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Measure What Matters
by
The revolutionary movement behind the explosive growth of Intel, Google, Amazon and Uber.
With a foreword by Larry Page, and contributions from Bono and Bill Gates.
Measure What Matters is about using Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), a revolutionary approach to goal-setting, to make tough choices in business.
In 1999, legendary venture capitalist John Doerr i
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Kindle Edition, 320 pages
Published
April 24th 2018
by Penguin
(first published September 5th 2017)
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Popular Answered Questions
Dimitri Kurashvili
Absolutely. You can use it even for yourself to be clear about your own goals with yourself.
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This book is bad.
The first 18% of the book is simply silicon valley hero worshipping, basically the author bragging about all the cool people he has worked with and why they are so important and genius and surely everything that follows must be of importance because he has worked with important people.
This book is nothing more than a bunch of case studies. As always with these case studies, they are extremely specific to the companies under observation and you will not learn anything from this t ...more
The first 18% of the book is simply silicon valley hero worshipping, basically the author bragging about all the cool people he has worked with and why they are so important and genius and surely everything that follows must be of importance because he has worked with important people.
This book is nothing more than a bunch of case studies. As always with these case studies, they are extremely specific to the companies under observation and you will not learn anything from this t ...more

Did I learn how to set OKRs? No.
Did I find out what's the difference between Os and KRs when you choose them? No.
Do I know how to align departments with non-trivial objectives? No.
Did I understand what to do when things go wrong? No.
Do I feel confident about doing OKRs now? No.
Am I inspired about OKRs more than I was when I started the book? No.
Did I at least heard about how to measure what matters? No.
Did I learn anything at all from this book?! Hm... I heard empty case studies where people, mo ...more
Did I find out what's the difference between Os and KRs when you choose them? No.
Do I know how to align departments with non-trivial objectives? No.
Did I understand what to do when things go wrong? No.
Do I feel confident about doing OKRs now? No.
Am I inspired about OKRs more than I was when I started the book? No.
Did I at least heard about how to measure what matters? No.
Did I learn anything at all from this book?! Hm... I heard empty case studies where people, mo ...more

I've worked on the Google campus for 11 years, and have seen first-hand the impact OKRs have had on the company. John Doerr is single-handedly responsible for bringing OKRs to Google. He saw before anyone else the transformative power Andy Grove's system from Intel could have at Google, and this book is a great window into those early days. John does a great job showing how that early presentation at Google set the stage for so much of the growth and success that came later.
Some of the best part ...more
Some of the best part ...more

This book should've been a long blog post. At its core, it contains valuable advice about the power of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) as a mechanism to help get everyone in a company moving in the same direction. Unfortunately, this nugget of wisdom is wrapped in loads of generic business book jargon, scattered through chapters that seem to be organized randomly, and padded out with lots of case studies, which while sometimes interesting, are not terribly useful, and often written in an unnat
...more

Very disappointing that someone like John Doerr wrote such a shallow book.
*It's extremely vague. Never gotten into the details of OKR or the shortcomings of this goal setting system. The most detail this book offered is the football analogy
*90% of this book is brief case studies
*Tons of plugs into companies Kleiner Perkins invested
*Lots of reference to Intel and Andy Grove so if you are looking for solid mgmt advise read "High Output Management" instead ...more
*It's extremely vague. Never gotten into the details of OKR or the shortcomings of this goal setting system. The most detail this book offered is the football analogy
*90% of this book is brief case studies
*Tons of plugs into companies Kleiner Perkins invested
*Lots of reference to Intel and Andy Grove so if you are looking for solid mgmt advise read "High Output Management" instead ...more

In 1999, John Doerr got his VC firm Kleiner Perkins to invest $11.8 million for 12% of the infant Google Corp. Current market cap (Dec 2018) for Google is around $743 billion, so Kleiner Perkins' 12% would be worth (say) $89 billion. Doerr himself has a personal net worth of around $7 billion. So, if he's writing a book on how to achieve those sorts of results, he has earned our respectful attention. Plus the book is clearly written, and short. There are caveats, as you can see in nearby reviews
...more

I am a big proponent of written goals with systematic follow-ups. Otherwise, they are just the dreams in the sky, which might accidentally realize, but, most often, they will not. John Doerr presents his approach to goal-setting and ways for following them up. His system is called Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).
The author’s system is solid and, apparently, has been implemented with great success at several outstanding companies like Google.
I can’t agree with the proclamation that the method ...more
The author’s system is solid and, apparently, has been implemented with great success at several outstanding companies like Google.
I can’t agree with the proclamation that the method ...more

As an ex-Googler, I’m quite familiar with OKRs -
They are a key management tool in the company. While they sometime frustrate you, they are your key northstar. Having left a few years ago, i do have to say i miss them, and I encourage all companies and founders to instill them.
John’s book is a great intro to the OKR system, used by all leading companies worldwide. It provides clear examples and use cases. If you’re a founder, this should be a new position on your must read list.
They are a key management tool in the company. While they sometime frustrate you, they are your key northstar. Having left a few years ago, i do have to say i miss them, and I encourage all companies and founders to instill them.
John’s book is a great intro to the OKR system, used by all leading companies worldwide. It provides clear examples and use cases. If you’re a founder, this should be a new position on your must read list.

I hate to grade this kind of books. Any grade from 2 to 5 would be explainable.
There is a clear message so simple you can't miss it...
'The OKRs system is better than goals because goals can measure anything and everything, and OKR's focus on measuring what matters.'
...and then there are 20 examples of how it works.
For me, this book could be a blog post. I don't need quotes from Bono to believe this system works, but when I think more about it, I'd probably forget OKR's and just move one forgett ...more
There is a clear message so simple you can't miss it...
'The OKRs system is better than goals because goals can measure anything and everything, and OKR's focus on measuring what matters.'
...and then there are 20 examples of how it works.
For me, this book could be a blog post. I don't need quotes from Bono to believe this system works, but when I think more about it, I'd probably forget OKR's and just move one forgett ...more

Kleiner Perkins is a, not to say the VC brand name – but there is also Sequoia. When their partners write something, it is often worth reading. And this month two of them publish a book! I begin here with John Doerr and his Measure What Matters - www.whatmatters.com (though this is the paperback publication – the hardcover was published in 2017). In my next review I will write about Komisar’s Straight Talk for Startups
Ideas are Easy. Implementation is Everything.
Doerr is a Silicon Valley legend. ...more
Ideas are Easy. Implementation is Everything.
Doerr is a Silicon Valley legend. ...more

I read a lot of these kind of books because I'm assuming that they'll be read by someone in the senior leadership of my company and then I'll need to respond to the new exciting fad they want to have the company embrace without critical thinking.
This book demonstrated without fail that Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) can produce microprocessors, save people from malaria and HIV/AIDS and deliver HOT pizzas made by robots!
If I bought into the silicon valley/startup hero worship echo chamber that ...more
This book demonstrated without fail that Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) can produce microprocessors, save people from malaria and HIV/AIDS and deliver HOT pizzas made by robots!
If I bought into the silicon valley/startup hero worship echo chamber that ...more

The right book at the right time for me. The central premise (backed up by numerous studies) is that hard goals drive performance more than easy or no goals. If the vectors or where people are going point in different directions, they add up to zero. But if you get everybody pointing in the same direction, you maximize the results. OKRs are a good way to get there, and the book goes into numerous examples. Don't get too focused on the results, or you end up placing the gas tank six inches from t
...more

Excellent read on implementing OKRs by the master of them. The google/intel/bono case studies are all detailed and provide a lot of examples on how you can implement these in your own organizations. John Doerr built on the method he learnt at Intel under the great Andy Grove and then helped more than 50 companies implement those OKRs with a lot of success. The system obviously works but the true challenge is influencing the leadership in organization to follow such a methodical approach. This bo
...more

If we try to focus on everything, we focus on nothing.
OKRs, as a tool, seems solid.
The book itself is just ok. It's filled with a collection of stories of companies using OKRs. While some stories were fun to read, they fail to convince that OKRs were the catalyst for success. ...more
OKRs, as a tool, seems solid.
The book itself is just ok. It's filled with a collection of stories of companies using OKRs. While some stories were fun to read, they fail to convince that OKRs were the catalyst for success. ...more

Measure What Matters, written by John Doerr, a successful investor and a venture capitalist, provides us with strategic thinking on how to how to set goals effectively and measure what really matters.
I think, the best recommendation I could put here are words of Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, who once said that he wished he had this book 20 years ago when they founded Google.
The book focuses on OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) a goal system used by Google, Intel, Oracle, LinkedIn, Sears a ...more
I think, the best recommendation I could put here are words of Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, who once said that he wished he had this book 20 years ago when they founded Google.
The book focuses on OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) a goal system used by Google, Intel, Oracle, LinkedIn, Sears a ...more

The book about OKR (objectives - key results) goals management system invented by Peter Drucker and popularized by long time Intel CEO Andy Groove. Though the OKR system is well known now (see www.withgoogle.com) but this book provides the instruction and the details and nuances on the proper implementation along with interviews from managers and founders who are using OKR for the projects, including Bill Gates (Gates Foundation), Bono (U2), Sundar Pichai (Alphabet), Susan Wojcicki (YouTube) and
...more

I truly don't get the negative reviews. I suspect some of them must have read a different book than I did. Anyway, this is a solid introduction to OKRs. If you want to learn how various companies have put them into practice, you'll get that and more. The resources at the end are especially helpful and I suspect I'll be referring to them repeatedly.
...more

I've always been keenly interested in figuring out how to unlock high performance in an organization. Traditional models like MBO and the Balanced Scorecard have survived so far, but in the fast-changing digital age with shorter business cycles, a new approach is needed.
And that's where OKRs are like a breath of fresh air. Cut the crap. Stop creating complex goal sheets that no one has the time or patience to fill and review. Keep it simple, and focus only on the top priorities for your business ...more
And that's where OKRs are like a breath of fresh air. Cut the crap. Stop creating complex goal sheets that no one has the time or patience to fill and review. Keep it simple, and focus only on the top priorities for your business ...more

I give this book 3.5 stars. The title suggests that it will guide you in defining objectives and key results. However, it's more of a memoir of how this method had worked for the many companies that the author was involved with (hence, the negative reviews for self-aggrandizing). The few important lessons from the book are select 3-5 objectives every quarter (specifically 'what' has to happen to increase business value), identify the key results needed ('how' to reach the goal - what are the inc
...more

There's nothing wrong with a goal-setting model, and John Doerr gives a pretty good one. I've seen a lot of chatter on here about how people don't understand how to set OKRs still. That surprises me. Doerr sets out a good playbook to do it:
- Set a goal
- Establish measurable, achievable, challenging metrics that, if met, would mean great strides to achieving that goal
- Have goals that balance themselves (e.g. don't just set growth without quality goals).
- Make goals and metrics transparent + pub ...more
- Set a goal
- Establish measurable, achievable, challenging metrics that, if met, would mean great strides to achieving that goal
- Have goals that balance themselves (e.g. don't just set growth without quality goals).
- Make goals and metrics transparent + pub ...more

this book is all about OKRs and how they have been critical to success of some tech giants, and most of it's chapters have been written by founders of companies that john doerr is an investor. while this book has some interesting stories, it could have been way shorter than this. reading it book is like having 20 people to a seminar all repeating "brushing your teeth is good for you" without adding any more information than the previous person. by the way, using OKRs is good for you :)
...more

Dear past, present and future manager: please read this book. If you can, get a hard copy. Unless listening is the only way you will read it[1]. In particular, please pay attention to Chapters 15 and 17 about 1:1s. These are the best parts of the book. I wish I had read these pages when I was a manager, and I'll be referring to them again in the future.
[1]: Yes, I listened to it and just bought the hardcover version so I did put my money where my mouth is thankyouverymuch. ...more
[1]: Yes, I listened to it and just bought the hardcover version so I did put my money where my mouth is thankyouverymuch. ...more

I read this in two sittings as it was easy and enjoyable to read. Hardly groundbreaking stuff but a good reminder of the power of structured goals as well as the history of OKRs. The best part are the case studies/stories interwoven throughout the book. Useful resource section at the end too to help you set your own OKRs.

I wish I had read this book years ago. If you have ever heard of the goal setting system called SMART Goals, this system of OKRs beats it out like a long shot.
OKRs (Objective Key Results) may be called a tool, or a protocol, or a process. But the authors image of choice is a launchpad, a point of liftoff for the next wave of entrepreneur and intrapreneurs.
The Four Superpowers of OKRs:
1. Focus and commit to priorities
2. Align and connect for teamwork
3. Track for accountability
4. Stretch for amazi ...more
OKRs (Objective Key Results) may be called a tool, or a protocol, or a process. But the authors image of choice is a launchpad, a point of liftoff for the next wave of entrepreneur and intrapreneurs.
The Four Superpowers of OKRs:
1. Focus and commit to priorities
2. Align and connect for teamwork
3. Track for accountability
4. Stretch for amazi ...more

This book is super insightful and I enjoyed reading it very much. I read this book primarily because I wanted to educate myself on this framework since at the company I work for we’re in the process of implementing OKRs. I wasn’t expecting this book to be so enjoyable, though.
All the stories from many different companies that have implemented OKRs as well have enriched this book to no end. Furthermore, this book is also about culture, about leaders and about leading with purpose, so it ended up ...more
All the stories from many different companies that have implemented OKRs as well have enriched this book to no end. Furthermore, this book is also about culture, about leaders and about leading with purpose, so it ended up ...more
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“Bad companies,” Andy wrote, “are destroyed by crisis. Good companies survive them. Great companies are improved by them.”
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“Ideas are easy. Execution is everything.”
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