OKR stands for Objectives Key Results and is a tool set to streamline an organization towards the most important goals for a given time period (e.g. a quarter). Google Venture’s OKR-expert Ken Norton talks about some of his observations on organizations implementing OKR’s in this interview “Are you doing OKR’s right?”.
Ken Norton gained his expertise working with 300+ companies from the GV’s portfolio. OKR’s are one great tool to align an organization to work toward the most important goal at the time. Here’s a bullet list of my key learnings:
- Communicate OKR’s clearly
- OKR’s are the CEO’s tool to set the direction for the organization
- Very, very few in numbers
- OKR’s are measurable – you know when you’re there
- OKR’s keep the organization ambitious
- An organization of less than 100 people doesn’t need more than the organization’s OKR’s
- OKR’s do only work if the culture of the company allows for them
- They’re most effective if a combination of top-down and bottom-up
- OKR setting surfaces organizational problems – deal with them
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Thanks for sharing Michael! Implementing OKR is definitely the best way to align everyone internally and share a common goal regardless of your company size. I find it very powerful when combined with a checkin / checkout habit and/or SCRUM framework.
Should you be looking for a tool to support OKR follow up and tracking on a daily basis, we’re actually building one (www.getachieved.com).