When you run a business, being merely successful is not enough. To keep up with new demands, to face new competitors, you need to go beyond your original ambitions — and you need to do so constantly. It’s a rat race, and you either face the challenge and win or fall by the wayside.
The problem is, the way most people run businesses does not really fit into these expectations. We strive to achieve objectives that won’t help us succeed, we set vague goals nobody knows how to reach, and we really don’t like to think on our feet when the plan goes off the rails. Hence, the OKR method — and in this article we will give you a list of books that will help you understand it.
NOTE: If you don’t know what OKRs are or how they work — refer to the Oboard OKR Guide for a quick primer, then come back here!
How Do OKRs Benefit a Company?
OKRs—Objectives and Key Results—were designed by Andy Grove, a top Intel manager. Later, Grove’s protege John Doerr perfected them across Silicon Valley companies, including Google.
OKRs represent a new goal-setting framework and a new paradigm of management, one that is far more flexible and adaptable than traditional methodologies. To showcase just how powerful it is, check this out — switching to OKRs quadrupled Intel’s revenue in the 1990s.
OKRs are successful because the methodology rejects traditional goal-setting models. Instead, it goes for the jugular. OKRs make you stop lying to yourself and start expressing all your goals and milestones as hard numbers. This makes many managers uncomfortable and leads them to rethink their lives. It also leads to many benefits.
- Alignment & Clarity. OKRs ensure everyone in the company is working towards the same overarching goals. They also show how exactly these goals should be achieved.
- Increase Transparency. OKRs are usually shared across the organization. They make it clear what everyone is working towards.
- Enhanced Accountability. OKRs show who is responsible for each key result. They hold individuals and teams accountable.
- Agility and adaptability. OKRs are set for short periods (generally quarters), allowing companies to adapt quickly to business changes.
If you want to have them in your company — read on!
Top OKR Books You Need to Read
There are a lot of OKR (Objective and Key Results) books and there probably will be even more. The methodology is flexible and constantly evolving — just like it wants you to evolve. So, there are always new approaches — some work better in certain cases and for certain companies, others provide a different outlook on the system in general.
For this guide, we decided to ignore them — maybe if there’s enough interest, they will show up in a sequel. Instead, we give you the basics of the OKR framework and enough practical experience to learn how to apply it in any context.
Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs
Author: John Doerr
Release year: 2017
“We must realize—and act on the realization—that if we try to focus on everything, we focus on nothing.”
Measure What Matters is the cornerstone of OKRs. Yes, the framework was made in the late 1980s. It has been in use across Silicon Valley since the early 1990s. However, the actual OKR explosion across all industries only began after the release of this book.
In this OKR book, Doerr shares case studies from teams at Google, the Bill Gates Foundation, and others. He explains the method’s origin and how it can help all kinds of organizations. Then, once he has established the benefits and shown several practical cases, Doerr pivots the book into one of the comprehensive guides to the OKR theory.
By the end of the book, you’ll understand how and why each of the OKR tenets was developed, and how they work together in the framework. You will also learn how Doerr views the future of management in general. For example, he believes that truly modern management should adopt CFRs (Conversations, Feedback, Recognition) to become more effective and continually performant.
Overall, this book is a blast and a great way not only to learn OKRs, but to peek into John Doerr’s head and see how he sees the world. Highly recommended.
Radical Focus: Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results
Author: Christina Wodtke
Release year: 2021
“A mission keeps you on the rails. The OKRs provide focus and milestones. Using OKRs without a mission is like using jet fuel without a jet.”
In Radical Focus, Wodtke uses an unusual storytelling technique. She weaves the journey of a fictional startup to show how to use OKRs in the real world. This approach not only makes the concepts more relatable but also demonstrates how OKRs can drive significant improvements in focus, alignment, and performance. Sadly, it is also the book’s greatest weakness and will either make or break it for you.
Wodtke’s creative writing feels heavily influenced by mass-market romance novels. “Jack grimaced ruefully” is an actual sentence. In fact, if the Radical Focus summary included a hunky werewolf, he would feel right at home in the first two acts of the book. The writing is never bad — and depending on your literary tastes, it might even be engaging — but this is not the style most people expect from an OKR book. Or literally any other book on business frameworks.
However, the actual story Christina is telling here is important. It is through the struggles of this fictional start-up that she showcases the issues and pitfalls of the OKR adoption. Seriously, this book is a great resource for those who wish to learn from the mistakes of others, and you should give it a read.
Especially since the last third of the Radical Focus book is pure gold. After establishing the basic concepts through the narrative, Wodtke provides a detailed guide on the OKR framework. She complements Doerr’s old methods with more modern ones. And with the context she established in the first two acts, her suggestions become much easier to understand and apply in real-world situations.
Despite the controversial first and second acts, Radical Focus is an essential book on OKRs. We highly recommend it, and our OKR Consulting team considers it among the best.
Objectives and Key Results: Driving Focus, Alignment, and Engagement with OKRs
Authors: Paul Niven and Ben Lamorte
Release year: 2016
This book was designed to help organizations of all sizes harness the power of OKRs to drive performance and achieve ambitious goals. In it, Niven and Lamorte — both experts in performance management — provide a detailed roadmap for successful OKR adoption.
The writers break down the OKR adoption process into manageable steps, making it accessible for both newcomers and experienced practitioners. They also address common challenges and pitfalls that organizations may encounter when implementing OKRs. Frankly speaking, it is the best possible OKR guide… written before 2017. Before Doerr changed the game once and for all with Measure What Matters.
However, the best part of the book — case studies from Niven’s and Lamorte’s personal experiences — remains relevant. So, this is the book to get if you want many realistic OKR adoption stories, not idealized ones. Sure, it’s a bit dated now, and the methodology is not as robust as in the post-Measure What Matters world, but the practical experience this OKR book provides is priceless.
Just make sure you read Measure What Matters or Radical Focus first. They do theory much, much better.
Succeeding with OKRs in Agile: How to Create & Deliver Objectives & Key Results for Teams
Autor: Alan Kelly
Release Year: 2021
Succeeding with OKRs in Agile by Allan Kelly is a practical guide that bridges the gap between two powerful methodologies: OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) and Agile. Kelly is a seasoned Agile coach and consultant and he provides you a detailed plan for adding OKRs to Agile, weaving the frameworks together. This new approach helps teams deliver more value and have a better understanding of their strategic goals.
The book’s core strength lies in its detailed approach to integrating OKRs within Agile frameworks. Kelly explains how to achieve the synergy between Agile’s flexibility and iterative nature and OKR’s structured goal-setting process. He also provides practical advice on how to integrate OKRs into these existing Agile ceremonies to enhance team performance and goal alignment.
Kelly also advocates for a holistic approach that fosters transparency, collaboration, and a relentless focus on delivering value. His approach positions OKRs as a powerful tool for Agile teams to achieve strategic alignment and operational excellence.
And now that I’ve buttered Alan up, let’s talk about the downsides. This book is strictly written for those who already know what OKRs are. While Kelly does a half-hearted attempt at explaining the basics, it won’t be enough for complete newbs. Mind you, none of this is deal-breaking — the actually relevant parts are well-written and deserve every commendation. Just set your expectations accordingly.
Overall, if you plan to use OKRs in an Agile team — you need to read this. Just don’t make it your very first OKR book.
High Output Management
Author: Andy Grove
Release year: 1983
“The absolute truth is that if you don’t know what you want, you won’t get it.”
Andy Grove is the actual father of OKRs — but this isn’t really an OKR libro. Grove’s book is not just about theoretical concepts; it is a hands-on guide to effective management practices. His unique perspective, shaped by years of experience in the fast-paced tech industry, remains relevant 40 years after its release.
The core theme of the book is maximizing output. Grove emphasizes that a manager’s primary responsibility is to increase the productivity of their team. He provides tools and techniques to measure and enhance output, as well as manufacturing analogies. Seriously, there’s a lot of manufacturing analogies. You can tell where the majority of Grove’s experience comes from. For instance, he likens a manager’s role to that of an assembly line supervisor.
The relevant — for us — part is the MBOs, or Management by Objectives. It is an older framework, developed by Peter Drucker in the 1950s, and Grove is a strong advocate for it. Throughout the book, he explains how setting clear objectives and measuring performance against them can drive organizational success.
FUN FACT: Grove began combining MBO practices with his own insight while writing High Output Management. This would result in the creation of the Andy Grove OKR framework.
If you like reading books by dead people who changed the world or if you want a glimpse into how exactly OKRs came to be, High Output Management is solid. It is not essential, but it will give you a lot of context — and context is king.
How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business
Author: Douglas W. Hubbard
Release year: 1985
“A measurement is a set of observations that reduce uncertainty where the result is expressed as a quantity.”
How to Measure Anything is what happens when academics try to popularize a concept. In this book, Hubbard — the founder of Applied Information Economics — explains how to use decision theory and risk analysis to understand the impact of different decisions on your operations. He provides a compelling framework for quantifying the value of intangibles, making it an invaluable resource for decision-makers across various fields.
How to Measure Anything is also as dense as a brick. Even as a semi-scientific publication meant for corporate executives, this book is not a light read. But the information Hubbard is trying to get to you is worth struggling through.
Throughout the book, Hubbard argues that anything can be measured, and he provides robust arguments and methodologies to support this claim. He emphasizes that the perceived difficulty in measuring something often stems from a lack of understanding rather than an inherent impossibility. To prove this, Hubbard uses a range of practical techniques for measuring intangibles — from surveys and statistical analysis to Monte Carlo simulations and Bayesian methods.
The book is rich with real-world examples and case studies that illustrate how the proposed measurement techniques can be applied in various industries. And most importantly, Hubbard emphasizes the importance of measurement in the decision-making process.
How to Measure Anything is not an OKR book — but it is an amazing companion to the OKR framework. So while Hubbard’s work is non-essential, it comes highly recommended as long as you can push yourself through the near-academic prose.
Value Planning
Author: Tom Glib
Writer’s Store (non-affiliate)
Value Planning is not an OKR eBook and is completely out of the left field on this list. Written by Tom Glib, the founder of the consulting company Glib International, it talks about planning — but not in the context of OKRs. In it, Tom brings his expertise to bear, offering a robust framework for value-driven planning and management.
The cornerstone of Tom’s approach is Value Decision Tables, a technique for creating test cases by organizing combinations of input conditions and corresponding output results using decision tables. Decision tables help organize complex decision logic. It is not an easy concept, but it makes sense once you understand what he is going for.
Like Grove in his days, Tom cut his teeth on IT product development — only instead of hardware, he comes from software development. Since IT — in any sector — is very turbulent, Tom had to come up with a decision-making process that would be adaptable and fast. Hence, he took the Testing Decision Tables used in software development and applied them to goal-setting.
Gilb advocates for a holistic approach to planning. He encourages readers to consider the entire system and its interdependencies, ensuring that changes in one area do not negatively impact another. He argues that this comprehensive perspective helps create more resilient and practical plans.
Once again, this is not a book about OKRs — but it can help you understand why we need OKRs and what other approaches are out there. You might even end up liking Value Decision Tables more than Grove and Doerr’s approach.
Bonus: Who Does What By How Much?
Authors: Jeff Gothelf & Josh Seiden
Release year: 2024
“There are a lot of OKR books written for executives and those in tech. This book purposefully broadens the scope to speak to all employees in all roles and all industries.”
This is the book to watch—even if it is not out yet. Both Jeff and Josh are exceptional OKR experts, and in this one, they attempt to do something new. They want to explain how OKRs affect not just top management but also the boots-on-the-ground employees in different sectors.
So, instead of creating a manual on how to force OKRs from the top down, Josh and Jeff created a manifesto on why every employee should want to implement OKRs by themselves. It is a practical guide for employees at all levels to learn how to put customers at the center, navigate uncertainty, and succeed with OKRs. And we can’t wait to read it.
Conclusion
In conclusion, mastering OKRs can be a game-changer for your business, and the highlighted books in this article offer a full understanding of the OKR framework should put you well on track. They cover the framework in its entirety — origins, theory, practical uses, and case studies.
As you delve into these books, remember that the journey to mastering OKRs is ongoing. The methodology is flexible and evolves with your business needs, allowing you to experiment and find the best approach for your team. Embrace the learning process, and don’t be afraid to make adjustments along the way.
And if you need a trustworthy compass on this journey, check out the OKR Board for Jira! It is a powerful tool that keeps your OKRs in check and automatically tracks your progress toward Objectives using Jira task statuses. If you want to start your OKR journey right — you won’t find a better option!
