A Brief History of OKRs

A Brief History of OKRs

Insight from People Logic

Alright, history buffs, gather 'round 🏕️

Before we dive into the deep end, let's take a quick trip down memory lane.

Our story begins in 1954 with Peter Drucker, the OG of modern management. Drucker looked at the suits running companies and thought, "These folks need a system." 

He noticed managers getting caught in what he called the "activity trap" - busy being busy, but not actually moving the needle (sound familiar? 😬)

Enter MBO: Management by Objectives. 

Revolutionary for its time, MBO was all about setting clear goals and getting everyone on the same page. Groundbreaking stuff in the 50s, even if it sounds like Management 101 today.

But MBO had some growing pains. Turns out, when you tell people to hit targets without considering the ‘how’, you get a lot of miscommunication and corner-cutting. Not exactly a recipe for quality work or happy employees.

Fast forward to the 1970s. Andy Grove, Intel's CEO, took Drucker's MBO and gave it a Silicon Valley ✨ glow-up ✨

He added "Key Results" to the mix, and voila - OKRs were born. 

The big idea? Measure progress, not just outcomes.

Now, OKRs might not have gained the notoriety they have today if not for John Doerr, a very prolific VC at Kleiner Perkins. In 1999, Doerr introduced OKRs to a little startup called Google (maybe you've heard of them?).

Google took OKRs and ran with them, crediting the framework for their "10x growth, many times over." They even tweaked the system, shortening planning cycles to quarters to keep up with the breakneck pace of innovation.

Post-Google, OKRs spread faster than a viral TikTok dance. 

Airbnb, LinkedIn, Spotify, Netflix - the cool kids of tech all jumped on the OKR bandwagon, and each put their own spin on it (Spotify, for instance, ditched individual OKRs faster than you can say "Wrapped").

Learn more: 10 proven tips for creating more effective OKRs