Who Does What By How Much?: A Practical Guide to Customer-Centric OKRs by Jeff Gothelf & Josh Seiden (2024)

At tandi, we believe that measuring success isn’t just about internal metrics—it’s about delivering real value to customers. That’s why Who Does What By How Much? by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden is such a valuable resource. This book challenges traditional ways of setting OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) and presents a customer-centric approach that ensures teams focus on measurable outcomes rather than just activities.

In this blog post, we’ll explore the core ideas from Who Does What By How Much? and share practical takeaways you can use to implement customer-centric OKRs in your organization.

Core Ideas of the Book

OKRs have become a widely used framework for aligning teams around ambitious goals. However, many companies struggle with OKRs because they:

✅ Focus on outputs (tasks and projects) rather than outcomes (real impact on customers and the business)
✅ Set objectives that are vague, generic, or not connected to customer success
✅ Measure progress based on what teams deliver, rather than what customers achieve

Gothelf and Seiden argue that OKRs should be designed with the customer at the center, ensuring that every goal drives measurable customer impact.

1. What Are Customer-Centric OKRs?

Traditional OKRs tend to focus on internal goals, such as launching a new feature, increasing efficiency, or completing a project. Customer-centric OKRs, on the other hand, ask:

🚀 What change in customer behavior will indicate that we’ve been successful?

For example, instead of setting an OKR like:
❌ "Launch a new recommendation engine by Q2"
A customer-centric OKR would be:
✅ "Increase the percentage of users who complete a purchase from recommendations from 10% to 25%"

By shifting focus from what teams do to how customers behave, organizations can ensure they are measuring impact—not just activity.

2. The Formula for Customer-Centric OKRs: Who Does What By How Much?

The book introduces a simple but powerful formula for writing customer-centric OKRs:

📝 Who (the customer/user) does What (specific action or behavior) by How Much (measurable improvement)?

Examples:
🔹 "New users complete their first order within 24 hours 30% more often than last quarter."
🔹 "Returning customers use our new self-service feature to solve their issue without contacting support, reducing support tickets by 40%."
🔹 "First-time users watch at least one tutorial video, increasing engagement by 25%."

This approach ensures that OKRs are specific, measurable, and customer-driven.

3. Why This Approach Works

Customer-centric OKRs force teams to align their work with real customer needs and business impact. Benefits include:

✅ Clearer focus on real-world outcomes – Teams stop tracking vanity metrics and focus on what really matters.
✅ Better alignment between teams – Everyone rallies around customer success instead of working in silos.
✅ Increased agility – Teams can adjust strategies quickly if customer behaviors aren’t changing as expected.

Practical Takeaways for Your Organization

If you want to transition to customer-centric OKRs, here are some actionable steps to get started:

1. Shift Focus from Outputs to Outcomes

Many teams track what they’ve built rather than how it impacts customers. Make outcomes the primary focus.

• How to Start:

  • Ask: "What customer behavior change would indicate success?"

  • Set goals that focus on how users engage with your product or service, not just what features you ship.

  • Continuously validate assumptions with customer research and data.

• Benefit:

  • Teams focus on measuring impact, not just launching features or completing tasks.

2. Use the "Who Does What By How Much?" Formula

When setting OKRs, always define:

🟢 Who – The specific customer segment (e.g., new users, premium customers, inactive users)
🟢 What – The desired action or behavior (e.g., completing a purchase, reducing support tickets, increasing engagement)
🟢 By How Much – A measurable target (e.g., 30% more purchases, 50% fewer tickets, 20% more engagement)

• How to Start:

  • Rewrite existing OKRs using this formula.

  • Work with teams to define meaningful metrics that track customer behavior.

  • Avoid OKRs that focus only on internal processes or product launches.

• Benefit:

  • OKRs become more actionable, measurable, and directly tied to customer success.

3. Make OKRs a Team Effort

OKRs should not be dictated top-down—they work best when teams co-create them based on insights and data.

• How to Start:

  • Facilitate OKR planning workshops where teams collaborate on setting customer-centric OKRs.

  • Encourage cross-functional teams (engineering, marketing, support, product) to align their OKRs.

  • Review OKRs regularly to adjust based on real-world customer behavior.

• Benefit:

  • Cross-functional teams work towards shared customer outcomes rather than isolated goals.

4. Align OKRs with Customer Feedback and Data

Customer-centric OKRs should be based on real insights, not assumptions.

• How to Start:

  • Collect data from customer interviews, analytics, surveys, and support tickets.

  • Look for behavioral patterns: What actions do successful customers take? Where do they drop off?

  • Use A/B testing to validate if changes are actually impacting customer behavior.

• Benefit:

  • OKRs become grounded in real customer insights, leading to better decision-making.

5. Measure, Iterate, and Adapt

OKRs aren’t meant to be set-and-forget goals—they should evolve based on customer responses and business needs.

• How to Start:

  • Set up regular check-ins to review OKR progress.

  • If key results aren’t improving, adjust strategies, not just effort.

  • Celebrate learnings as much as achievements, recognizing that customer behavior insights drive future success.

• Benefit:

  • Teams stay agile and focused on delivering continuous customer value.

Conclusion: Making OKRs Work for Customers and Business Growth

At tandi, we believe that the best OKRs are those that measure what truly matters: customer success. Who Does What By How Much? provides a simple yet powerful framework for setting OKRs that drive real-world impact.

By shifting from internal outputs to customer outcomes, using the "Who Does What By How Much?" formula, and continuously iterating based on data, organizations can ensure that OKRs lead to meaningful business growth and customer success.

If your team is looking for a better way to set OKRs, this book offers actionable strategies to align business goals with customer impact.

Stay tuned to our blog for more insights from books that inspire us, and discover how to drive customer-centric success with OKRs that truly matter. 🚀