Jay Yarow of Business Insider explains:

From the time Google was a tiny startup, it's been using an internal grading system for employees call Objectives and Key Results, or OKR. 

OKR is a simple system that helps a company organize and execute its goals. It starts at the top, and travels down the chain of command within a company. Google didn't invent the OKR system. It came from Intel. And many other companies use a similar system. 

A few years ago, Google Ventures partner Rick Klau gave a presentation on how OKR works. If you work at a startup and don't use a system like OKR, you should. Or, if you work at a big company, and your company doesn't use OKR, it should. Heck, even if management hates the idea at your company, you should use OKR for yourself!

We watched Klau's presentation, and peeled out the slides to provide a how-to on how OKRs work, and how you can use them for yourself.

I'm saving the slides of the presentation below so I can refer to them again.

It's worth watching the video above, and if you want more explanation, see the Business Insider page.

One interesting side now is that ex-Googlers are now CEO of Twitter, COO of Facebook, CEO of Yahoo, CPO of LinkedIn, and founders and executives in MANY startups. 

Which means the culture of OKR's has become the culture of Silicon Valley, for better or worse.

John Doerr's deck of Objectives and Key Results (aka OKR's):

Rick Klau's slides on how to apply OKRs to business:

Sounds like a similar methodology called strategy maps. 

I figure almost all management techniques derive from the same observations and goals.