How Does Google Get Things Done?
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PRODUCTIVITY,GOOGLED � How does Google get things done? Google Search I'm Feeling Lucky "Ideas are easy. Execution is everything" WORDS / JOHN DOERR � On a fallday in 1999, in the heart of sound judgement, strong leadership, stood around the ping-pong table Silicon Valley, I arrived at a two-storey, or a creative workplace culture. But if (which doubled as their boardroom L-shaped structure offthe 101 freeway. those fundamentalsare in place, OKRs table), or sprawledon beanbag chairs, It was young Google's headquarters, can guide you to the mountaintop. dormitory-style. Myfirst Power Point and I'd come with a gift. Larry [PageJ and Sergey [BrinJ - slide definedOKRs: "A management Long beforeGmail or Android or with Marissa Mayer,Susan Wojcicki, methodology that helps to ensure that Chrome, Google brimmed with big Salar Kamangar, and 30 or so others, the company focusesefforts on the ideas. The founderswere quintessential pretty much the whole company at the same important issues throughout visionaries, with extreme entrepreneurial time - gathered to hear me out. They the organisation." ➔ energy. Whatthey lacked was management experience.For Google to havereal impact, or even to reach lift-off,they would haveto learnto make tough choices and keep their team on track. Given their healthy appetite forrisk, they'dneed to pull the plug on losers - to failfast. Not least, they would need timely, relevant data. To track their progress. To measure what mattered. And so: on that balmyday in Mountain View, I came with my present forGoogle, a sharp-edged tool forworld-class execution. I'd firstused it in the 1970s as an engineer at Intel, where AndyGrove, the greatest manager of his or any era, ran the best-run company I had ever seen. The practice that moulded me at Intel still inspires me today - it is called OKRs. Short for 'objectives and key results'. It is a collaborativegoal-setting protocol forcompanies, teams, and r:: individuals. Now, OKRs are not a silver "'I;; bullet. They cannot substitute for PROFESSIONAL MANAGER SUMMER 2018 53 An lfuoomf,j, I explained,is simp!y WHAT is to be achieved, no more and no less. By definition,objectives are significant,concrete, action-oriented, and (ideally) inspirational.When properlydesigned and deployed, they're a vaccine against fuzzy thinking and fuzzyexecution. benchmark and monitor HOW we get to the objective. Effective KRs are specificand time-bound, aggressiveyet realistic. Most ofall, they are measurable and verifiable. (As prize pupil Marissa Mayerwould say:"It's not a key result unless it has a number.") You either meet a key result's requirement or you don't; there is no grey area, no room fordoubt. At the end ofthe designated Objective: Objective: Objective: period, typically a quarter, we declare Win the Indy 500 Win the Indy 500 Win the Indy 500 the key result fulfilledor not. Wherean objectivecan be long-lived, rolled over T T T Key result: Key result: Key result: fora year or longer, key results evolve as Increase lap speed Increase averagelap Increase average lap the work progresses. Once they are all speed by two per cent speed by two per cent completed, the objective is necessarily T Key result: T T achieved. (Andif it isn't, the OKR was Reduce pit-stop time Key result: Key result: poorly designed in the firstplace.) Reduce average Test at wind tunnel I closed by recapping a value pit-stop time ten times proposition that is no less compelling by one second T today. OKRs surface your primary Key result: goals.They channel effortsand Reduce average pit-stop coordination. They link diverse time by one second operations, lending purpose and T unity to the entire organisation. Key result: I stopped talking at the 90-minute Reduce pit-stop mark, right on time. Now it was up errors by 50 per cent to Google. T WhileLarry and Sergey had few Key result: Practise pit-stop preconceptions about running a business, one hour per day they knew that writing goals down would makethem real. They loved the notion oflaying out what mattered most to them - on one or two succinct pages - and making it public to everyone at Google. They intuitively grasped how OKRs SURFACE YOUR PRIMARY GOALS. OKRs could keep an organisation on THEY CHANNEL EFFORTS AND course through the gales ofcompetition or the tumult ofa hockey-stick growth COORDINATION. THEY LINK DIVERSE curve. Along with Eric Schmidt, whotwo years later became Google's CEO, Larry OPERATIONS, LENDING PURPOSE AND and Sergey would be tenacious, insistent, UNITY TO THE ENTIRE ORGANISATION... even confrontationalin their use ofOKRs. LARRY AND SERGEY WOULD BE Focus and commit to priorities Measuring what matters begins with the INSISTENT, EVEN CONFRONTATIONAL question: what is most important for IN THEIR USE OF OKRs 54 PROFESSIONAL MANAGER SUMMER 2018 PRODUCTIVITY,GOOGLED ---·--·-------�- .........-•OolJor-.,,......_, ,-.. c... ,... .,_o $::....,.�.,. o...,.__ .... 1i,, __ .__, ........ o1 ....... ....-......., -(00.Ro)W-INOr.o--MC.....-Oilalffl,_M...,_OI...._,.......,,,_.,,..,_..,.,.._ __ YouTube product manager Rick Klau ONLY A SMALL FRACTION OF USERS (above) wanted six months to LOGGED IN TO YOUTUBE. THE improve the login process. His boss, COMPANY WAS FORFEITING PRICELESS Salar Kamangar (right), and Larry DATA. SO THE TEAM DEVISED Page gave him just three, driving A SIX-MONTH OKR TO IMPROVE company-wide collaboration THE SITE'S LOGIN EXPERIENCE the next three (or six, or 12) months? site. They were missing out on important wide OKR, but with a caveat.The Successfulorganisations focuson the features, fromsaving videos to channel deadline would be three months, not six. handfulof initiatives that can make a real subscriptions. Much ofYouTube's value Whenan OKR rises to the top line, "all difference,deferring less urgent ones. was effectivelyhidden to hundreds of eyes in the company are on your team", Their leaders commit to those choices millions of people around the world. Ricksays. 'We had no idea how we'd do it in word and deed. Meanwhile, the company was forfeiting in three months, but we understood that The most powerfuland energising priceless data. To solve the problem, owning a company-level OKR showed OKRs oftenoriginate with frontline Rick's team devised a six-month OKR to that our work took priority." By adding so contributors. As a YouTubeproduct improve the site's login experience.Th ey much emphasis to a product manager's manager, Rick Klau was responsible made their case to YouTube CEO Salar goal, Larry clarifiedthings forother teams, forthe site's home page, the third most Kamangar, who consulted with Google too. Everyone rallied to help Rick's group visited in the world. The glitch: only a CEO Larry Page. Larry opted to elevate succeed. The YouTubecadre finishedon small fractionof users loggedin to the the login objective to a Google company- time, thoughth eyshipped one week late. ➔ PROFESSIONAL MANAGER SUMMER 2018 55 PRODUCTIVITY,GOOGLED The Google Chrome story Atsmaller startups, wherepeople absolutely need to be pulling in the same direction, OKRs are a survival tool. At medium-size, rapidly scaling organisations, OKRs are a shared language forexecution. They clarify expectations: whatdo we need to get done (and fast),and who's working on it? They keep employees aligned, vertically and horizontally. In larger enterprises, OKRs are neon-lit road signs. They demolish silos and cultivate connections among far-flungcontributors. By enabling frontlineautonomy, they give rise to freshsolutions. Andthey keep even the most successfulorganisations stretching formore. Sundar Pichai's phenomenally ambitious OKRs propelled Chrome from Stretch goals were beautifullydefined no users at all in 2008 to the world's most-used browser four years later. by the leader of the Google X team that His OKRs haven't done his career any harm either - he's now Google's CEO developed Project Loon and self-driving cars. Says Astro Teller: "If you want your car to get 50 miles per gallon, fine.You "In 2009, we set another stretch OKR deals withthe OEMs [ original equipment can retool your car a little bit. But, if I tell forChrome - 50 million seven-dayactive manufacturers]. In March, we embarked you it has to run on a gallonof gas for500 users - and failed again, ending the year on a 'Chrome fast'marketing campaign miles, you haveto start over." at 38 million. For 2010, undeterred, I to heighten product awareness in the In 2008, Sundar Pichai was Google's proposed a target ofloo million users. United States. In May, we expandedour vice-president of product development. Larry believed we should be pushing even demographic by launching Chrome for WhenSundar and his team took their harder. Mytarget, he pointed out, touched OS X and Linux. At last, our browser Google Chrome browser to market, only ten per cent of theworld's one billion was no longer a Windows-only product. they were most definitelystarting over. internetusers at the time. I countered that ''Wellinto the third quarter, the Driven to succeed but unafraidof failure, 100 million was in factvery aggressive. outcome remained in doubt. Then we they used O KRs to catapult their product "Larry and I eventually settled on did a small thing that became a big thing: - and their company - to amazing. an OKR of 111 million users, a classic a passivealert forformer Chrome users Chrome is now the most popular web stretch goal. To reach it, we knew we'd who'd been dormant. Weekslater, at the browser by far on both the mobile and need to reinventthe business of Chrome end of Q3,our user total had surged from desktop platforms. and think about growth in new ways. 87 million to 107 million. And shortly The career of Sundar Pichai is a stretch Again,what could we do differently?In afterthat, we reached 111 million seven goal personified.In October 2015, at age February, we broadened our distribution day actives.