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 is revolutionary. It is based on a well-known goal setting philosophy which stresses on importance of defining a few, challenging, realistic, and measurable goals, which are subject for a continuous follow-up. That is what, basically, suggested through the OKR method.

More than half of the book are case studies with a lot of words which are quite tedious and seldom inspiring. The story often goes like this – we started a company, we implemented goal management system, we struggled with this and that, and whoops, now we are an extremely successful company. Anyway, the book was worth reading, since I found some for me new and excellent points about how to deal with stretched goals and some interesting angles on feedback management.