Awesome OKRs

A curated list of the best resources about Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) for business leaders, CEOs, and founders.

Inspired by awesome lists. Maintained by Rework.

OKRs started at Intel under Andy Grove, traveled to Google via John Doerr in 1999, and have since become the goal-setting standard for companies from three-person startups to Fortune 500s. But the framework is deceptively simple — most teams get the mechanics wrong. These resources will help you get them right.

Contents

Articles

Books

  • Measure What Matters by John Doerr - The book that brought OKRs to the mainstream; essential reading for any OKR practitioner. (classic)
  • Radical Focus by Christina Wodtke - A business fable that teaches OKR implementation through a startup story.
  • High Output Management by Andy Grove - The original source of OKR thinking from the Intel CEO who invented them. (classic)
  • Objectives and Key Results by Paul Niven & Ben Lamorte - The most thorough practitioner guide to OKR implementation at scale.
  • The OKRs Field Book by Ben Lamorte - A step-by-step coaching guide with worksheets for OKR facilitators.

Videos & Talks

Tools & Software

  • Lattice - HR and performance platform that ties OKRs to reviews, 1-on-1s, and engagement data.
  • Betterworks - Enterprise OKR platform built for large organizations with complex alignment needs.
  • Perdoo - Combines OKRs and KPIs in one interface with visual roadmaps for long-term planning.
  • Weekdone - Pairs OKRs with weekly team reporting to build a cadence of regular check-ins.
  • WorkBoard - Enterprise-grade OKR and strategy execution software favored by large corporations.
  • Quantive - AI-powered strategy and OKR platform with strong analytics and reporting features.
  • Mooncamp - Flexible OKR software with a clean interface suited for mid-sized teams.
  • Google Sheets OKR Template by John Doerr - A free starter kit from the author of Measure What Matters.

Templates & Frameworks

  • OKR Starter Kit by John Doerr - Free templates and examples directly from the author of Measure What Matters.
  • OKR Template for Startups by Perdoo - A ready-to-use OKR template with examples for early-stage companies.
  • OKR Grading Rubric by Google re:Work - Google's own scoring framework and the 0.0 to 1.0 methodology explained.
  • OGSM Framework Template by Cascade - Connects Objectives, Goals, Strategies, and Measures into one planning document.

Case Studies & Real-World Examples

  • Google - John Doerr introduced OKRs to Google in 1999 when the company had just 40 employees. Larry Page and Sergey Brin adopted the framework from Intel's Andy Grove, and Google has used OKRs every quarter since. Page has publicly credited OKRs with helping Google scale from a startup to a trillion-dollar company by keeping thousands of employees aligned on what actually mattered. Source
  • Intel - Andy Grove invented OKRs at Intel in the 1970s as a replacement for traditional Management by Objectives (MBO). The framework was central to Intel's "Operation Crush" — an all-hands OKR campaign to defeat Motorola for design wins in the emerging PC market. Intel won, and the 8086 processor became the foundation of the IBM PC architecture that defined computing for decades. Source
  • LinkedIn - LinkedIn rolled out OKRs company-wide in the early 2010s under Jeff Weiner. Weiner has spoken about how OKRs helped LinkedIn move from a single product to a diversified platform (jobs, learning, advertising) without losing organizational focus. The company reached 600 million members before Microsoft acquired it for $26.2 billion in 2016. Source
  • Spotify - Spotify adapted OKRs for its autonomous squad model, where cross-functional teams operate with high independence. Rather than top-down OKR cascades, Spotify uses OKRs to create alignment between squads that self-direct toward shared company objectives — proving the framework works in decentralized orgs that resist command-and-control management. Source
  • Zalando - Europe's largest online fashion platform, Zalando, deployed OKRs across 15,000 employees after scaling rapidly from a German startup. Their public OKR retrospectives documented how the framework exposed misalignment between technology and commercial teams that had been invisible under their previous planning process, leading to measurable improvements in cross-functional delivery speed. Source
  • Duolingo - The language-learning app used OKRs to make a counter-intuitive pivot: deprioritizing raw download numbers in favor of Daily Active Users as their North Star metric. That shift — which felt like reporting worse results in the short term — restructured the entire product team's work and contributed to Duolingo's DAU growing from 12 million to over 37 million between 2020 and 2023. Source

Communities & Newsletters

  • WhatMatters.com - The official OKR resource hub from John Doerr's team, with guides, case studies, and a community forum.
  • OKR Mentors - A practitioner network where OKR coaches and leaders share experiences and answer questions.
  • Perdoo OKR Blog - One of the most consistently useful blogs on OKR implementation, grading, and best practices.

Rework Resources

Explore more OKR and strategy content on the Rework blog:

Contributing

Know a great OKR resource that should be on this list? Let us know.