Goals at the speed of the work
Goal duration should be set by the outcome, not by the reporting period. Some goals close in five weeks, some run five months, and the quarterly heartbeat stays fixed underneath them. Forcing every goal into exactly one quarter distorts both the small ones and the large ones.
What the calendar does to goals
Squeeze a five-month outcome into a quarter and you get a goal that is really a milestone with an outcome-shaped label on it. Stretch a five-week outcome across a quarter and you get eight weeks of padding.
Neither is anyone’s fault. It is what happens when the container is chosen by the finance calendar and the contents are chosen by the business.
Keeping the heartbeat
This is not an argument against the quarter. The quarter is a good rhythm for stepping back, reprioritising and grading, and losing it is how companies end up with goals that quietly run forever.
The distinction is between the review rhythm, which should be fixed, and the goal duration, which should not. Keep the meeting. Let the goals be whatever length the outcome needs.
What it looks like in practice
At the quarterly review, some goals are graded and closed, some are carried with an updated confidence, and some are new. The report shows all three states rather than pretending everything started in week one and ends in week thirteen.
That is a more honest picture, and it removes the annual ritual of restating a long-running goal three times with slightly different wording.
How long should an OKR last? +
As long as the outcome needs. Some close in five weeks, some run several months. Keep the quarterly review rhythm fixed, but do not force every goal to match it.
Do OKRs have to be quarterly? +
The review cadence benefits from being regular and quarterly suits most companies. The goals themselves do not have to match that length, and forcing them to produces padding or fake milestones.