This playbook, featured on John Doerr’s WhatMatters.com, is drawn from internal Google sources and reprinted with their permission. As the introduction says, ‘No one has more collective experience in implementing OKRs than Google.’

‍
The Guide explores some of the most common OKR-writing mistakes. One is writing ‘Low Value Objectives’ (also called ‘Who Cares? OKRs) – objectives that, if achieved, wouldn’t actually make a difference to the business. Others include ‘Business as Usual OKRs’, ‘Sandbagging’ (meeting all OKRs because teams are hoarding resources or are not fully stretched) and having insufficient key results to ensure the objective is delivered – it is easy to write KRs that are ‘necessary but not sufficient’ to achieve the objective.

‍
The guide distinguishes between committed and aspirational OKRs. Google separates its undisputed goals from those that reflect how the company would like the world to look, even if they don’t know how to get there are whether there are sufficient resources available. The expected score for a committed OKR is a 1.0 – because the company will ‘adjust schedules and resources’ if necessary, to achieve them – while the expected score for an aspirational OKR is 0.7.

‍
Google has been using OKRs since venture capitalist John Doerr introduced them to the young company in 1999. Your own approach to OKRs may well be different, but it’s very helpful to get a glimpse at the methodologies the tech giant has developed over the years and the pitfalls they’ve encountered along the way. There is some Google jargon; the KR ‘Double fleet-wide Y by launching X to 90+ percent of borg cells’ is a personal favourite.

‍