Goal Setting with OKRs: A Practical Team Guide

Understanding OKRs

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) have become the goal-setting framework of choice for organizations ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Pioneered at Intel and popularized by Google, OKRs provide a simple yet powerful system for aligning teams and measuring progress.

The Anatomy of an OKR

Objectives are qualitative descriptions of what you want to achieve. They should be:

Inspiring and ambitious

Action-oriented

Understandable to everyone

Time-bound (typically quarterly)

Key Results are quantitative measures that indicate whether you've achieved the objective. They should be:

Specific and measurable

Ambitious but achievable

Limited in number (2-5 per objective)

Outcome-focused, not output-focused

OKR Example

Objective: Become the preferred task management solution for remote teams

Key Results:

Increase remote team customer segment from 30% to 50% of new signups

Achieve Net Promoter Score of 60+ among remote team users

Launch 3 features specifically requested by remote teams

Reduce time-to-value for new remote team accounts to under 10 minutes

Notice how the key results are measurable and collectively indicate achievement of the qualitative objective.

Common OKR Mistakes

Mistake 1: Confusing Tasks with Key Results

Bad: "Launch new onboarding flow" (this is a task)

Good: "Reduce 7-day churn from 40% to 25%" (this is an outcome)

Key results measure outcomes, not outputs. Shipping a feature doesn't matter if it doesn't create the intended impact.

Mistake 2: Setting Too Many OKRs

Having 10 objectives with 5 key results each means 50 things to track. That's not focus—that's a to-do list.

Aim for 3-5 objectives with 2-4 key results each. Constraints force prioritization.

Mistake 3: Sandbagging

OKRs should be ambitious. If you achieve 100% of every key result, they weren't stretchy enough. Aim for 70% achievement on truly ambitious OKRs.

Mistake 4: Setting and Forgetting

OKRs aren't annual goals you check in December. Review progress weekly, discuss at standups, and adjust when circumstances change.

The OKR Cadence

Quarterly OKRs: Most teams set OKRs quarterly. This is long enough to achieve meaningful progress but short enough to adapt to change.

Weekly Check-ins: Brief team reviews to track progress and identify blockers. Update confidence levels on each key result.

Mid-Quarter Review: Formal assessment of progress. Are you on track? Do OKRs need adjustment?

End-of-Quarter Retrospective: Score your OKRs, discuss what drove success or failure, and inform next quarter's OKRs.

Aligning OKRs Across the Organization

Individual and team OKRs should connect to company-level objectives, creating a cascade of aligned goals:

Company OKR: Achieve market leadership in AI task management

↓

Product Team OKR: Launch industry-leading AI prioritization feature

↓

Engineering Team OKR: Build scalable ML infrastructure for AI features

↓

Individual OKR: Develop expertise in production ML systems

This alignment ensures everyone's work contributes to strategic priorities.

Writing Compelling Objectives

Great objectives energize teams. Compare:

Weak: "Improve customer satisfaction"

Strong: "Make our customers so successful they can't imagine working without us"

Weak: "Increase revenue"

Strong: "Become the undisputed category leader in our market"

Objectives should make people want to come to work.

Measuring Key Results

For each key result, define:

Baseline: Where are you starting from?

Target: What does success look like?

Stretch Target: What would be exceptional?

Data Source: Where does this measurement come from?

Frequency: How often will you check?

Without clear measurement protocols, key results become opinions rather than facts.

OKRs and Performance Reviews

This is controversial: many OKR experts argue OKRs should NOT be tied to compensation. When money is at stake, people sandbag their key results to ensure they hit them.

Separate goal-setting (OKRs) from evaluation (performance reviews). Use OKRs to align and stretch; use other mechanisms to assess individual contribution.

Starting Your OKR Journey

If you're new to OKRs:

Start with team-level OKRs before individual ones

Begin with a single quarter as a learning experiment

Get executive sponsorship for the approach

Invest in training so everyone understands the system

Review and iterate—your first OKRs won't be perfect

OKRs are simple to understand but take practice to master. Give yourself grace as you learn.