What is an OKR?
OKRs are the most common way product teams set goals. Here's what they are, how a good one reads and why so many go stale by week three.
Updated
Definition
Objectives and key results (OKRs) are a goal-setting framework. An objective is a qualitative outcome you want to achieve; key results are two to five measurable signals that show you got there. Most teams set them quarterly.
What it is in practice
An objective says where you want to be, in words people remember. Key results say how you'll know you're there, with a starting point and a target. Together they give a team a direction without dictating the solution.
Good key results measure outcomes, such as a change in behaviour or a business result, not output like "ship feature X". The work that moves them, such as epics, releases and experiments, sits underneath and can change as the team learns.
OKRs work when they are visible and reviewed. Teams that check progress weekly, and record how confident they are of hitting each target, notice early when something isn't moving.
An example from Pulse Analytics
In the Meridian Labs demo, Pulse Analytics has the objective "Make product decisions measurable within one working day." A key result for it would measure how long teams wait for an answer to a product question, from a known baseline to a target. The milestones underneath, such as Self-serve dashboards and the Governed metric catalogue, are how the team plans to move that measure, not the measure itself.
Common mistakes
- Writing key results as a task list. "Launch dashboards" is output; the change it causes is the result.
- Setting too many. More than five key results per objective, or too many objectives, spreads attention thin.
- Setting them in a slide and never looking again until the quarter ends.
- Skipping the baseline, so nobody can tell whether a number moved.
How Ondule handles this
Ondule records objectives with measures: each measure has a baseline, a target and a confidence, and the milestones and epics that deliver it are linked on the same record.
Questions
- How many key results should an objective have?
- Two to five. Fewer can miss what matters; more usually means the objective is too broad.
- How often should OKRs be set?
- Most teams set them quarterly and review progress weekly.
- What is the difference between an OKR and a KPI?
- A KPI is a standing measure of health you track all the time. An OKR is a time-bound goal to change something, and a key result can aim to move a KPI.