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Team OKR in Action: How Real Teams Turn Strategy Into Results
TURN STRATEGY INTO RESULTS WITH OKRs THAT ACTUALLY WORK—BECAUSE HIGH-PERFORMING TEAMS DON’T JUST PLAN; THEY DELIVER.
In Team OKR in Action, internationally recognized facilitator and bestselling author of Lean Inception, Paulo Caroli reveals how real teams—from startups to enterprises—apply Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to align, execute, and achieve what matters most.
“The best OKR-writing guidance I’ve seen. This book turns OKRs into a focus tool that drives real outcomes.”
—Thiago Ghisi, Director of Engineering at Nubank
“Team OKRs provides a concrete mechanism to create a culture of collaboration. It helps teams stay connected to strategic goals while amplifying the value of their day-to-day work.”
—Marcus Fontoura, Technical Fellow and Azure Core CTO at Microsoft
This isn’t another theoretical OKR manual filled with jargon. It’s a battle-tested, practical guide built from years of hands-on experience helping teams across the globe.
YOU’LL LEARN HOW
✔️ Bridge the gap between strategy and daily execution
✔️ Foster clarity and autonomy in cross-functional teams
✔️ Set bold, focused objectives that drive meaningful outcomes
✔️ Create OKR rhythms that inspire accountability, learning, and action
WITH TOOLS, TEMPLATES, AND REAL-LIFE STORIES, THIS BOOK SHOWS HOW
✔️ Define meaningful Objectives and Key Results
✔️ Make OKR cycles useful and energizing
✔️ Align strategy, discovery, and delivery
✔️ Embed OKRs into your team’s weekly rhythm
✔️ Focus on impact—not just activity
Whether you're a team lead, agile coach, product manager, or executive, this book gives you the clarity and confidence to make OKRs a powerful force for team success.
FEATURING A FOREWORD BY MANUEL PAIS, co-author of Team Topologies, this book connects strategy, structure, and execution in a way that actually works—because it’s been tested by real teams, in real contexts.
In Team OKR in Action, internationally recognized facilitator and bestselling author of Lean Inception, Paulo Caroli reveals how real teams—from startups to enterprises—apply Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to align, execute, and achieve what matters most.
“The best OKR-writing guidance I’ve seen. This book turns OKRs into a focus tool that drives real outcomes.”
—Thiago Ghisi, Director of Engineering at Nubank
“Team OKRs provides a concrete mechanism to create a culture of collaboration. It helps teams stay connected to strategic goals while amplifying the value of their day-to-day work.”
—Marcus Fontoura, Technical Fellow and Azure Core CTO at Microsoft
This isn’t another theoretical OKR manual filled with jargon. It’s a battle-tested, practical guide built from years of hands-on experience helping teams across the globe.
YOU’LL LEARN HOW
✔️ Bridge the gap between strategy and daily execution
✔️ Foster clarity and autonomy in cross-functional teams
✔️ Set bold, focused objectives that drive meaningful outcomes
✔️ Create OKR rhythms that inspire accountability, learning, and action
WITH TOOLS, TEMPLATES, AND REAL-LIFE STORIES, THIS BOOK SHOWS HOW
✔️ Define meaningful Objectives and Key Results
✔️ Make OKR cycles useful and energizing
✔️ Align strategy, discovery, and delivery
✔️ Embed OKRs into your team’s weekly rhythm
✔️ Focus on impact—not just activity
Whether you're a team lead, agile coach, product manager, or executive, this book gives you the clarity and confidence to make OKRs a powerful force for team success.
FEATURING A FOREWORD BY MANUEL PAIS, co-author of Team Topologies, this book connects strategy, structure, and execution in a way that actually works—because it’s been tested by real teams, in real contexts.
270 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 12, 2025
30 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
About the author
Paulo Caroli
30 books22 followersPaulo Caroli é apaixonado por inovação, empreendedorismo e produtos digitais. Ele é engenheiro de software, autor, palestrante e um excelente facilitador.
Consultor principal da Thoughtworks e co-fundador da AgileBrazil, Paulo Caroli possui mais de vinte anos de experiência em desenvolvimento de software, trabalhando em diversas corporações no Brasil, Índia, EUA e América Latina. Em 2000, ele descobriu o Extreme Programming e, desde então, concentrou sua experiência em processos e práticas da Agile & Lean. Ele ingressou na ThoughtWorks em 2006 e ocupou os cargos de Agile Coach, Trainer, Project e Delivery Manager. Ele recebeu um Bacharel em Informática e MS em Engenharia de Software, ambos da PUC-Rio.
Consultor principal da Thoughtworks e co-fundador da AgileBrazil, Paulo Caroli possui mais de vinte anos de experiência em desenvolvimento de software, trabalhando em diversas corporações no Brasil, Índia, EUA e América Latina. Em 2000, ele descobriu o Extreme Programming e, desde então, concentrou sua experiência em processos e práticas da Agile & Lean. Ele ingressou na ThoughtWorks em 2006 e ocupou os cargos de Agile Coach, Trainer, Project e Delivery Manager. Ele recebeu um Bacharel em Informática e MS em Engenharia de Software, ambos da PUC-Rio.
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May 16, 2025
The most pragmatic and complete book on OKRs I’ve ever read!
I’ve worked in Tech for nearly 20 years (Apple, Amex, Nubank & ThoughtWorks), most recently leading platform orgs as a Director of Engineering, and I’ve seen every flavor of OKR anti-pattern you can imagine: the checklist version, the template-filler version, the “cascaded from above” version. And what I can tell you is that they rarely work, and often make things worse than having no OKRs at all.
What Paulo Caroli delivers here is something I’ve been hoping to find for a long time: a deeply practical, team-first guide to making OKRs actually function inside real organizations.
This book brings nuance to a topic that’s usually either too theoretical or too surface-level. It’s a systems-thinking approach grounded in years of hands-on experience. I found many insights that map directly to conversations I’ve had as a platform leader in a scaling tech company.
Some of my favorite takeaways:
1. Top-down context, bottom-up ownership: You can’t cascade commitment—you have to build it. This principle perfectly captures what makes OKRs succeed in high-performing orgs. It mirrors what I’ve seen work incredibly well at Nubank.
2. Vision → Strategy → OKRs → Backlog: The clearest, most actionable framing I’ve seen. Helps teams think in systems, not silos.
3. Ownership before alignment before execution: A subtle but powerful reordering. Without ownership, alignment becomes performative, and execution falls apart.
4. Executive → Director → Manager clarity: The way Paulo breaks down responsibilities across org levels is highly useful and immediately applicable in planning and performance cycles.
5. Group vs. Team distinction: Most OKR failures start by ignoring this. This framing should be in every onboarding doc for new leaders.
6. ACCID > SMART: ACCID (Aligned, Clear, Challenging, Inspiring, Deadline-oriented) is a tangible upgrade over SMART—especially when writing OKRs as a team. The roofshots vs. moonshots concept was new to me and helped reframe what it means to set ambitious yet grounded goals.
7. Backlog vs. OKR tension: This section felt real and refreshingly honest. Most teams live in the backlog and reverse-engineer OKRs from it. Paulo flips that dynamic.
8. Mission teams > Shared OKRs: Particularly resonant for platform or infra teams where shared accountability often means no accountability.
9. Horizontal vs. vertical alignment: Paulo’s framing helps you diagnose why cross-team dysfunction happens even when everyone seems aligned “up.”
10. Types of teams & OKR applicability: Not every group should use OKRs, and he shows you why and when they work best without sugar-coating when they don't.
I can easily see managers, engineers, product managers, and even directors and execs learning from this book. Especially those who’ve only heard of OKRs in vague, high-level terms. Paulo gives the topic structure, grounding, and logic — and the outline of the book itself is a masterpiece.
To top it off, the preface by Manuel Pais (co-author of Team Topologies) brings everything full circle. This book is the missing operational link that puts into practice many of the groundbreaking ideas introduced in books such as Team Topologies and Accelerate.
I’d recommend it to any engineering or product leader, platform team, or executive who wants OKRs that don’t just live in a deck but drive real results.
I’ve worked in Tech for nearly 20 years (Apple, Amex, Nubank & ThoughtWorks), most recently leading platform orgs as a Director of Engineering, and I’ve seen every flavor of OKR anti-pattern you can imagine: the checklist version, the template-filler version, the “cascaded from above” version. And what I can tell you is that they rarely work, and often make things worse than having no OKRs at all.
What Paulo Caroli delivers here is something I’ve been hoping to find for a long time: a deeply practical, team-first guide to making OKRs actually function inside real organizations.
This book brings nuance to a topic that’s usually either too theoretical or too surface-level. It’s a systems-thinking approach grounded in years of hands-on experience. I found many insights that map directly to conversations I’ve had as a platform leader in a scaling tech company.
Some of my favorite takeaways:
1. Top-down context, bottom-up ownership: You can’t cascade commitment—you have to build it. This principle perfectly captures what makes OKRs succeed in high-performing orgs. It mirrors what I’ve seen work incredibly well at Nubank.
2. Vision → Strategy → OKRs → Backlog: The clearest, most actionable framing I’ve seen. Helps teams think in systems, not silos.
3. Ownership before alignment before execution: A subtle but powerful reordering. Without ownership, alignment becomes performative, and execution falls apart.
4. Executive → Director → Manager clarity: The way Paulo breaks down responsibilities across org levels is highly useful and immediately applicable in planning and performance cycles.
5. Group vs. Team distinction: Most OKR failures start by ignoring this. This framing should be in every onboarding doc for new leaders.
6. ACCID > SMART: ACCID (Aligned, Clear, Challenging, Inspiring, Deadline-oriented) is a tangible upgrade over SMART—especially when writing OKRs as a team. The roofshots vs. moonshots concept was new to me and helped reframe what it means to set ambitious yet grounded goals.
7. Backlog vs. OKR tension: This section felt real and refreshingly honest. Most teams live in the backlog and reverse-engineer OKRs from it. Paulo flips that dynamic.
8. Mission teams > Shared OKRs: Particularly resonant for platform or infra teams where shared accountability often means no accountability.
9. Horizontal vs. vertical alignment: Paulo’s framing helps you diagnose why cross-team dysfunction happens even when everyone seems aligned “up.”
10. Types of teams & OKR applicability: Not every group should use OKRs, and he shows you why and when they work best without sugar-coating when they don't.
I can easily see managers, engineers, product managers, and even directors and execs learning from this book. Especially those who’ve only heard of OKRs in vague, high-level terms. Paulo gives the topic structure, grounding, and logic — and the outline of the book itself is a masterpiece.
To top it off, the preface by Manuel Pais (co-author of Team Topologies) brings everything full circle. This book is the missing operational link that puts into practice many of the groundbreaking ideas introduced in books such as Team Topologies and Accelerate.
I’d recommend it to any engineering or product leader, platform team, or executive who wants OKRs that don’t just live in a deck but drive real results.
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