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Before you review our OKR examples it helps to remind ourselves of what OKRs are and why a company, team and individuals set goals using OKRs. This way you are in a better position to understand the examples described below for both Objectives and Key Results
OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are a structured way of setting company, team and individual goals. The structure set out by the framework guides you pair an Objective with (1- 4) Key Results. What makes a good Objective and Key Result is where confusion can creep in. Using OKR examples, we want to make it easier to write your own OKRs.
In learning to write and manage OKRs, if you’re not careful you can find yourself down rabbit holes and get the impression that OKRs are complicated when OKRs are actually a structured way to write goals with every company, team and individual benefiting from having them.
The best OKRs are created through a series of discussions. The debates are trying to uncover where the biggest improvements need to be made. The OKR then describes a future end-state that is meaningful, measurable and will change frequently enough to track. Nothing more or less.
John Doerr, who introduced OKR to Google, uses a simple way to express how you should write OKR.
OBJECTIVE: I will: E.g. Grow our Product Range
KEY RESULT: As measured by: ____________________
Key Results that are trying to improve metrics make great Key Results. The debate then becomes about which and how many metrics to measure, and what the target values should be. We will discuss Key Result difficulty and OKR grading in a moment.
Give thought to how the target is achieved as well. If you are trying to increase a KPI to a target value, is success measured by:
There are two ways to build in ambition to Key Results. The first is to use labels like ‘Committed’ for targets you need to hit and Aspirational’ for targets that are a stretch and if you fall a little short, that’s still a win. The other is to set two targets and Committed and an Aspirational. The approaches would make Key results look like this:
There is over 35 years of research on goal setting that beyond telling us what we know, which is goal setting is an essential part of achievement, the research tells us why goal setting works and the conditions that make some goals way more effective that others.
If your Objective is to achieve specific milestones in a period then your might set-up a Key Result that looks like this in ZOKRI. This type of Key Result could easily be an To-dos as it’s an Activity / Project.
Open New Office Location
0% Start
5% Propose Region
10% Agree Region
15% Propose Location
20% Agree Location
50% Hire Region Head
70% Acquire Office
80% Hire Team
100% Up & Running
The definition of what success looks like for Milestone Key Results is a little more complicated as it might be Hard to achieve but unlike KPI based Key Results, 70% might not be a good result. So if you do want to use Milestones as a Key Result and not an To-dos, where possible we would recommend setting the difficulty as Business-as-Usual, where 100% is the definition of success.
There’s no rule that says Key Results can not be binary – either done or not done. It is however hard to track progress between weeks. In early stage companies where you’re learning curve is steep and your KPIs maturity is low these are often used for Key Results that are targeting and discovery and learning.
Best-practice guidance is that if you’re doing an activity that involves: completing, defining, providing, helping, developing, launching, planning, creating, delivering, building, implementing, releasing, or launching, then this might be better denied as an Initiatives. Initiatives can have more flexible due dates that can be within a period or extend beyond the standard OKR planning periods. Which is common for activities.
There is no rule that says you can’t use a number of the Key Result types in your OKRs. For example:
Objective
Wow customers with a next generation pet insurance app.
Key Results
This OKR might be used to unify a cross functional team involving Marketing, Product Management and Engineering.
You could also choose to turn the Learning and Project based key Results into Initiatives. Here’s a bit more about how that can work.
How To Reveal Possible Measures To Use In Key Results
If you are using Key Results involve:
Success probably means completing projects and tasks. A good question to ask yourself is:
Which metrics / KPIs would be impacted as a result of delivering this project or task?
If we ‘build’ the new feature we ‘think’ we will:
If we ‘launch’ a campaign we ‘think’ we will:
If we ‘complete’ the re-platforming of our tech we ‘think’ we will:
It is useful to look at OKR examples if you’re new to OKRs or need inspiration. But where ever possible your should try and write you own by working the challenges and opportunties that are being faced right now. OKRs allow you to describe a goal that describe where progress most needs in order to support company and team achievement. The goal can then be tracked.
OKR can be made complicated but they are actually pretty simple. Here’s a simple guide for getting started with OKRs fast.
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.
Read the background behind how and why OKRs accelerate performance in companies on this Wikipedia page about Objectives & Key Results.
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.
Explore the challenges of remote working and learn how to set OKRs that will set up remote teams for success.
OKRs fall short when companies attempt to apply them to individual contributors.
If schools were to adopt OKRs, maybe this would allow for a personalized approach to education that is currently missing.
Private organizations use performance management to understand progress toward goals. The public sector is no different.
Medical clinics can count themselves as some of the most complex businesses to run. Learn about how OKRs can be implemented here.
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