What are Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)?
John Doerr, who introduced OKRs in his book Measure What Matters, describes the objective as the “what” and the key results as the “how.” Let's explain this further.
Objectives represent what you want to accomplish and signify the direction or target. They are typically qualitative, ambitious, and serve to inspire action.
Key results detail how you will achieve the objectives with specific, measurable outcomes. They are quantitative and track progress toward the objectives, usually with clear metrics or milestones.
OKRs are most powerful when implemented across an entire organization because they ladder up and down among teams and individuals.
Why run an OKRs Play?
Here are two powerful reasons to run an OKR Play:
- Determine what matters: OKRs make it clear what is a priority and how your work contributes to those organizational goals.
- Determine what doesn’t matter: OKRs clarify what is not a priority. They empower teams to focus on a limited set of priorities and reject tasks that distract from core work.
OKRs align teams around goals, promote transparency, encourage accountability, and provide a clear framework for measuring success. When implemented correctly, OKRs drive better performance and collaboration across the organization.
When to use OKRs at work
OKRs are especially useful during periods of growth, change, or when there’s a need to improve transparency and accountability across the organization. Atlassian teams set OKRs annually, refresh them each quarter, and track progress monthly.
3 benefits of OKRs
- Positive impact: 83% of survey participants agree that OKRs have had and continue to have a positive impact on the organization (OKR Impact Report 2022).
- Higher productivity and goal achievement: Teams prioritizing their work are 4.6x more likely to be effective and productive (Atlassian State of Teams Report 2024).
- Agility and adaptability: OKRs enable swift goal adjustments, helping companies adapt quickly to changes. Identifying top goals makes companies 4.7x more likely to adapt (Atlassian State of Teams Report 2024).
What you'll need
Video conferencing with screen sharing or meeting space
Digital collaboration tool (see templates)
Timer
Optional templates
Atlassian Templates
How to set OKRs
5-SECOND SUMMARY
- Define 1-3 objectives
- Set 3-5 key results per objective
- Track success and score your OKRs each month
1. Prep the Play 10 MIN
When you meet with the team, whether in person or remotely, send a message explaining the Play and why you’re running it. Then, create a collaboration document, such as a Confluence page. You can use the provided templates or create your own.
As a team, decide the time period for setting OKRs (quarters is a good start) and share the following information before running the Play:
- Broader company goals and objectives
- Project roadmaps
- Customer metrics and/or feedback
-
If available, previous OKRs
Tip: GUIDED BY THE TOP
If your company doesn’t have OKRs, look for the strategic initiatives or big rocks for the year they want to focus on. These should inform the OKRs you’re writing as a team.
2. Define objectives 5 MIN
Have the team brainstorm objectives— what they want to achieve in a defined time period. Objectives should be qualitative and ambitious, serving as a team’s highest priorities while they’re in place.
Add the ideas to the collaboration document. Group similar objectives together, then summarize the ideas into 1-3 objectives.
1. Improve customer satisfaction
2. Accelerate product development
3. Expand market reach
4. Enhance team productivity
5. Build for the future
6. Win hearts and minds
7. Become an AI company
8. Drive engagement for priority products
9. Expand business teams adoption
10. Increase sales revenue
3. Set key results 10 MIN
To measure progress, each objective should have three to five corresponding key results (KRs), which are quantitative metrics that detail how you will achieve the objectives.
To answer this, ask: what needs to be true in order for this objective to be achieved? Are there any gaps? If we achieved all of these key results, would we meet this objective?
Some best practices for setting key results include:
- Make them specific and measurable
- Set challenging but achievable targets
- Make them outcome-orientated, not activity-based
- Ensure available resources
- Get team buy-in
Monitor and adjust if needed
1. Objective: Improve customer satisfaction
- Key Result 1: Achieve a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 50 or higher
- Key Result 2: Reduce average response time for customer inquiries to under 2 hours
Key Result 3: Increase the customer retention rate by 10%
2. Objective: Accelerate product development
- Key Result 1: Launch two new features by the end of Q4
- Key Result 2: Reduce the average bug resolution time by 25%
Key Result 3: Increase the percentage of automated tests to 80%
3. Objective: Expand market reach
- Key Result 1: Enter three new geographical markets by the end of the year.
- Key Result 2: Increase brand awareness by 20% in target markets.
Key Result 3: Secure partnerships with five key influencers or organizations.
TIP: results, not tasks
KRs are a measure of the work, not the work itself.
“Create 5 web pages” is work.
“5% increase in page views” is a key result.
TIP: SAFEGUARD QUALITY
Make sure KRs capture both output and quality. For example, if your KR is number of help desk tickets resolved you might also measure the decrease in tickets submitted to ensure the quality of the help is maintained. The goal isn’t to hit your KR from a lack of quality.
4. Assign owners 10 MIN
Assign each key result (KR) an owner on the team. While the KR belongs to the whole team, the owner is responsible for tracking the team’s progress on it.
5. Tracking success with OKRs 15 MIN
Review your OKRs' progress once per month. Create a score that reflects how you’re tracking towards each objective.
Scores – Use a sliding scale between 0 and 1 that indicates whether you missed, came close to, or hit your stated target for the KR. For example:
0.3 = We missed the mark
0.7 = We came very close
1 = We knocked it out of the park. Maybe we should set harder objectives moving forward.
Setting ambitious goals is encouraged, and it's okay not to achieve a perfect score every time. In fact, Atlassian’s own scoring philosophy focuses on stretch goals. Teams are supposed to set 0.7 assuming they have about a 80/20 chance of achieving vs. not, and 1.0 as if they have a 50/50 chance of achieving vs. not.
Follow-up
Save your OKRs in a place where your team and stakeholders can easily find it. End the quarter by giving each KR a final score. Using a Retrospective, reflect on your OKRs and what you can improve when setting them next time.
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