Wow, I didn't expect to be on PH before the book was fully out! Thanks guys! Use the code "hunt" on gumroad for 15% off the digital copy https://gum.co/anBwA But you'll have to wait another day for the print version! I'm not *quite* live!
This book is self published, and it has a startup story all of its own.
I learned to use OKRs at Zynga. When I left Zynga, I started advising startups, and introduced OKRs to them. I refined the weekly cadence approach with these companies, tweaked the OKR canvas, and was amazed how well my "radical focus" system worked to increase both velocity and coordination. I figured, maybe I should write a book about it!
In a SXSW proposal, I mentioned my talk was from my "upcoming book." SXSW wrote back turning down the talk, but offering me a book reading. For a book I hadn't written yet! Of course I said yes. In three months I had a MVP of a book written, and had 100 copies printed by a local company with the auspicious name "Copy Factory." I signed and numbered each copy as if it was a work of art, and headed to SXSW.
The feedback I got from my betareaders was invaluable. One of the things that surprised me was that they loved it was a short book. Another reader told me she couldn't give it to her boss, because of the title, The Executioner's Tale. Others poked me with questions: how do you get started with OKRs? How do you cascade them? What mistakes do you see? It all went into the book.
I then hired a marvelous editor name Cathy Yardley, collected essays from folks who I knew were using OKRs well, and headed to createspace... where I realized publishing was hard. With Q1 coming up, and people needing my book for their 2016 goals, I quickly got digital copies up on Gumroad (who, as well as being faster give me a much better percentage.)
So here we are. The eve before the book is up on Amazon. You can get the kindle version here http://amzn.to/1K6D10H and it is cheaper than Gumroad. But I plan for many treats for my loyal gumroad customers. And, Createspace willing, the paper book will be up tomorrow or tuesday....
Feel free to ask me questions about OKRs, or self publishing, or anything else really!
This book is fantastic for helping people reach their goals, and it's a really fun, quick read. I'm strongly recommending it to everyone who builds products or manages people who do. Great for both startups and large companies.
OMG Christina is so the right person to write this book. Having worked with her before, I'd say there are few people better at cutting through the bullshit and getting to what's important.
And my startup is in that we-could-do-a-million-things phrase where we really need to focus, so we'll really benefit from this advice.
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It looks promising. I have been reading your posts and this book should be a good read. Will write to you my comments, via email. Good luck for the book.
Everyone can find something they can relate to and learn from in this story. Also the lessons stayed very top of mind for me, probably because stick with you because it's a short book. If you liked "The 5 dysfunctions of a team" and care about OKRs then you'll love this.
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