I read a great article by Jay Yarow in Business Insider called, 'This Is The Internal Grading System Google Uses For Its Employees — And You Should Use It Too.'
It's about OKR's, an organizational system called Objectives and Key Results that was pioneered by Intel.
The basic premise of OKR's is conveyed by Mark Pincus:
“John Doerr [the venture capitalist] sold me on this idea of OKR’s, which stands for objectives and key results. It was developed at Intel and used at Google, and the idea is that the whole company and every group has one objective and three measurable key results, and if you achieve two of the three, you achieve your overall objective, and if you achieve all three, you’ve really killed it.”
This just makes sense.
It got me thinking about how I could incorporate elements of OKR's within my business (and life).
The Big idea is Designing Your Day with a Daily To Do List
After having read 'The Checklist Manifesto' by Atul Gawande (one of my favorite writers), I am now a big believer in the power of Checklists.
The idea is that whenever possible, try to "Design" your day.
You do this by creating a To Do List.
It's really that simple. The Daily To Do has only two elements:
- One Objective: One task succinctly defined;
- Three Key Results: Three outcomes you'd like to see happen;
When applicable, items in The Daily To Do can be Calendared so you can fit things into the Desired Flow of your day.
This same model scales to a Team, Department and Company level. Try it!
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