Guide to effective OKRs

My collected best advice on using OKRs for goal-setting

Avoid my early goal-setting mistakes…

Setting goals is one of those things that everyone knows is important. But it’s also so easy for it to go wrong.

When done right, I’ve found the OKR (Objective and Key Results) framework to be the simplest and most effective way to set goals.

But while I’ve seen them work miracles, I’ve also seen them part of complete disasters. I’ve used OKRs at several companies I’ve worked at, including my early days in product management at Klarna in the early 2010s, and later at P.F.C., the Swedish neobank that I co-founded.

I’ve gradually created this guide over the past 13 years by distilling many tough lessons learned. Maybe this guide can help you avoid some of the mistakes I’ve seen made (or made myself!) along the way.

It is possible to set good OKRs, with a few tips… (Image credit: DALL-E)

Why would you want to use OKRs?

OKRs, or Objectives and Key Results, are a simple way to stay focused on what’s most important to achieve for an individual or a team.

Do you want to…

• Accomplish important things?

• Stay focused and not do 100 things at the same time?

• Keep everyone informed without everyone having to understand every detail?

• Prioritize work daily so that the most important work doesn’t get neglected?

• Ensure everyone in the team understands how to affect their work?

If you care about most of the above, OKRs can be a great tool.

The two parts of an OKR

What is the single most important thing to achieve in the next X weeks?

• The answer to this question is your Objective.

Given your Objective, what are the 2 to 4 ways you will measure progress towards it or measure success?

• The answers to this are your Key Results.

Example 1: OKR for a city government

Objective: Increase economic investment to promote neighborhood stability¹

Key Results:

1. 95% of permits and zoning approvals will be issued on time.

2. Increase compliance of code violations by the comply by date from 20% to 35%.

3. Improve stability in the quality of life pilot area by 20%.

What makes a good objective?

• Inspirational — describes the desired outcome

• Qualitative — non-numerical (key results cover the numbers)

• Ambitious — forces us to think of creative ways to achieve it

• Important — only the most essential thing for you to accomplish, not everything you will do

Example 2: OKR for your personal life

Objective: Have more quality family time²

Key Results:

1. Get home for dinner by 6:00 PM, 20 nights a month.

2. Turn off the internet router to eliminate distractions two weekend days per month.

Example 3: OKR for a marketing team

Objective: Increase brand awareness³

Key Results:

1. Drive 10 000 web visitors per month.

2. Increase social media following by 10x.

3. Recruit and onboard 500 community members.

What makes an excellent key result?

• Relevant — contributes to the Objective

• Measurable and verifiable — contains a number, and you can measure it

• Difficult, but not impossible — aim for a 50% chance of success

Example 4: OKR for a development team

Objective: Successfully launch a new budget tool in the app by the end of the quarter.

Key Results:

1. 20% of monthly active users use the new budget tool during the first month.

2. Recommendation score of 8.0 or higher among users of the budget tool.

3. All features of the budget tool are available to beta testers before the launch.

Example 5: OKR for a customer support team

Objective: Improve internal ways of working to be able to offer better customer service than ever.

Key Results:

1. < 50% of users wait for a response of more than one hour

2. Target our customers in the chat so well that 25% of all users receiving a teaser will click the link

Tips for setting good OKRs

Aim for the thing on the left over the thing on the right.

1. Set only one Objective per team and 2-4 Key Results per Objective — Instead of setting lots of OKRs.

2. Choose an objective that describes the most important thing that needs to change — Instead of setting business-as-usual goals, like “Continue maintaining existing systems.”

3. Make an inspirational objective and put numbers in the key results — Instead of putting numbers in the Objective.

4. Key results measure progress towards the Objective — Instead of Key Results that are tasks.

5. Remembering that your OKR is the most important thing you will achieve — Instead of trying to capture everything you will work on.

6. Choose an OKR that stretches you a little — Instead of choosing an OKR that is easy.

Frequently asked questions

Does an OKR replace a team’s backlog, project planning, etc?

• Achieving the OKR is each team’s focus, but a team can and should use any additional tools to visualize and manage their day-to-day work if wanted

Is reaching the OKR the only thing a team can work on?

• Not necessarily. The OKR should cover the most important metrics to improve, but there’s probably other work that must also be done.

Wrap up

Thanks to all the people I’ve worked with on OKRs over the years—I’ve learned a lot from our experiences together!

For everyone else, good luck setting your OKRs!

Let me know how OKRs work for you, and I’d love to hear when they go right or wrong.

1. City of Syracuse, New York, United States. Sometime around 2018?

2. John Doerr, the inventor of OKRs. Adapted from: Julia Martins. “What are objectives and key results (OKRs)?” Asana Resources. 28 October 2022, https://asana.com/resources/okr-meaning.

3. Adapted from: Julia Martins. “What are objectives and key results (OKRs)?” Asana Resources. 28 October 2022, https://asana.com/resources/okr-meaning.