Let me give you some backstory. This event took place in late 1999, in Google’s office, before Google was the tech giant it is today.

And to clarify what I mean by “tech giant” let’s look at actual numbers. 

Google has an annual revenue of over $142 billion, with a company valuation of $776 billion.

How did Google go from zero,
to a $776 billion company in twenty years?
 

Three letters: OKR and it started in 1999.

OKR is short for Objectives and Key Results. It is a method of setting specific goals with measurable results tied to that goal. 

John Doerr, author of Measure What Matters, shared the concept of OKRs with Google founders and their small team in late 1999. Since then, the company has used it as a bedrock for managing their phenomenal growth.

Here’s how John defines OKR:

"A management methodology that helps to ensure that the company focuses efforts on the same important issues throughout the organization. An OBJECTIVE, I explained, is simply WHAT is to be achieved, no more and no less. By definition, objectives are significant, concrete, action oriented, and (ideally) inspirational. When properly designed and deployed, they’re a vaccine against fuzzy thinking—and fuzzy execution. KEY RESULTS benchmark and monitor HOW we get to the objective. Effective KRs are specific and time-bound, aggressive yet realistic. Most of all, they are measurable and verifiable."

— Excerpt from Measure What Matters by John Doerr.  

How can you apply this
in your business?

Firstly, set a definite specific Objective. For example, sell 10 new clients next month. 

Now, what key results are need to achieve that? Working backwards from the sales we get:

1. 30 sales appointments scheduled within the next 6 weeks.

2. 50 new leads this month.

3. Weekly promotion and advertising. 

1 to 3 are the Key Results needed to get the sales. If 3 is not done, 2 and 1 won’t happen. 

Using envisage, you can track the Key Results everyday and make sure you are on track. 

It doesn’t matter what size company you are, the sooner you start using OKRs to monitor your business progress, the sooner you’ll get more done. 

John Doerr says it best:

“Ideas are easy. Execution is everything.”

- John Doerr 

And with envisage, you can see exactly what is executed.

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