Method
What Is OKR: Objectives and Key Results
The method in full: how an objective is built, how it differs from KPI, the quarterly cycle, examples by industry, common mistakes and a glossary.
700+ practitioners
Join the communityWhat OKR is
OKR (Objectives and Key Results) is a way of setting goals in which a team picks one qualitative objective for the quarter and 3–5 measurable results that prove it was reached. The Objective answers the question "where are we heading". In the Key Results you write down the numbers that tell you that you got there.
People come to us with this picture: in December the owner sees that sales spent the whole year chasing volume and manufacturing chased shop-floor utilisation, while he was waiting for margin. Everyone reported their own plan as delivered. With OKR the team brings its priorities into one list for the quarter, keeps it open to everyone, and spots the mismatch in February rather than a year later.
What OKR looks like in practice
The numbers in the example are illustrative, the structure is real. A chain of service centres:
You write the Objective in words and without numbers: it describes the state the team wants to reach. The numbers live in the Key Results, and each one has an owner and a data source. KR1 here belongs to the head of the service department, and the number comes from the order system.
Objective
the customer collects the repaired device the next day
in words, for the quarter, no numbers
KR1
share of repairs closed within 24 hours, from 22% to 60%
KR2
repeat visits for the same fault, from 14% to 5%
KR3
customer service rating, from 4.1 to 4.6
numbers in “from X to Y” form — each with an owner and a data source
How OKR differs from KPIs, tasks and performance reviews
Executives confuse OKR with three neighbouring tools:
| What gets confused | How it works under OKR |
|---|---|
| Performance review system | HR runs bonuses and appraisals as a separate process, with no tie to OKR |
| Task list | The team keeps tasks and initiatives in its own tracker. A Key Result records an outcome, not a volume of work |
| KPI dashboard | KPIs keep the current state of a running process under control. The difference from OKR is horizon and ambition |
Per quarter a team takes 2–3 Objectives with 3–5 Key Results each. A longer list is more than we can carry: every Key Result needs an owner and weekly data.
What an OKR is made of
An OKR has two mandatory elements: the Objective and the Key Results. The team keeps its list of work — the initiatives — separately. Initiatives standing in for Key Results is the most common mistake made by teams taking up OKR goals.
What an Objective is and how a working one sounds
An Objective is a direction for the quarter. The team describes it in words, without numbers and without a task list. You recognise a working objective by two signs: it has an owner, and a colleague from the next department understands it on first reading.
- Weak: "Improve marketing." The team will never agree on when the work is finished.
- Strong: "Become a visible player in the Polish HR services market."
- Weak: "Ship four new features." That is a work plan for the quarter.
- Strong: "A new user completes onboarding without help from a manager."
A team that puts a number into the Objective itself duplicates a Key Result with it and ends up with one metric instead of several.
What Key Results are and how many per objective
Key Results are the 3–5 numbers that show movement towards the objective. The format is "from X to Y over the quarter": from 71% to 90%, from 6 hours to 30 minutes. With two Key Results the objective rests on a single dimension; with six the team spreads its attention too thin.
An activity metric counts work: "run 40 demos", "publish 12 posts". The team will close it by effort and change nothing in the business. An outcome metric counts a change in customer behaviour or in money: "demo-to-contract conversion from 18% to 30%". Put the second kind in Key Results and leave the first kind in initiatives.
Every Key Result needs a starting number. Without a measurement at the beginning of the quarter the team will argue at the check-in about whether there has been any progress.
How initiatives differ from Key Results
An initiative is work: a project or a launch. A Key Result is the consequence of that work, visible in a number.
"Launch a new CRM" is an initiative. The department will close it on time and move no sales figures. The Key Result for the same work is different: "time from enquiry to first call, from 6 hours to 30 minutes". The CRM here is one of the ways to reach that number.
Complete the item in your head at 100%. If nothing changed in the business, you have written an initiative.
A team keeps one or two initiatives per Key Result. A longer list means the quarter is overloaded before it even starts.
An end-to-end example, a manufacturing company (numbers are illustrative):
| Element | Example | Sign |
|---|---|---|
| Objective | The customer receives their order without chasing or complaining | in words, for the quarter, no numbers |
| Key Result 1 | On-time delivery from 71% to 90% | a number in "from X to Y" form |
| Key Result 2 | Delay complaints from 45 to 10 per month | a number in "from X to Y" form |
| Initiative 1 | Roll out a new CRM in the logistics department | work that gets closed |
| Initiative 2 | Rewrite the escalation rules | work that gets closed |
The Objective and the Key Results go on the quarterly card. The initiatives stay in the work plan, and the team changes them mid-quarter when a month goes by with no movement in the numbers.
Where OKR came from and who invented it
Andy Grove rebuilt Peter Drucker's management by objectives (MBO): at Intel in the 1970s he paired a single objective with a set of numeric results and fixed the name OKR. In 1999 John Doerr, then an investor at Kleiner Perkins, brought the method to Google. From there Doerr and Google alumni carried it into other companies.
| Year | Who | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| 1954 | Peter Drucker | described management by objectives (MBO) in "The Practice of Management" |
| 1970s | Andy Grove | brought objective and key results together as one pair at Intel |
| 1999 | John Doerr | brought OKR to Google |
| 2018 | John Doerr | published "Measure What Matters" |
Grove added numeric results for each objective to MBO, plus a short review cycle: at Intel teams checked progress every quarter rather than once a year.
In the foreword to "Measure What Matters" Larry Page writes that OKRs helped Google grow tenfold many times over. In the same place he ties the method to the company's mission — to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.
Over two decades executives have carried the method far beyond Silicon Valley. Intel, Google, Amazon and Microsoft run on OKR today; in Ukraine, Uklon and Monobank. In the public sector the method was applied by the UK's Government Digital Service.
How OKR differs from KPI
KPIs show you the state of a process that already runs: conversion, response time. OKRs set out a change that does not exist yet: a new segment, entering a market. Executives leave a KPI threshold unchanged for years; a team rewrites its OKRs every quarter.
| Dimension | KPI | OKR |
|---|---|---|
| Focus | the state of a process that already runs | a change that does not exist yet |
| Horizon | a year and longer, the threshold does not move | a quarter, then rewritten |
| Ambition | a plan built to be delivered at 100% | a stretch goal where 0.7 on a 0–1 scale counts as success |
| Quantity | dozens of indicators on a dashboard | 2–3 objectives per quarter, 3–5 Key Results each |
| Link to bonuses | direct, the indicator feeds the bonus | no tie to the bonus |
| Format | one metric and a threshold | an Objective in words plus Key Results in numbers |
| Who works with it | the executive, finance, reporting | the team at the check-in |
You do not have to choose: most teams run both sets side by side. How to run them together without duplication, when a dashboard metric becomes a key result and what breaks at the seam is covered on a separate page, OKR vs KPI: the difference and how to use both.
Where SMART helps and where it gets in the way
Under SMART a goal is written against five criteria: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound. For a Key Result they work: without a number and a date a KR stays an intention. The letter A breaks the scheme. Under SMART the team sets a bar it will clear at 100%; in OKR it sets a stretch goal with 0.7 on a 0–1 scale as the norm. Apply the SMART criteria to the wording of Key Results and keep the ambition at the level of the Objective.
How the quarterly OKR cycle works
The quarterly OKR cycle has four stages: planning, check-ins, grading and the retrospective. The team starts planning two weeks before the quarter begins, then holds 15–30 minute check-ins weekly or every other week, and in the final two weeks scores each Key Result on a scale from 0 to 1 and runs a retrospective.
two weeks before the start
Planning
The team agrees on the quarter’s objectives and takes the starting numbers for every Key Result.
weekly or every other week
Check-ins
A 15–30 minute meeting: what moved, what is stuck, which initiatives we are changing.
the last two weeks of the quarter
Grading
Every Key Result gets a score on a scale from 0 to 1. For an ambitious objective, 0.7 counts as success.
at the turn of the quarter
Retrospective
The team works through where the hypothesis was wrong and where the initiatives failed, and carries the conclusion into the next cycle.
Who takes part at each stage
| Stage | Who takes part | How long | What comes out |
|---|---|---|---|
| Planning | leadership first, then each team separately | two weeks before the quarter starts, 3–4 sessions | 2–3 Objectives per level, 3–5 Key Results each, every KR with a named owner |
| Check-ins | the team and a facilitator | 15–30 minutes weekly or every other week | fresh numbers for every KR, a list of blockers, decisions for the week |
| Grading | Key Result owners, then the team together | 1–2 hours in the last week of the quarter | a score from 0 to 1 for each KR and an explanation of where it came from |
| Retrospective | the team | 60–90 minutes | two or three decisions on what to change next cycle |
Planning takes more effort than all the other stages combined. Leadership agrees on 2–3 company-level Objectives, and only then do teams write their own. In the reverse order nobody will ever bring the teams' goals together.
What happens at a check-in
Key Result owners state the current value of the metric and their confidence that they will carry it to the end of the quarter. The facilitator runs the conversation around two questions: where is the metric now, and what is stopping it from moving this week. Task statuses are not brought to the check-in.
Why 0.7 on a Key Result is a normal result
The team scores each Key Result on a scale from 0 to 1, where 1 means the result is closed. For an ambitious objective, Google treats 0.7 as the norm. A team that closes everything at 1.0 quarter after quarter is setting the bar too low, and its manager will ask for more ambition at the next planning session. A score below 0.3 reads as a reason to investigate: either the team picked the wrong objective, or conditions changed along the way.
Grove measured differently at Intel. His teams were expected to close their committed goals at close to 100%, and he did not apply the 0.7 norm to them.
What the team does at the retrospective
The team works through two questions: which Key Results turned out to be beyond its control, and what to change in the next set. The facilitator writes down two or three decisions and brings them to next quarter's planning. Without this step the team repeats the same wording mistake for the third quarter running.
OKR examples
The numbers in the six sets below are illustrative; none belongs to a specific organisation. Take the starting X from your own records for the previous quarter, otherwise you are writing a guess rather than a metric. Set the target Y at the edge: the team should see a real risk of closing it at 0.7 rather than at one. With an easy bar people work exactly as before; with an unreachable one they stop believing in the goal.
Each set below has one Objective and three Key Results for clarity; in practice a team keeps 3–5 results per objective and 2–3 objectives per quarter.
OKR example for a product team
*A SaaS service with 40,000 registered users.*
Objective: a new user reaches the product's first value without support.
- KR1: share of sign-ups reaching the key action within the first 24 hours, from 31% to 55%
- KR2: average time to creating a first project, from 4 days to 1 day
- KR3: support tickets about onboarding, from 180 to 60 per month
OKR example for a sales team
*A B2B company, six account managers, a two-month deal cycle.*
Objective: mid-market customers buy from us without a deep discount.
- KR1: demo-to-contract conversion, from 14% to 22%
- KR2: average new deal size, from UAH 120,000 to UAH 180,000
- KR3: share of deals discounted by more than 15%, from 40% to 10%
OKR example for marketing
*A B2B company where managers topped up their pipeline with cold calls.*
Objective: sales works from a flow of enquiries out of our own channels.
- KR1: qualified enquiries from organic search, from 25 to 70 per month
- KR2: cost per qualified enquiry, from UAH 1,400 to UAH 900
- KR3: share of enquiries sales confirmed as qualified, from 38% to 60%
OKR example for HR
*A manufacturing company hiring 15 engineers per quarter.*
Objective: a new hire reaches independent work within the first month.
- KR1: share of new hires closing a first independent task within 30 days, from 45% to 80%
- KR2: attrition in the first six months, from 22% to 10%
- KR3: time to fill an engineering vacancy, from 68 to 45 days
OKR example for a government agency
*A central executive body issuing permits to businesses.*
Objective: the applicant gets the service online and without a second visit.
- KR1: share of applications arriving online, from 12% to 45%
- KR2: average time to process an application, from 21 to 10 working days
- KR3: share of applications sent back for rework, from 30% to 12%
OKR example for a nonprofit
*An annual budget of UAH 12 million and one core programme.*
Objective: the core programme is funded by several sources instead of a single donor.
- KR1: share of budget from the largest donor, from 70% to 40%
- KR2: regular individual donors, from 180 to 600 people
- KR3: cost of raising one hryvnia of donations, from UAH 0.35 to UAH 0.20
The format is the same for a business and for a government agency; what differs is the metrics. Copy someone else's set and you will be measuring another organisation's progress. Take the "metric, from X, to Y" structure and put your own values into it. Keep the initiatives in a separate list alongside.
How to roll out OKR and where teams stumble
The minimum length of an OKR rollout project is three months; a full rollout across every team takes six to nine. The timeline depends on the size of the company and on whether there is someone inside who will take the process on. OKR UA runs a rollout in seven steps.
- The all-hands announcement. The company's leader announces the move to OKR in front of the whole team and names the reason for the decision.
- Readiness assessment. We interview the C-level and go through the current goal system together with how decisions get made in the company.
- Strategic goals with the leadership team. In a workshop the leadership team formulates 2–3 company goals for the quarter and 3–5 Key Results for each.
- Team training and cascading. Teams go through training and write their own OKRs, building on the company goals rather than copying them.
- OKR Festival. Each team presents its quarterly goals to the CEO and the other teams; the others ask questions and find conflicts.
- Starting the check-in rhythm. Teams put the check-in and the quarterly review in the calendar, with someone accountable for each Key Result.
- Handover to an internal facilitator. We prepare someone inside the company to run the following cycles without us.
We have laid out the roles, artefacts and timelines of every step on the How we work page.
Five mistakes we see in projects
Too many goals. The team takes eight Objectives with five Key Results each and moves none of them over the quarter. We ask them to keep 2–3 objectives and 3–5 Key Results each, and to move the rest into an initiative backlog.
Key Results as a task list. "Launch a new website", "hire two people" — these are tasks. A Key Result describes a change of state: conversion from 2% to 3.5%, support first response time from 8 hours to 2.
Tying them to bonuses. When the bonus depends on the OKR completion percentage, the team sets goals it has no doubt about and hides problems at check-ins. After that the manager no longer sees the real picture. In "Measure What Matters" Doerr separates OKRs and compensation into different processes, and Google appraises an employee separately from their OKR performance. We hold to the same rule: calculate the bonus on contribution and task complexity, and keep grading as a learning tool.
Leadership handing goals down. It distributes ready-made goals to teams without discussion. People deliver someone else's plan, and at check-ins they report instead of talking about obstacles. In working cascading, the team proposes its own Key Results and leadership checks them against the strategy.
No check-ins between quarters. The team sets goals in January and comes back to them in March, when there is no time left to change anything. Without a regular conversation people see no connection between their work and the Key Results.
Frequently asked questions about OKR
How many OKRs should a team have?
2–3 Objectives per quarter, with 3–5 Key Results each. A small team more often keeps a single objective. A longer list takes focus away.
Should OKRs be tied to bonuses?
No. The full answer is in the section on common mistakes. Calculate the bonus on contribution and task complexity.
How does OKR differ from KPI?
KPIs let you look at the state of a continuous process; OKRs set out a change for the quarter. Companies keep both sets: the comparison across seven dimensions is above.
How long is an OKR cycle?
A quarter. The stages, timings and participants are in the section on the cycle. Annual company goals set the frame for the quarter.
Does OKR suit a small business?
Yes. A small team sets one shared objective for the quarter with 3–5 Key Results, with no cascading and no software.
Does OKR work in a government agency?
Yes. The Government Digital Service applied the method in its teams. In Ukrainian agencies the goal has to be reconciled with the budget cycle and the work plan, and Key Results have to be built on data the agency actually has access to.
What do we do if the goal is not reached?
Take it apart at the retrospective: leadership set the bar too high, the team lacked resources, or the priority changed mid-quarter. For a stretch goal, 0.7 counts as the norm. Punishing people for falling short is not worth it — next quarter the team will simply pick something easy.
Do we need a dedicated OKR tool?
Run the first two or three cycles in Google Sheets or Notion. Software becomes useful at scale, when there are many teams and you need several years of history.
How do we combine OKR with annual planning?
The annual plan and the budget stay. You take two or three priorities for the year from them and break those down by quarter. Revenue and costs are counted in the budget, while OKR goals carry the changes: a new market or a rebuilt process.
Who writes the OKRs: the manager or the team?
Both. The manager brings context and the company's priority; the team writes its own Key Results and defends them at the planning session. Doerr describes Google, where roughly half of all OKRs are written by the teams themselves.
Where do we start if nobody in the company has worked with OKR?
Take one team and one quarter: one objective, three Key Results, a weekly check-in, a retrospective at the end. After the second cycle, bring in the rest of the teams.
OKR glossary
The terms you will hear at a planning session.
Objective — the team's direction for the quarter, in words and without numbers.
Key Result — a measurable indicator of movement towards the Objective. An objective takes 3–5 KRs, each with a number and a date.
Initiative — work done to move a Key Result. It can be completed at 100% without reaching the KR.
Outcome metric and activity metric — the first counts a change in customer behaviour, the second the volume of your work. Put the first into a Key Result.
Stretch goal — a bar set above the confident plan, where the team counts 0.7 on a 0–1 scale as success.
Committed goal — a goal the team undertakes to close at 100%. That was the standard Grove held at Intel.
Grading — scoring a Key Result at the end of the quarter on a 0–1 scale. A constant 1.0 signals the bar is too low.
Confidence rating — your estimate of the likelihood of reaching a KR, from 1 to 10. A drop between check-ins is a reason to revisit the plan.
Check-in — a 15–30 minute meeting weekly or every other week, where the team updates progress on the KRs.
Quarterly cycle — the working rhythm of OKR: planning, check-ins, grading, retrospective.
Retrospective — a meeting at the end of the cycle where the team works through what worked in the goals and records changes for the next quarter.
Cascading — deriving a team's goals from the goals one level up, top down.
Alignment — teams see each other's goals and agree on shared KRs, without an order from above.
OKR facilitator — the person who runs the goal-setting session: keeps time and sharpens wording, without interfering with content.
OKR champion — a team member who keeps the OKR practice alive in their unit between sessions: reminds people about check-ins, rewrites weak KRs.
OKR Festival — an internal company event where teams present their quarterly goals to the CEO and to one another.
CFR — Conversations, Feedback, Recognition. Doerr pairs CFR with OKR in place of the annual appraisal.
MBO — Management by Objectives, Peter Drucker's approach from 1954, out of which Grove made OKR.
Next
See what this looks like in your department
Eight ready sets of objectives and key results, a table of poor and good wordings, and a template to run them in.