The OKR history began in the 1970s at Intel with Andy Grove, who reinvented goal-setting and focused it on measurable objectives. John Doerr, Grove’s apprentice, expanded OKRs’ reach beyond Intel, introducing them to Google in 1999. Throughout the 2000s, OKRs gained traction within the tech industry, with major companies like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Uber implementing the framework. The methodology became widely recognized by 2012, further popularized by John Doerr’s “Measure What Matters” and Rick Klau’s YouTube workshop. Notably, OKRs proved to be a critical tool in the shift towards remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrating their adaptability and relevance in the face of unprecedented challenges.
The KPI history began earlier, with the first concepts laid down in the 1870s during the industrial efficiency movement. In the early XX century, Frederick W. Taylor and Peter Drucker updated and popularized these concepts. The advancement of computer technology in the 1980s and digital analytics in the 2000s facilitated the evolution and adoption of KPIs, culminating in enhanced organizational decision-making through big data and advanced analytics by 2010. The rise of mobile analytics and cloud computing in 2015 made it easier to keep track of work performance, especially when the COVID-19 pandemic shifted the entire world to working from home.
