(2018-05-16) Doerr Measure What Matters

Bill Gates: Management tips from a brilliant business leader

Andy Grove’s ideas are a basis for the management system called OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) developed by John Doerr, a venture capitalist and a frequent business partner of mine. In his new book, Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World With OKRs

In the excerpt below, John tells the inside story of how Andy inspired the idea of OKRs.

the two key phrases…are objectives and the key result. And they match the two purposes. The objective is the direction: “We want to dominate the mid-range microcomputer component business.” That’s an objective. That’s where we’re going to go. Key results for this quarter: “Win ten new designs for the 8085” is one key result. It’s a milestone. The two are not the same…

Review by Felipe Castro

John Doerr’s book on OKR, Measure What Matters, arrived this week with a big launch

I always quote Doerr during my OKR workshops, so my expectations for the book were quite high.

Many people expected that Doerr would write the definitive book on OKR, but unfortunately, Measure What Matters fails to deliver on that promise.

does a fantastic job of presenting the philosophy behind OKR

has serious flaws when it comes to translating theory into practice

The book reinforces that leaders should no longer dictate the work through a top-down cascade. Instead, they “set the context, ask the big questions, and furnish relevant data,” giving employees the autonomy to innovate.

Setting ambitious goals is, at the same time, one of OKRs most essential tenets and the least understood. Doerr introduces two OKR variants: Aspirational and Committed. Aspirational OKRs are higher-risk, and teams aim to reach only 60–70% of the targets in aggregate. On the other hand, Committed OKRs are more predictable, and teams aim to achieve them in full

One of the things that I love the most about the book is that it reinforces the importance of the OKR check-in, thus avoiding the “Set it and Forget it” mindset

Doerr explains that "OKRs are adaptable by nature," and that you can modify them during the quarter if needed.

Divorce compensation (both raises and bonuses) from OKRs. These should be two distinct conversations, with their own cadences and calendars.

Although the book mentions the need for cross-functional collaboration and the use of cross-team OKRs, in different sections it is apparently against the use of shared OKRs

Doerr’s examples do not focus on measuring what matters. Instead, they present OKR as a project management tool mostly used to track deliverables. Although Doerr quotes Marissa Mayer, (“It’s not a Key Result unless it has a number”) the majority of the examples included in the book fail to meet that simple test.

Of the 60 Key Results listed as examples, only nine measure outcomes

We have to be careful not to mix Objectives and Key Results. Objectives are qualitative themes that give purpose and meaning to that set of Key Results.

In the past months, I have been working on my upcoming book by Sense and Respond Press, titled Goals for Agile Organizations: Scaling OKR from Teams to the Enterprise.