Templates · Ideas & planning

OKR (Objectives and Key Results)

Check the team's objectives against the numbers and the work behind them, then agree on what it aims for next.

What it is

OKR stands for objectives and key results. An objective says in words where the team wants to be; key results are the measurable outcomes that would prove it got there; initiatives are the work that moves those measures. Each has a column, so that the team can see whether the three still line up.

Goal

Objectives the team believes in, each with key results that can be measured and initiatives somebody will actually do. For a past cycle, an honest reading of which work moved which number.

When to use it

• At the turn of a planning cycle, to review the last one and prepare the next.
• In the middle of a cycle, when the work has drifted from the stated goals.
• When the team is busy and cannot say what the work is for.

When to pick another format

No column asks how people worked together: use Start, Stop, Continue for that. If the team needs a direction before it can write objectives, SOAR Analysis leads from what it does well to what it wants to achieve. With more initiatives than the team can carry, sort them with Idea Prioritization.

How to run it

To review a cycle, take the columns in order. To write objectives from nothing, start with the last column.

1. Key results: start from the evidence. Which measurable outcomes did the team aim for, and where does each one stand? A card that cannot be measured is not a key result yet: ask which number would show it.
2. Initiatives: list the work the team did, or will do, to move those numbers, and tie each card to a key result. An initiative that moves none is work worth questioning; a key result without an initiative will not move by itself.
3. Objectives: write where the team wants to be: qualitative, ambitious, in words anyone can repeat. Keep the list short, and test each objective against the first column: if all its key results were met, would the team agree that it got there?

Give each key result an owner who watches the number, and each initiative a first step with a date.

Columns

To start a retrospective from this template, see Create a retro.