What are OKRs
OKR : A Comprehensive Guide
The chequered history and the exciting future of Objectives & Key Results
What is OKR?
Objectives & Key Results (OKR) is a goal-setting framework used by organizations of different sizes – startups, scale-ups, established businesses, and others. It provides fundamental tenets for organizations to create structured goals without defining processes set in stone. Teams usually take up the OKRs framework & flavor it to match their unique needs.
A brief history of OKR
Born around the 1970s and adopted by various technology giants like Intel, Google, LinkedIn, Oracle, and Twitter, OKR has been very efficient in defining objectives and breaking them down into measurable key results. In the current scenario where work, as we know, is transforming, changes in the talent pool, engagement models, and cognitive tools are accelerating shifts in how organizations perform and excel, Work From Anywhere (WFX) is creating the rise of the "augmented workforce," with Gen Z forming a significant part of that workforce – OKRs become more relevant than ever. The transformative & disruptive changes call for organizations to Re-architect work to adapt and learn for future growth, and OKRs help achieve these goals.
While OKRs are a re-branded & tweaked version of traditional goal-setting methods (such as MBOs), the tweaks bring the best of traditional goal-setting approaches to meet the needs of the contemporary workforce.
Beginner’s Guide to Objectives & Key Results
Components of OKRs
OKRs is an acronym for Objectives and Key Results. The framework comprises 2 main components, namely Objectives and Key Results.
Objectives
They are clear, concise, and inspiring statements that describe the overarching goal to be achieved. An objective should be ambitious, qualitative, and focused on significant achievements.
Examples of Objectives:-
- Increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
- Expand market share and become an industry leader in innovation.
- Enhance employee well-being and foster a positive company culture.
Key Results
They are specific, measurable outcomes that indicate progress towards the Objective. They should be quantitative and data-driven, making it easy to assess performance objectively.
Examples of Key Results:-
- Achieve a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 9 or higher by the end of the quarter.
- Increase market share by 10% in the next six months.
- Reduce employee turnover rate to less than 5% within this year.
OKR examples
Objectives set in OKRs are derived from the top corporate objectives of the organization, and then can be adopted by different teams to support them. Here’s an example of an OKR for a SaaS organization:
Objective |
Key Results |
| Build software that solves most painful customer problems in an efficient way | Increase the NPS score by 2 points.
Get X number of subscriptions for the solution. Increase customer satisfaction rate by Y% (OR achieve Y% reduction in support calls) |
Reaching the Objective depends on achieving the key results, and the important factors for the achievement to happen are Initiative, score, and ownership.
Initiatives are projects or activities that result in achieving one (or more) of the Key Results. Tasks that form the part of employees’ everyday work can be considered as initiatives when they’re aiding in the achievement of key results. If that isn’t the case, the onus is on the employee and their manager to modify them.
Frequency is the interval at which the progress of OKRs is reviewed. This can be a formal or an informal process, where the employee (or team) and the manager focus on the output and check if it is in line with the overall objective. Changes can be made to the key results if the current ones are not reflecting the required values.
Scores for OKRs are between 0.0 to 1.0, where 1.0 represents a completion of the objective. This should not be the end goal of the OKR process, as a score of 0.6-0.7 is considered ideal. Scores that consistently fall below or above this indicate unclear objectives (lower spectrum) or unambitious ones (higher scale).
Ownership of every key result among team members ensures there is more accountability, alignment and transparency. Having an owner for every OKR simplifies collaboration.
Here are some examples that include organizational level, team level, and individual OKRs.
OKR Examples for Engineering Teams
OKR Examples for Sales and Business development
OKR Examples for Customer Success
OKR Examples for Human Resources
What are the types of OKRs?
OKRs can be classified based on committed and aspirational OKRs or Strategic and tactical OKRs.
Committed OKRs
These are objectives that the organization, team, or employees who have adopted them have agreed to pursue for completion. They involve precise plans, are executed at a predetermined frequency, and have specific resources earmarked to be graded for success on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0. If committed OKR grades are less than 1.0, then a discussion is held between primary stakeholders to determine where improvements could've been made – in the planning or the execution stage.
Aspirational OKRs
These are objectives that lack a clear path to success, which is exactly opposite for the Committed OKRs. As their name suggests, they are aspirational and expected to miss the 1.0 grade. That's why they're also known as 'moonshots' or stretch goals, as they involve experiments and get resources allotted as and when the needs arise. Progress on aspirational OKRs can be slow and sometimes span much farther than typical intervals set for OKRS.
As mentioned before, the grading for aspirational OKRs is not expected to reach the full 1.0 scale; if it does, it is considered that the goals were not aspirational enough in the first place. Anything around 0.6 to 0.7 is considered a success for aspirational OKRs, as they are expected to challenge the teams (or organizations) attempting them.
Strategic OKRs set the overall direction and vision for an organization, while tactical OKRs outline the specific actions and initiatives needed to reach those strategic objectives. By cascading OKRs from strategic to tactical levels, companies can ensure that their teams are working cohesively towards shared goals, with clear accountability and measurable outcomes at each level.
Benefits of OKRs?
The popularity of OKRs, the goal-setting framework stems from its efficiency in defining objectives and breaking them down into easily measurable key results. These benefits organizations can expect to achieve are neatly summed up in an acronym, 'FACTS' by John Doerr.
Focus
According to Doerr, every OKR cycle starts with identifying the most important factor that needs to be addressed in the allotted time frame. The time frame can be a month, quarter, or year – and the limit highlights the steps that can be taken to create an immediate impact. As OKRs limit the number of objectives set in a cycle to less than seven, the focus it provides can help managers with plenty on their plate.
Alignment
Aligning objectives to the goals set helps employees and the organizations they work for be on the same page. With this, the organization can help its employees grow while reaching the objectives that help it succeed. A Harvard Business Review research shows that the organizations in which employees are highly aligned tend to be high performers at a 2X rate than their counterparts.
Commitment
After setting the objectives and agreeing on the key results, tracking them offers transparency. As employees achieve their key results, the process requires regular reviews, which instills commitment and allows employees to focus on the bigger picture – not just finishing the task at hand.
Tracking
The tracking portion of OKRs enables employees to change course faster in case of setbacks and helps managers to guide their team members while giving them the autonomy to go about their duties. The continuous feedback element inherent in tracking also allows teams to improve their processes.
Stretching
As the name suggests, stretching involves setting goals in OKRs that push employees and their organizations a little further. In stretch goals, the idea of 70% completion to be considered a success frees employees from the fear of failure.
Why do OKRs fail
Because of the hype and the profile of organizations using OKRs, sometimes OKR adoption is treated as an answer to a multitude of issues that need to be fixed in the organizations that are looking to adopt the framework. Nothing can be farther from the truth. OKRs can help good organizations move towards greatness, but the basics should be in place first-hand.
But even the organizations that have all the necessities in place, can falter while adopting OKRs. Here are a few major reasons.
Making OKRs truly unachievable
OKRs are designed to be not achievable – but the difficult setting matters here. The goals should be just out of reach so that employees trying to achieve them should put in extra effort in learning and developing their skills. If the allure of ‘almost there’ is missing, it is easy for even the most dedicated employees to get disheartened and give up on their set goals.
Not defining OKRs clearly
Objectives and Key Results need to be specific and quantifiable – so that they can be tracked easily. Objectives can have a degree of vagueness in them, like ‘improve performance of the team’ – but corresponding key results should clearly mention what defines the improvement in performance.
Not following up regularly
The frequency of feedback and review of OKRs is essential for the success of the process. This also means that the environment should be conducive to positive feedback. Keeping a set frequency for follow ups also helps employees to plan and pace their work, and be honest about the issues or successes they have experienced. Managers can weigh in the struggles and successes of their employees and provide them with the necessary coaching (or recognition) to help them perform better.
Having too many goals
OKRs should be achievable, clear, and followed up on regularly – but none of this matters if there are too many of them for the employee to stay ahead of. A good rule of thumb is to have 3-5 objectives (at most), and the corresponding Key Results should be 5 to 6. Anything more than that, and employees (along with their managers) will get overwhelmed.
Preparing for OKRs
The OKR framework necessitates practising organizations to have a few prerequisites in place so that the objectives for different teams can be derived in the most effective way. The first prerequisite is a concrete vision and mission, from which the OKRs can be derived. This allows teams and individual employees to align their goals and targets to that of the organization.
Transparency to a large degree also helps employees set their individuals or team-level OKRs efficiently. Managers can help their team members in understanding how their daily tasks translate into the bigger picture and set OKRs to reflect the same. Some organizations like Spotify limit their OKRs to team levels – while some others insist on Individual OKRs. The flexible nature of the framework enables both methods to function based on the conditions set (or derived) from the organizational OKRs.
OKR Planning
Adopting OKRs in an organization isn’t an easy task, but the upsides of implementing them successfully are many. From resistance to change to lack of resources, many factors can derail OKR adoption – but strategic planning can help in identifying such roadblocks and allow organizations to move ahead smoothly.
Identifying readiness
While finalising the results an organization wants to see from its OKR practice, it is essential to identify the starting point. Thorough organization-wide research can shed light on shortcomings and issues that need to be addressed before OKRs can be set.
Since OKRs of employees need to be aligned with that of the organization, having a powerful vision and mission statement is a must. If these aren’t adequate, then the corresponding objectives and key results of employees may not have any effect on their performance.
Training the teams
Once the shortcomings and roadblocks are identified, the time is right to implement OKRs – but before that, employees need to understand why they are shifting to OKR-based performance management. Managers and leaders need to understand the need for OKRs first, and then they can help their team members understand the same. A combination of in-person training by managers, and self-paced learning through online courses (or OKR workshops) can bridge the gap.
Developing OKRs strategically
Before setting OKRs that individual employees in the team can adopt in their own way, managers should discuss the possibilities with key stakeholders in the project. These discussions will provide a deep understanding of the task and can allow managers to interpret objectives and key results better. They can also help their team members set their objectives with authority.
Creating strategic implementation plans
Once OKRs are planned strategically for the organization (or teams), implementing them is the next step. For that, organizations need to have a strong strategic implementation plan that is aligned with the objectives of their employees. This involves reinforcing the best practices that suit the organization so that adoption rates go up.
Measuring OKRs
Objectives are measured against their corresponding key results, which have a definitive number attached to them. However, having a Key result and sticking to it may not guarantee the success of OKR: managers (and team members) should constantly keep track of the progress and get feedback on the same.
How to implement OKRs?
Implementing OKRs allows organizations to innovate better and plan their processes efficiently, but making it another tool that employees need to use can nullify the effectiveness. Here are a few ideas to make the implementation process easier for managers and employees.
- Starting small and defining clear objectives is essential to get OKRs off the ground – and creating a pilot program can show the readiness of the organization. Instead of forcing a new process on employees who have more than enough on their plates already, this can show how the principles of OKRs gel with the employees.
- Communication is essential for the adoption of OKRs, as employees need to be assured of their psychological safety before making their objectives known. Managers who understand the goals of their employees can help them align those goals with that of the organization’s, and a continuous (2-way) feedback process builds the confidence of employees.
- Understanding the principle behind setting goals allows employees to stop thinking in terms of deliverables and focus on outcomes. Since the objectives set are considered achieved at 70%, employees need to set goals that are just above their current capabilities – so that they can improve while taking the project forward.
- Establishing a culture of feedback allows employees to be honest with their shortcomings and seek help in those areas, while it allows managers to fine-tune their leadership style. Also, it can highlight minor issues that might turn major in the long run.
OKR tools: What is the best OKR software?
Organizations trying to adopt OKRs can choose from various solutions available in the market. Some of them are free, some are paid, and some have free and paid tiers catering to different levels of utility.
The important factor to consider while adopting an OKR tool is the ease with which employees can adopt it. A standalone tool, free or paid, is bound to add an extra layer of learning to employees' workdays, and puts the onus on managers or team leads to ensure compliance. Having an integrated tool that seamlessly blends in your team's existing workflows will do wonders. For example, our OKR app for Jira, UpRaise for Employee Success is a case in point. It can be accessed directly from within your team’s Jira instance.
FAQ on OKRs
1. Are OKRs useful?
OKRs help teams and organizations set objectives and find the best way to achieve them. The effectiveness of Objectives is measured using Key Results – and reaching 70% of objectives is considered a good performance. Due to their flexible nature, OKRs nudge employees to get more out of their skills and innovate.
2. How is OKR measured?
The Objective part of OKRs is set with the help of employees, who are responsible for achieving Key Results associated with the said objectives. The effectiveness of OKRs is measured based on their completion rates – but these rates are not expected to be above 70%, to ensure the goals set are challenging. Also, OKRs require continuous feedback to be refined and adjusted, so that employees responsible for them have room to experiment and achieve success.
3. Is OKR part of Agile?
The basic principles behind OKRs are similar to the values of the Agile Manifesto. When used properly, OKRs can help organizations function in a more agile way, be responsive to changes in the market, and embrace a growth-oriented mindset.
4. How many OKRs should we set?
In order for OKRs to be effective, they should be precise – and limited in number. Typically, 3 to 5 Objectives are good enough, and each objective can have 5-7 key results associated with it (at most).
5. How is OKR different from KPI?
OKR is a goal-setting framework that helps in managing performance, while KPIs are measurement tools that tell us more about the result. The ‘Key Results’ part of OKRs can be compared to KPIs, as both of them can be used to evaluate outcomes.
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