Wissen sollte, aber bereits der Einband hergibt, es handelt sich mit Sicherheit nicht um eine wissenschaftliche Abhandlung oder Anleitung um all seine Probleme zu lösen und das perfekte Unternehmen aufzubauen. Hier werde OKRs dargestellt, ein simples, aber brilliantes Tool zur strategischen Zielsetzung in Unternehmen. Um dieses Tool zu veranschaulichen, gibt es viele Beispiele, die zumeist ein Kapitel umfassen, von Google, über die Melinda and Bill Gates Stiftung bis zu ONE ist alles dabei. Die Kapitel sind kurz gehalten und daher sehr gut leserlich. Als Ressourcen sind dann auch noch ein Auszug von Googles OKR Prozess gegeben, was mit Sicherheit eine gute Orientierung ist. Als kleines i-Tüpfelchen sehe ich noch die vielen Geschichten und persönlichen Erzählungen des Autors und des gesamten Silicon Valley. Alles in allem halte ich dieses Buch für sehr gelungen um OKRs und die sich ergebenden Möglichkeiten zu verstehen. Die persönlichen Noten des Autors machen dieses Buch zu etwa besonderem unter den Business Ratgebern. Ich werde dieses Buch mit Sicherheit weiterempfehlen und kann daher auch hier nur zu einem Kauf raten.

It tells why setting up big goals are needed to achieve something big in your career or a team or as a company.

If you are a manager or in a role where process improvement is one of your job goals, this book is a really good read. It will give you a very useful lens to look at processes and their improvement. The same principles can be used for self improvement, but classifying it as a self improvement book is probably not right. In short, the book is definitely worth the time and money.

This book teaches you to set goals and how to teach them. Don’t go corporate, be disruptive. Stay focused, be flexible and achieve results.