What are OKRs? 

OKR is the acronym for Objectives and Key Results. OKRs are a goal-management framework to help set clear goals and at a high level define the strategies for achieving the desired outcomes. Used consistently across the company, OKRs also help ensure resource alignment from all parts of the organization to deliver higher quality, on-time solutions to the market.

Peter Drucker introduced “objectives” in his book, The Practice of Management (1954), where he introduce the Management by Objectives (MBO) framework. Later Andy Grove built on that idea at Intel and combined objectives with outcomes, developing and implementing “objectives and key results” across the company. He went on to describe the concept in more depth in his book High Output Management (1983).

There are 100’s of resources on the web to help you write effective OKRs. There are on-courses, books, etc. available, with that mind the page is simply meant to provide an overview of what OKRs are and how to write effective Objectives and Key Results.

OKR’s should be used to drive big things:

• Introducing disruptive innovations

• Establishing differences between you and your competitors

• Being recognized as an industry leader in your category

OKRs are cascaded down the organization; The Leadership will define a set of OKR’s for the company. It is then the responsibility of each team within the company to create their own OKR’s aligned to those of the company. In the case of Product, Design, and Engineering, the OKRs will be set at both the operation team level as well as by the Product Teams to ensure our product development efforts are aligned to the overarching company goals.

There are three parts to an OKR

• Objective(s). These are concise statements of the goals and intents you want to achieve with your efforts. These need to go beyond the “business as usual” things like stability or scalability, they need push the team to achieve more, to grow their product and the value it delivers to customer. Its important to note that each Product Team will likely have multiple Objectives. Objectives are qualitative, specific, time-bound, and measurable goals. They should feel challenging yet achievable. Aim for ambitious goals and occasional stretch goals. And most importantly they should be tied to one of the company level OKRs to ensure your OKR is meaningful to your entire organization. 

• Key Results. These are typically 3-5 measurable outcomes that let you track your progress in achieving your Objective(s). Key results are measurable metrics that track progress toward the objective. They provide a clear indication of progress and performance. Key Results are tracked on a per quarter basis and should contribute directly to your Objective.

• And finally, Initiatives. Initiatives are the individual tasks captured on the Product Team’s roadmap, these include the various deliverables and work products that are necessary to achieve the Key Results. It is important to note, that while OKRs are focused on the current quarter, a Product Team’s Initiatives Roadmap will frame out longer-term plan (3 months, 6 months, 1 year, or more) since some initiatives will require multiple quarters to deliver. One of the Product Team’s Key Results should reflect the progress the team needs to make in in the current quarter in order to deliver these extended projects at the desired time.

Here’s an example of an OKR, broken down:

• Objective: Put a man on the moon

• Key result: Complete a lunar module design by December 1967

• Initiatives: Do the math. Verify ascent options. Do more math. Verify descent options. Again more math, Train a monkey….

How to write effective OKRs

When done well OKRs help the entire organization become more unified in the pursuit of shared goals.

However first the Product Team needs to identify the strategic theme for their quarter. This should be tied to the overarching strategic theme from their project’s 6-Pager. To get started, the Product Team needs to meet and discuss where they are with their product, what’s working, what’s not and where they want it to be in the next 6-12 months. The Product Team needs to then brainstorm key themes and identify from that list the Theme they want for the coming quarter. Once the Product Team has their Theme for the quarter, they are ready to create Objectives.

Here are some best practices to keep in mind when you are writing OKRs to help foster discipline and alignment. 

Objectives:

• Objectives should be inspiring but achievable. They should be practical accomplishments, but described in a way that motivates teams to tackle them.

• The ideal number of objectives varies, but ideally should be no more than three. 

• Because they are meant to be achievable, objectives should be gradable. At the end of the given period (a month, a quarter, or a year), you’ll have a clear idea of how you performed.

Key Results:

• Key results should be specific, time bound, and measurable. A great way to think about them is that they're itemized outcomes, not task lists—your initiatives are your task list these are more easily adjusted throughout the quarter. 

• The ideal number of Key Results can vary depending on your goal–start with 3-5 and work from there!

• Key results are trackable outcomes, so you should assign them numeric values, like “increase video viewership by 150%” or “launch 12 new features.” or “ship product with 95% of committed features.”

Once the Product Team has written their OKR’s they will add them to 7Geese so they can begin tracking them on a weekly basis to provide updates to the other Product Teams as well as the leadership team.

Tips for writing effective Objectives.

• Make them directional & inspiring: Go beyond stating the goal you want to achieve use your Objective to inspire, motivate, and engage not only your immediate team to get in there and do the work, but other teams as well to bolster your success.  

• Be ambitious yet realistic: OKRs need to push you beyond the status quo — Objectives should encourage you to step out of your comfort zone while not being unrealistic. 

• Understandable: Its important that everyone understand where you are headed, write Objectives clearly and concisely, avoid acronyms, technical jargon and buzzwords. Give your Objective a title that clearly states what it you want to achieve.

• Don’t include metrics: Objectives are meant to communicate your desired outcome. Leave the measurement to the corresponding Key Results. 

• Alignment: As mentioned above, OKRs cascade. A product’s Objective should align with the larger goals set by the company--however the OKR your product supports may have an executive sponsor who is not part of your department (e.g. your product OKR may be tied to corporate OKR from Sales or Marketing)

• Time-bound: To ensure you’re learning and pushing to achieve your desired outcome, it’s critical to set your Objectives are intended to be achieved within a single quarter (As noted above the Product Team needs to track their quarterly progress in delivering any initiatives that span multiple quarters.)

Tips for writing effective Key Results

• Outcome over Output: Key Results are the outcomes you want to achieve, these are not tasks or to-dos, but instead they are metrics that will allow you to quantify whether or not you achieved your Objective. 

• Measurable: Key Results should have a clear metric that can be measured, the Product Team will determine the most effective way to measure their results--quantitatively or qualitatively.  

• Relevant: Key Results need to be specific to the Objective you’re trying to achieve. In fact they they should clarify what achieving the Objective means. 

• Again, ambitious yet realistic: Don’t be afraid to push your target metrics when defining your Key Results, OKR are intended to break the status quo, yet be cautious of it being within your circle of influence.

• Balanced: It’s best practice not to set more than 5 Key Results per Objective. While having too few Key Results may not provide the entire picture, having too many will result in losing focus.