OKRs: Meaning, Tips, and Examples for Objectives and Key Results

OKR or “Objectives and Key Results,” is a goal-setting framework for companies that want to strategically move forward while having a significant impact on the business. Each objective is paired with three to five key results used to measure progress and typically happens in a quarterly cycle. OKRs are used to create alignment, foster collaboration, and engage teams around measurable outcomes at a company-wide or team level.

What Is an OKR?

An OKR’s meaning comes from two main parts:

1. The objective states what the team wants to achieve using action-oriented, aspirational, and concrete language.

2. Key results monitor how teams reach an objective, and they are specific, have a deadline (usually one quarter), and realistic (yet aggressive).

OKRs keep teams focused on how to achieve goals set by the company, not just leadership.

How to Write an OKR

OKRs form a simple, one-sentence statement with the objective first followed by the key results. Teams meet once per quarter to narrow down company OKRs to complete within three months.

Here’s the general formula for an OKR to keep in mind as you meet with your teams:

• We will [objective] as measured by [Key Results].

OKR Meaning & Examples

Here are some examples:

• Objective: We will increase revenue by 5% (Ex: From B2B Tech Company)

  • Key Results: Increase new clients by 20

  • Key Results: Increase sales meetings by 10 per month

  • Key Results: Launch a new marketing campaign with a $2,000 monthly spend.

• Objective: We will achieve financial sustainability (Ex: From the City of Syracuse, NY)

  • Key Results: Reduce the general fund variance from 11 to 5%

  • Key Results: Spend 95% of authorized capital project dollars by the end of the fiscal year

  • Key Results: Spend 95% of grant dollars for grants from prior fiscal years.

• Objective: We will create the lowest carbon footprint in our industry (Ex: Allbirds)

  • Key Result: Supply chain and shipping infrastructure achieves 100% zero waste

  • Key Result: Pay a 100% carbon offset for calculated CO2 emissions

  • Key Result: Have 25% compostable material in shoes, and have 75% material biodegradable in shoes.

• Objective: We will attract younger, more diverse season ticket holders (Ex: art museum)

  • Key Result: Increase $30-under-30 membership enrollment by 100%

  • Key Result: Receive landing mentions on the accounts of five local Instagram influencers

  • Key Result: Get a 25% response rate from direct mail campaigns to diverse ZIP codes

  • Key Result: Attract 75 non-members per month through live artists talks.

• Objective:  I will run a 10K race in under 50 minutes by June (From a hypothetical personal fitness goal.)

  • Key Result: Going for a run three times a week for at least 30 minutes

  • Key Result: Increase the distance covered by 1 mile every week

  • Key Result: Increase the mile speed by 5 seconds every week.

What to Do and Not to Do for OKRs

Here are some tips on what to do when creating OKRs:

• Identify measurable results that lead to objectives.

• Track the results as they approach the number you want to achieve.

• Create the activities that need to be done to make the key results happen.

On the other hand, here are three things not to do for OKRs:

• Mistake the actions taken to achieve an objective as a key result.

• Have a key result that isn’t measurable.

• Use key results as objectives for teams, creating a cascading effect that creates too much work.

Types of OKRs

You can apply OKRs to numerous elements of a business. They can support a range of strategic objectives:

• Aspirational OKRs push organizations by design to exceed the team’s current ability to execute in a specific quarter by purposely setting a high bar that is seemingly impossible to encourage new thinking and development.

• Learning OKRs focus on exploring new or emerging areas where the outcome is uncertain or undefined, such as technology or a new process for achieving a goal.

• Committed OKRs are ambitious goals that the team must achieve by the end of the cycle.

• Rolling or project-based OKRs focus on initiatives that will continue to move forward while evolving and progressing over time from quarter to quarter.

• Top-down OKRs are goals set by leadership and then passed down to teams or individual contributors.

• Bottom-up OKRs are goals set by teams or individual contributors that align with the company vision, and then negotiated with leadership, who then aggregate all OKRs to set company goals.

• Cross-functional OKRs are shared goals that are aligned across multiple teams to encourage collaboration.

OKRs run in cycles based on the rhythm of execution:

• Annual cycles clarify long-range strategic outcomes, like upgrading production lines or going to a new facility.

• Quarterly cycles define OKRs that require results now.

• Monthly cycles help leaders inspect progress, risks, and impediments to progress.

• Weekly cycles help teams align priorities while adjusting tasks based on what’s been learned.

Matching Objectives and Key Results

Correlating objectives and key results means using the right key results that lead to the overall objective. If your objective is more sales, increasing company culture events won’t get you there.

Here are some examples of how to match objectives with key results as part of the OKR, meaning one leads to another:

• Customer satisfaction is the objective, and to get there, a company relies on higher net promoter scores, survey results, lowering the customer churn rate, improving the adoption rate, and increasing the engagement market share alongside increasing conversions.

• When higher recurring revenue is the objective, improving quarterly revenue and increasing subscriptions can accomplish the goal.

• Better system performance offers a worthwhile objective, and getting there means increasing simultaneous users and number of customers while reducing complaints and the number of monitoring system triggered events.

Benefits of OKRs

There are 5 main benefits of OKRs broken down into the acronym FACTS:

• Focus: where teams get behind a small set of well-chosen priorities.

• Alignment: allowing the entire organization to reach top-level goals.

• Commitment: where teams and individuals stick to agreed-upon results.

• Tracking: when teams track progress every week as they march toward a goal.

• Stretching: when the organization moves beyond the original goal while making significant, meaningful changes.

Common Mistakes of OKRs

Creating OKRs takes practice and time to develop. Avoid these common mistakes during the process of advancing your company to the next level:

• Not incorporating feedback from all levels because every stakeholder should have valid input with multiple checks.

• Avoiding business as usual since the point of OKRs is to change from the status quo.

• Thinking OKRs are KPIs because KPIs measure past performance rather than setting goals for the future.

• Having a small goal listed as an objective when OKRs are meant to stretch a business model and elevate it.

Don’t Confuse OKRs vs. KPIs

An OKR’s meaning and KPIs are both used to track metrics. However, OKRs define, align, and execute a company’s most important outcomes. KPIs measure past results. Whereas OKRs facilitate discussions about company goals, KPIs measure progress toward a goal or the performance of a business over a specified time.

KPIs can be hundreds of metrics, while OKRs are just three to five per objective. OKRs happen every quarter, KPIs are ongoing. OKRs are outcome-oriented, KPIs are activity-oriented.

Grading OKRs

There are three main ways to grade OKRs at the end of a cycle:

1. Andy Grove’s method simply has a yes or no. Yes, did we achieve the objective, or no, we didn’t.

2. Many organizations use a Red, Yellow, or Green method. Red indicates failure, yellow indicated progress, and green means they met the objective.

3. Google gets into much more detail with a percentage scale of 0 to 1. Each key result gets a number scale at the end of a cycle, and the average scores determine the objective’s overall score. For example, three key results with a score of .25, .5, and .75 would average a .5 for the objective as a whole.

Tracking Success of OKRs

Back to Google’s sliding scale, an OKR’s meaning comes into focus with the sliding scale of assessing OKRs with a score. Did you hit the mark, miss the mark, or somewhere in between? This is almost like the Red, Yellow, or Green method:

• 0.3 means you missed the key result by a lot.

• 0.7 indicates great progress toward hitting the key result.

• means you achieved or surpassed the key result.

Aligning OKR Meaning and Your Business Strategy

Establishing OKRs means you and your teams cannot lose sight of what guides your organization. Align your top-level OKRs with the company’s mission, vision, values, and long-term goals using a pyramid method. From top to bottom, focus on:

• Mission, or why do we exist?

• Vision, or what value do we provide?

• Values, or how do we behave?

• Long-term goals, or how will we succeed for years to come?

• Yearly goals, or your OKRs and how will we succeed this year?

How Brev Supports OKRs for Your Company

Brev is enterprise-level OKR software that works with your existing tools and meetings to capture decisions, update goals, and track each of your commitments. Brev tracks every goal, preps every review, and highlights risks to OKRs to keep operational discipline. Let Brev operate as your company's brain in the background, providing real-time progress updates.

Let Brev help you keep your company on track with an AI teammate to help manage strategy execution and keeping OKRs on track. Request a free demo  or start your free trial with Brev today.