Team OKR by Paulo Caroli promotes a team-driven approach to OKRs, where teams define their own goals aligned with strategic direction. It focuses on autonomy, alignment, and outcomes through continuous learning.
Team OKR in Action: How Real Teams Turn Strategy Into Results
In this book, Paulo Caroli advocates for a team-centric approach to OKRs—one that gives teams the autonomy to define their objectives while ensuring alignment with broader strategic goals. This approach is built on a few core principles:
✔ Team Ownership – Teams should define their own OKRs rather than having them assigned top-down.
✔ Alignment Over Cascading – Leadership provides direction, but teams determine how they contribute.
✔ Execution & Outcomes – OKRs are not just about setting goals but about driving meaningful outcomes through iteration and learning.
This book will guide you through the practical steps to adopting this approach, helping leaders unlock the true potential of Team OKRs.
Want the Practical Team OKR Guide?
This practical guide summarizes the core ideas from Team OKR in Action to help teams write, review, and improve their own OKRs.
It covers:
- real teams and shared ownership;
- Strategic OKRs vs. Team OKRs;
- ACCID Objectives and SMART Key Results;
- the Why Test;
- Outcome, Output, and Complementary KRs;
- KPI vs. KR;
- Team Initiatives and Backlog items.
It also provides the conceptual foundation for ChatOKR.ai.
Explore the Team OKR Guide and use it as a practical reference for your next OKR conversation.
Get it here
Want the OKR Guide for Large Organizations?
Connect Strategy, Leadership, and Execution with OKRs
I’m currently helping a large global organization design its Strategic and Tactical OKR system — seamlessly connecting strategy, leadership, and execution.
During this work, I created a practical guide with essential steps to successfully implement OKRs in any organization.
Would you like to receive this PDF for free, packed with actionable recommendations on OKR roles, cadence, and structure?
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About the author
Paulo Caroli
Paulo Caroli is a seasoned consultant, international speaker, and best-selling author, best known for creating the Lean Inception methodology. With over 30 years in tech, he spent two decades at ThoughtWorks as a global consultant and a decade in Silicon Valley, immersed in the Lean Startup movement and agile product development.
Founder of Caroli.org, he helps organizations bridge the gap from strategy to delivery, enabling teams to align, collaborate, and execute with agility. He has led agile transformations across the Americas, Europe, and Asia, blending Agile, Lean Startup, OKRs, and Design Thinking to drive real outcomes.
Paulo offers strategic workshops, mentoring programs, training and team enablement services, all delivered with his direct involvement. He is the author of five influential books, including the best-seller Lean Inception: How to Align People and Build the Right Product, and his latest, Team OKR in Action: How Real Teams Turn Strategy Into Results.
Extra resources
ChatOKR (a public GPT): Your strategic assistant for writing, reviewing, and aligning OKRs
Team OKR OS: Built for teams—not managers—to own outcomes, not just track metrics.
From KPIs to OKRs: What’s the Difference?
Before and After Team OKR: Caroli.org marketing example
Mid-Cycle Team OKR Retrospective: Inside the Circle
Read Team OKR related articles here.
Subscribe to my Substack for weekly insights on Team OKR—don’t miss out!
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What others have said about this book
Thiago Ghisi: Finally, a team-first, deeply practical OKR guide grounded in real-world experience. Paulo Caroli nails the nuances most books miss — from backlog tension to cross-team alignment and the real difference between groups and teams. As a platform leader in scaling tech orgs, I found insights here that map directly to daily challenges. This is the missing operational link between theory and execution.
Marcos Fontoura: 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
Eduardo Pinheiro: The books walks us through the real meaning of OKRs — for teams. It flips the idea of OKRs on its head, from top-down approach full of bureaucracies, rituals and templates to a more organic bottom-up approach. The distinction is important because without the support of the individuals and the entire team, the top-down approach does not work. It’s not sustainable, engaging nor productive. Team OKRs is the way to go and the author has extensive hands-on experience in the field. Highly recommend.
Alex Borges: Great approach to the OKR framework, helping more and more leaders and teams around the world to implement OKR successfully! Congratulations Caroli!
PJ Pereira: Caroli is known as one of the best facilitators in the world. In this book he shares his perspective not on the theories behind his work, but on what really makes things happen. A simple, honest, straight to the point approach that will help you create real alignment and get your team charging forward with gusto and enthusiasm.
Bring Team OKR to Your Company
Paulo Caroli offers tailored training and strategic facilitation to help teams implement OKRs with clarity, collaboration, and a strong focus on results. As the creator of Team OKR & Lean Inception and a seasoned expert in organizational transformation, Paulo brings over a decade of hands-on OKR experience supporting teams and leaders worldwide.
👉 Contact us at [email protected] to explore how Paulo Caroli can support your team on the journey to success with Team OKR.
Watch & Listen: Team OKR in Action
Explore key ideas from Team OKR in Action through this short video and audio summary, highlighting why many OKRs fail in practice and what real teams can do differently to turn strategy into results.
Team OKR in Action — Audio Summary
Other books
Teams Still Matter
In a moment when many organizations are rushing to use AI for speed, Paulo Caroli reminds us of what truly creates value: direction, judgment, alignment, and learning. Teams Still Matter is a practical and timely guide for product leaders navigating the AI era.
Sprint by Sprint: Transforming a group of people into a high-performing product team
Sprint by Sprint: The success of a project happens when connecting people, with different talents and skills, who work towards the same goal: delivering the best possible product! Learn practices and techniques for forming and developing agile teams.
Lean Inception: How to Align People and Build the Right Product
Learn the method that ancillary organizations have to steer teams down the right path to build highly successful products and services without altering time and resources.