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Objective and Key Results Examples
Welcome to our OKR examples resource. A place to inspire you to create your own OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). As a goal setting framework we think OKR is an enormous amount to offer you and your employees over other ways of setting goals. We hope you will find these examples helpful.
We’ve created Objective and Key results examples for common departments and teams within a company. What we’d like you to do is is use these examples as inspiration and more of a way of thinking about Objectives and Key Results. Look at the structure of OKR and approach to their creation, and start planning your own with your colleagues. It’s these conversations about what your objectives are and how you will measure success that will not only help you create great OKR but move you from a newbie to an old-hand and expert.
Some Advice Before You Create Objectives and Key Results
Objectives should be ambitious, succinct, and motivational. The answer the ‘what’ and ‘why’. They should also be achievable in the time period you are planning OKRs for. This is usually a year and a quarter.
Key Results answer the ‘how we will know if we’ve been successful’. This is why Key Results should be measurable & and in most cases this means that they have a numerical target that’s hard to achieve and will stretch you. There are really good reasons why stretch is important we’ll share as well. You can read more about why ambition matters here. The type of Key Results to try and avoid are the activity based Key Result and the binary key result that’s done or not done.
Key Results ideally are NOT Projects, Tasks, Epics or any other activity. These are Initiatives that have been selected in order to achieve Key Result progress. To help you keep this divide and succeed with OKRs, ZOKRI integrates with
software the teams use for their Projects and Tasks. There is no need to enter these twice and progress measurement is automated.
The Metrics (KPIs) Key Results contain should be quality not vanity metrics, and have a stretch component to them and low-balling target metrics is not to be allowed. This is why achieving between 70% and 100% of a Goal Metric can be seen as a success. But this depends on the OKR and needs to be looked at on an individual OKR basis. Sometime OKRs you may create as ‘Moon Shots’ and getting anywhere near is a victory. Some are solid and achievable goals where 100% achievement is possible and often necessary.
The Story of ABC Inc’s OKRs
ABC Inc is a software and data company. Their long-term plan (1 – 3 Years) is shared as a Mission, Vision and Purpose. They also have a North Star Metric – a KPI that tells everyone how they are doing in fulfilling their Mission.
- Mission: Provide access to amazing sales data that builds revenue in sales teams around the globe.
- Vision: Companies that use our data sell more than companies without it.
- Purpose: Make selling easier, more enjoyable, and more predictable.
- North Star: API Calls
ABC have thought hard about how they win their market and what their Strategy is. They have expressed their strategy as Strategic Pillars (the battlegrounds ABC Inc needs to win) as:
- Customer Experience: Amazing CX will drive growth.
- Operational Efficiency: Operation efficiency makes us lean and healthy.
- Technical Innovation: Technical innovation gives us a sustainable advantage.
It is December and the executive team have an off-site to plan their annual OKRs. They have a meeting scheduled to present them to department heads on the 15th December.
ABC Inc. have created three Company OKRs.
The Company OKR that aligned with their Customer Experience Pillar is:
Lead the way in CX at every touchpoint to drive sales, loyalty and advocacy in 2021
Increase our CSAT score from 72% to 90%
Increase retention from 85% to 95%
Increase our CAC : LTV to over 4
The Company Operational Efficiency aligned OKR is set as:
Acquire and serve customers efficiently so we can invest more in growth in 2021
Increase our revenue growth by 50% year-on-year
Reduce our CAC from $1750 to $1000
Increase our Gross Margin to 80% or over
The Technical Innovation aligned OKR is set as:
Lead the way in data accuracy and value so we can widen our competitive advantage in 2021
Grow coverage so 95% of Primary Territory Companies in our dbase
Achieve over 90% data field completeness
Increase our Data Accuracy Pass % to 85%
These OKRs can then be presented to team leaders for discussion. The aim is for them to take these OKRs to their team to plan OKRs that would support the achievement of these in Q1.
Would you like to see how other departments at ABC Inc aligned their OKRs?
Company OKR Examples
Company OKRs will always be top of the OKR hierarchy. These OKRs are usual Annual or Quarterly, and are a reflection of your strategy and company strategic objectives. The battlegrounds you’ve decided are must-wins for your business. Longer range OKR planning is generally discouraged in preference for shorter term goals and agility.
Finance OKR Examples
Finance teams tend to love OKR because of its bias towards ‘as measured by’ metrics. Finance teams involvement in OKR tend not to be limited to just their OKR, but also in the provision of KPI data for leadership and other team. Making finance central to the OKR process.
HR OKR Examples
HR OKRs can have a huge impact on business performance and the reality and perception of a company as an employer. We’ve lots of examples of OKR for Human Resources as well as KPIs that you will find useful.
Marketing OKR Examples
Marketing team are used to tracking Metrics / KPIs. What OKRs allow Marketing to do is decide on which of these are most important every quarter, as well as aligning their efforts with other teams. We think you will like these objective and key result examples for marketing that span all the teams from social to paid media.
Sales OKR Examples
Sales teams will always have their own goals, but setting OKRs are quite different. Salesforce, Hubspot, Pipedrive and dashboards are great for telling Sales teams their targets – but what’s missing is the transparency, alignment prioritisation and collaboration OKRs provide. Take a look at the Objectives and Key Results for Sales teams.
Customer Services OKR Examples
The customer is always a core pillar and focus for strategy and goal setting. Objectives and Key Results (OKR) allow customer facing teams like Customer Success or Customer Service to focus their efforts on the goals that will make a material difference to the customer and the business.
Engineering OKR Examples
Engineering teams love OKR as they focus their efforts on the most significant challenges and opportunities, and the framework aligns with agile ways of working. Creating you Objectives and Key Results is another addition to the engineering teams planning, and a great way of showing the rest of an organisation how engineering are aligning.
Product Marketing OKR Examples
Product Marketing OKRs are important to growth. A continuous focus on improvement ensures your great product resonates and gets bought.
Product Management OKR Examples
As conduits and filters of customer needs, the custodians of product strategy, and a pillar of commercial success, choosing the right OKRs really matters.
OKR Mistakes To Avoid
Further Reading For Objectives & Key Results
Ultimate Guide To Objectives & Key Results
OKR can be made complicated but they are actually pretty simple. Here’s a simple guide for getting started with OKRs fast.
Book – Measure What Matters
OKRs – The simple idea that drives 10x growth. Written by John Doerr who brought OKRs to Google, this book is a great for read any team leader interested in growth.
OKR goal-setting framework – Wiki
Read the background behind how and why OKRs accelerate performance in companies on this Wikipedia page about Objectives & Key Results.
What The Best OKR Software Looks Like
OKRs are best managed in OKR software. Here is a list of free and paid for OKR software plans and OKR tools for organizations of varying sizes.
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