Book Review and Summary: Measure What Matters (Using OKRs)

Feb 65 min read

Updated: Feb 6

U2 Bono sings new hit song "OKRs" to Google employees after reading John Doerr's book, Measure What Matters. — Bono sings U2's new hit song "OKRs" to Google employees after reading John Doerr's business book, Measure What Matters (as I imagined it to be).

I read this book when it was first published. At that time, I was advising a company whose operations were all over the place - quite a mess!. They were chaotic, undisciplined, and had no consistent way to tell if they were making progress on their goals (they weren't). Everyone spoke their own version of the same language which included more excuses and then answers.

This John Doerr book, Measure What Matters really influenced my thinking about how to build and scale businesses. The "wow" moment for me was understanding the power and use of OKRs. Not only did it help me with my chaotic client, I have used it ever since. The expression, "you can't manage what you can't measure" is a guiding management principle for a reason. The benefits are numerous. They elevate an organization's most important work. They focus effort and foster coordination - eliminating excuses and confusion. Along the way, OKRs enhance workplace satisfaction, improve communication and boost retention. Plus, anything that gets results for U2 and Google must be good.

Introduction: Why Goal-Setting Matters

Imagine running a business without clear goals. Just moving forward without direction, hoping for the best. That’s how many companies struggle, wasting time and resources. In Measure What Matters, John Doerr introduces OKRs (Objectives and Key Results), a proven goal-setting framework that has helped companies like Google, Intel, and YouTube achieve massive success.

If you’re an entrepreneur, business leader, or manager looking for a structured way to set and track goals, this book is a must-read. In this post, we’ll break down the key insights from Measure What Matters, explain how OKRs work, and show you how to apply them in your business.

What Are OKRs - How They Can Transform Your Business?

OKRs are a simple yet powerful goal-setting system that consists of:

Objectives – What you want to achieve. Objectives should be clear, ambitious, and inspiring. hey should be written down.
Key Results – How you’ll measure progress toward that objective. These should be specific, time-bound, and quantifiable. They should be periodically checked.

Examples of OKRs in Action

Let’s say your company wants to improve customer satisfaction:

Objective: Enhance customer experience on our e-commerce platform.

Key Results:

Reduce customer service response time from 12 hours to 3 hours.
Increase customer satisfaction score from 75% to 90%.
Lower product return rates from 8% to 5%.

By clearly defining objectives and measurable key results, your team stays focused and aligned on what success looks like.

The Power of Focus: Why OKRs Work

One of the biggest takeaways from Measure What Matters is the importance of focus. Businesses often fail because they chase too many goals at once. OKRs force companies to prioritize what truly matters.

John Doerr illustrates this with Google’s early days, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin needed a way to scale their company. By implementing OKRs, they could focus on core objectives like improving search performance and expanding their infrastructure, leading to the company's rapid growth.

How OKRs Improve Team Alignment

One common challenge businesses face is misalignment between departments. OKRs solve this by ensuring that everyone in the organization is working toward a shared vision.

For example, if a company’s high-level goal is to become the most customer-friendly bank, different departments can set their own OKRs:

Customer Support Team: Reduce average complaint resolution time.
Product Development Team: Improve the mobile banking app UX.
Marketing Team: Launch a new customer loyalty program.

These are great objectives, but are missing the key result as written above. John Doerr recalls in the book, that prize pupil Marissa Mayer would say, “It's not a key result unless it has a number.” An OKR must include both parts - "the objective" and the "the key result(s)". Here are the revised OKRs with both parts:

Customer Support Team: Reduce average complaint resolution time from 8 minutes, to 5 minutes.
Product Development Team: Improve the mobile banking app UX by decreasing graphics load time by 50%.
Marketing Team: Launch a new customer loyalty program by April 1st.

By making OKRs transparent across the organization, everyone sees how their work contributes to larger business goals.

Stretch Goals: Pushing Beyond Comfort Zones

A key insight from Measure What Matters is the concept of stretch goals—ambitious targets that push companies beyond their comfort zones.

Take Google’s self-driving car project as an example. When they set out to develop autonomous vehicles, many thought it was impossible. However, by setting bold OKRs, they made steady progress, leading to the launch of Waymo, now one of the top self-driving car companies.

The lesson? Setting ambitious goals encourages innovation and rapid progress.

Adaptability: Why OKRs Work in Fast-Changing Environments

Unlike rigid annual business goals, OKRs are usually set on a quarterly basis, making them adaptable to changing circumstances.

A great example is how companies shifted foicus and adjusted their OKRs during the COVID-19 pandemic:

Shifted focus to remote work solutions.
Increased digital transformation efforts.
Prioritized customer support for pandemic-related issues.

This flexibility makes OKRs especially useful for startups, small and mid-size businesses, SaaS companies, and fast-growing businesses.

Real-World Examples of OKRs in Action

Doerr shares multiple case studies where OKRs drove business success:

Google’s Explosive Growth

Google adopted OKRs in its early years, which helped the company stay focused on search performance, user experience, and scaling operations. Today, Google remains a prime example of how goal-setting frameworks fuel success.

Intel’s Business Transformation

OKRs originated from Intel’s turnaround strategy under Andy Grove, where they helped shift the company from memory chips to microprocessors, making Intel a global leader in tech.

YouTube’s Billion-Hour Goal

In 2016, YouTube set an ambitious OKR: reach one billion hours of video watch time per day. This forced the company to optimize its recommendation algorithm, leading to increased user engagement and platform dominance.

Using OKRs in Your Own Business

OKRs aren’t just for billion-dollar companies, they work for startups, small and mid-size businesses, and even personal goal-setting.

Steps to Implement OKRs:

Define Clear Objectives: Identify what you want to achieve.
Set Measurable Key Results: Choose 3-5 key results per objective. This can often be a collaborative process which builds buy-in, and reinforces the need for the objectives to be met.
Align Teams Around Common Goals: Make OKRs visible to everyone. Raise awareness and reinforce where you can.
Track Progress Regularly: Use OKR software, simple tracking sheets, or whatever will work best in your environment.
Review & Adjust Each Quarter: Adapt based on performance and external changes.

Beyond Business: OKRs for Nonprofits and Personal Goals

OKRs aren’t just for corporations. Bono, the U2 frontman, used OKRs to drive his global campaign against poverty and AIDS, securing funding for medical aid worldwide.

Even on a personal level, OKRs can help you achieve ambitious goals like:

Writing a Book: Complete first draft by June 1st by writing 10,000 words per day.
Improving Health: Lose 10 pounds by August 15th by exercising 5 days per week for 30 minutes each day.

Final Thoughts: Why You Should Start Using OKRs Today

Measure What Matters is simple and it works! It proves that goal-setting isn’t just about dreaming big, it’s about creating a structured, measurable plan for success.

The great baseball philosopher Yogi Berra is credited with once saying:

"If you don't know where you're going, you might end up someplace else"

Well said Yogi! If you’re looking to:

Get your business to where it needs to be.
Improve business efficiency,
Align your team around clear objectives,
Measure progress effectively,

then OKRs are the framework you need, especially if you are 5 runs down and you need to mount a comeback.