OKRs

What Are OKRs?

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are a goal-setting framework that pairs a qualitative Objective, what you want to achieve, with a few measurable Key Results that show whether you achieved it. The framework gives a team a shared direction and an explicit way to assess progress.

Created by Andy Grove at Intel and introduced to Google by John Doerr in 1999, OKRs push teams to commit to outcomes rather than activity and to make progress visible.

How OKRs Work

Each OKR has two parts:

• Objective: a short, qualitative, inspiring statement of what the team wants to accomplish, such as "Make onboarding effortless for new teams."
• Key Results: usually three to five measurable results that prove the objective has been met, such as "Raise the share of new teams that invite a colleague in week one from 30% to 50%."

Doerr summarizes the structure as "I will (Objective) as measured by (Key Results)." Key results should measure customer or business impact, not tasks completed. "Launch the new setup wizard" is an initiative; "cut median setup time from 20 minutes to 5" is a key result. The initiatives the team pursues sit below the key results and can change if they are not working.

OKRs are commonly set on a quarterly cycle and reviewed regularly. Doerr's organization, What Matters, distinguishes committed OKRs, which teams are expected to fully achieve, from aspirational OKRs, which are deliberate stretch goals. Google popularized grading key results on a 0.0 to 1.0 scale, where around 0.7 on an aspirational OKR counts as a solid result. Grove's original approach was a simpler yes-or-no check.

OKRs are set at company, team and sometimes individual level, and lower levels align with the ones above, so a team can see how its goals contribute to the company's.

Why OKRs Matter

OKRs give a team focus. Limiting the number of objectives forces choices, and measurable key results make it obvious whether those choices paid off. That clarity turns strategy into something a team can act on each week.

For product teams, OKRs are the usual bridge between strategy and the roadmap. Instead of handing a team a list of features, leaders give it an objective and key results and let the team decide which solutions to build. This is the model behind the outcome-based roadmap and the empowered product teams Marty Cagan describes.

Common failures are easy to spot: too many objectives, key results that are really task lists, and goals set once and never reviewed. Turning a set of OKRs into well-scoped delivery work is covered in turning OKRs into sprint-ready tickets.

OKRs Example

The following example is hypothetical.

A team running a team-messaging product sets one quarterly OKR:

• Objective: Make the product the place where new teams actually talk.
• Key result 1: increase the share of new workspaces with at least five active members in week two from 25% to 40%.
• Key result 2: raise week-four retention of new workspaces from 55% to 65%.
• Key result 3: reduce median time to first message from 2 days to 4 hours.

The team's initiatives include import from email threads and a redesigned invite flow. If neither moves the key results by mid-quarter, it changes approach, not the goal.

OKRs vs. North Star Metric

A north star metric is a single, long-lived measure of the value a product delivers. OKRs are time-boxed goals that change each cycle. Good product OKRs often target the inputs that drive the north star metric, so quarterly work steadily moves the long-term measure.

OKRs vs. KPIs

A key performance indicator (KPI) is a measure used to monitor an important aspect of performance, such as retention or service reliability. An OKR pairs a desired objective with measurable results for a defined period. They can work together: a KPI that needs improvement can become the measure used in a key result.

For example, the team may continuously monitor week-four retention as a KPI. This quarter, a key result might be “increase week-four retention of new workspaces from 55% to 65%.” The metric remains useful after that OKR ends; the key result adds a target and deadline in service of the objective.

Keep routine health metrics visible even when they are not key results. Use regular check-ins to inspect progress, blockers, and evidence, rather than waiting for the final score. A missed key result calls for investigation and learning, not an automatic change to the target.