Measure What Matters by John Doerr by Nirmal Deol @ os.me

Measure what matters from John Doerr Revolves around the concept of management practices used by Google and many others to drive continuous growth. It introduces a business philosophy

OKR Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

Management Technique Track progress Vs plan

Objectives are “Whats”

. Express goals and intents

. Aggressive yet realistic

. The precise value associated with Them

. Unambiguous, clear for people working on them

KR-Key results are the “Hows.”

. Measurable milestones

. Define outcomes

. Include evidence of completion

OKR is team-oriented. Each team should have defined OKR even in a multi-team situation.

OKR is graded Based on value from 0.0 to 1.0

0.0-0.3 is Red

0.4-0.6 is Yellow

0.7-1.0 is Green

Committed Vs Aspiration OKRs

Committed- Expected score is 1.0. Schedule And Resources required can be adjusted.

Aspiration- Where there is no clear idea of the objective. Expected Average score is 0.7.

Challenges Or Traps

. Marking committed OKR as Aspirational or Vice verse (Created

problems like non-serious attitude or defensive attitude respectively)

. Business as usual OKRs (Based on teams beliefs rather then what

customer wants)

. Timid aspirational OKRs

. Sandbagging – Teams should use resources as required and do not

accumulate resources.

. Low-value objectives – Assign proper value-based OKRs

Litmus Tests

. If written down in 5 mins, maybe not good enough.

. The objective does not fit in one line, maybe not crisp enough.

. Use real date not the last day of the quarter.

. There must be a way to measure or definition of done.

. Metrics should be unambiguous.

. Larger groups make OKRs hierarchical – High level for the entire team,

granular ones to sub steams.

OKRs Cycle

6 weeks before Quarter 1- brainstorm Annual and Q1 OKRs.

2 Weeks before Q1 – Communicate Company wide Yearly and Q1 OKRs

Day1- Communicate Team Q1 OKRs

First Week- Employees Share Q1 OKRs

Track Progress Through Quarter

4-6 weeks Before Q2-Brainstorm for Q2

Q1 End – Reflect and Score

Before Q2- Communicate Q2 OKRs

continue.

Performance reviews

Sum Total

Focus and Commit to priorities

Align and connect for Teamwork

Track for accountability

Stretch for Amazing

Personal Notes

In my professional opinion, OKRs cycle can be compared with modern Agile practices.

BRP- Big room Planning before Q1

BRP initiatives are selected by Squads(many teams together ) (or teams) leaders based on business value and priorities.

Before Q1- Work is divided into stories and sprints (smaller chunks of work) and prioritized.

Work progress with Priority and Retrospectives and reviews track issue and progress. Daily standups guard against lack of communication and create a support structure for the project.

Quarterly retrospectives track OKRs achievement or issues which initiate feedback loop to the higher chain of business.

Software’s like JIRRA , Trello, Monday, Visual studio Teams all used to be focused around software developments. Still, day by day, they are coming to the whole organization to track the progress of the organization in real-time even daily.John Doerr writes a lot more in the book, then just these terms and add many real-world examples from managing baseball teams to managing software companies and many more. I thought this content might be useful who need to read this book as part of the walk the dragon Program.

Peace