How to Write Effective Professional and Personal OKRs

Organizations of all sizes and industry types use OKRs to set goals on an annual, quarterly, or monthly basis. An objective refers to a specific goal, and the key results are the measurable milestones that go toward achieving your goal. 

You can think of OKRs this way: You might have a big plan, such as becoming the most profitable graphics company in your town. Create objectives that offer smaller, manageable steps toward your big goal, and set key results to note events that contribute to and measure your success. 

It’s critical to remember that OKRs represent more than just tasks — rather, OKRs reflect successful change and outcomes. Key results usually include activities with targets, but merely ticking items on a to-do list does not always lead to measurable change. Ensure that your OKRs lead to a beneficial result.  

Use the following formula to write OKRs: 

OKR = Objective + 3 to 5 Key Results

OKR = Intent + Milestones

When creating OKRs, keep in mind that a good OKR answers the following questions:

• Where do you want to go? (This is your objective.)
• How do you know whether you’re close or you’ve arrived? (These are your key results.)

To learn more about writing OKRs, read our OKR essentials article.

John Doerr is a venture capitalist and author of the book Measure What Matters, in which he discusses the OKR creation process. He uses the following example in his book to illustrate the above formula: 

I will (objective) as measured by ( set of key results): 

I will boost my company’s annual income by:

1. Raising hourly rates by 3 percent for all writing and designing projects
2. Sending a minimum of 50 letters of interest to prospects each week
3. Seeking 4 retainer projects.

You can find more OKR examples and samples in this article.

The purpose of an OKR is to connect an organization’s vision and strategy to execution. Management statements, such as mission statements, KPIs, and OKRs, are communication vehicles that aim to clarify to staff how they should orient their efforts to contribute to growth, improvement, and change. Poor communication of company goals can lead even the best plans astray. 

Dan Montgomery is the author of Start Less, Finish More: Building Strategic Agility with OKRs. “Too much of what you see out there about OKRs is very prescriptive, and in fact, you need to tailor an OKR to your organization,” he says. “OKRs really need to reflect the deeper organizational strategy. That's why, when we work with companies, we always have a conversation about strategy before we start. It's essential that everybody has a sense of the overall goals of the organization and to communicate that.”

Understanding the differences among the many types of OKRs can help you to craft your goals. Below is a list of the most common types of OKRs: 

• Strategic OKRs are objectives that focus on the company vision and the long-range view. In most cases, you will set strategic OKRs annually for the company.
  
  Example: Have the most successful cat treats brand.
• Tactical OKRs provide teams with focused, shorter-term targets.
  
  Example: Kitchen team will create the tastiest cat snack recipes. Marketing team will delight cat owners with our packaging.
• Committed OKRs are high-priority goals that a team dedicates themselves to completing. When scoring committed OKRs, they should receive a 1.0 mark. Any score less than 1.0 indicates failure. The inability to achieve a 1.0 tally demands a discussion about how teams can improve processes.
  
  Example: Beat 2020 fourth-quarter sales.
  
  Learn more about scoring OKRs in our guide.
• Aspirational OKRs are big goals that stretch staff capabilities or reflect the organization’s broader vision. While you might complete them and score a 1.0, a mark of 0.7 is also acceptable, as it indicates progress in the goal’s direction. Aspirational goals might persist throughout multiple successive cadences.
  
  Example: Provide a healthy eating experience to pets all over the world.
• Shared OKRs are ideal for instances in which teams must collaborate to push the company forward and would benefit from developing OKRs together.
  
  Example: For a shared OKR, an organization might set an objective of becoming the top home gardeners retailer, and the key results are to get 25 percent renewals for seed subscriptions (customer care); energize customer retention (marketing); and achieve 12 percent month-over-month growth (sales).
• Company OKRs focus on the big picture. Ideally, they become what some call the “guiding star” for activity in a period.
  
  Example: Create a team of great speakers.
• Team OKRs interpret company OKRs in the context of the team’s skills and function. Teams sometimes create localized goals that indirectly influence company objectives. Alternatively, they might recommend objectives that percolate up.
  
  Example: Host at least eight monthly team brown bags.

Objectives should be brief, memorable, aligned, impactful, and inspiring. Use language that describes movement and progress rather than maintaining the status quo. That said, be clear and avoid ambiguity. 

Because objectives should be aspirational, inspirational, and qualitative, some experts recommend avoiding the SMART (specific, measurable, actionable, relevant, and time-bound), approach to writing an objective. These experts suggest not making the objective itself time-bound or adding a measurable target. To learn more about the difference between OKRs and SMART goals, read our comprehensive guide; below, we discuss how the SMART framework applies to key results specifically. 

There are two types of objectives: stretch and operational. Stretch objectives correspond to more ambitious, aspirational OKRs, which provide variability in working toward a target, reduce the need for quality or time tradeoffs, and allow more room for interpreting results. However, no objective should be so much of a stretch that it is unattainable, as consistently missing the target can leave staff demoralized. Operational objectives focus on the daily activities that keep the business running.

In contrast to qualitative objectives, key results are quantitative. Key results should be measurable and achievable, but also challenging. Unlike KPIs, which evaluate operational tasks and the activities that run a business, key results evaluate results or outcomes of goals, such as new approaches to a project or cultural or behavioral changes. Also, consider discussing the viability of the objective and each key result with your team. When everyone agrees on goals and approaches, they’ll find it easier to score OKRs.  

Ask the following questions when drafting your key results:

• Does the key result adhere to the SMART approach? See our comprehensive guide to writing SMART goals to learn more about the framework. 
• Is the key result a true result and not just another task or activity? Key results should include concrete verbs, such as create, launch, and start. 
• Does the key result help in achieving the objective it belongs to?
• Is the key result important enough to appear in the five key results for the objective?
• If your organization cascades key results, are the key results somewhat flexible so teams and individuals can add their own context-based interpretation?

Personal OKRs show how you contribute to a company or team’s goals — or to your personal professional goals. The key is to focus on the big picture, as personal OKRs must not become an easily accomplished to-do list. 

When writing personal OKRs, focus on contributing to one (or a few) team or company goal(s). You don’t need to contribute to every OKR (doing so could scatter your attention). As with team and company OKRs, it’s better to not have an OKR than to rush and write a poorly crafted one.

Doug Gray is the CEO of Action Learning Associates, LLC and the author of Objectives + Key Results (OKR) Leadership: How to Apply Silicon Valley's Secret Sauce to Your Career, Team or Organization. He shares that a simple way to sketch out your personal OKRs is to draw three boxes on a sheet of paper. “Add the three most important things you need to accomplish. Don’t muck it up by adding five or six,” he says.

If you are an individual contributor, your OKRs might align with company OKRs. For other staff, individual goals might draw focus away from team or company goals. Therefore, team OKRs might be the basic OKRs in a company. 

“The individual OKR is different from other OKRs,” says Montgomery. “Usually, what I recommend is that, unless you're a senior executive, the personal OKRs should focus on your personal development and behavior. The way that we have tended to do performance appraisal in corporate America is overly focused on the individual when, in fact, work actually happens in teams. It takes a village to get these things done. ”

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