OKRs

OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results.

It’s a collaborative goal-setting tool used by companies to create focus, alignment, and engagement around measurable goals.

Objectives

Concrete, action-oriented, and inspiring goals that qualitatively describe what we want to achieve.

Key Results

The way we measure progress in achieving the objective. If we achieve all of the key results, it will lead to success in the corresponding objective 👈.

Why OKRs?

Focus

Identifying a few wildly important goals, and saying no to everything else

Alignment

Aligning ourselves around those goals and collaborating to achieve them

Accountability

Having a framework for measuring progress and holding ourselves accountable

It’s a shift in mindset, where the question changes from "were we busy doing the tasks?" to "did we move the needle for our organization to thrive?”

“OKRs have helped lead us to 10x growth, many times over. They’ve helped make our crazily bold mission of ‘organizing the world’s information’ perhaps even achievable. They’ve kept me and the rest of the company on time and on track when it mattered the most.”
Larry Page, CEO of Alphabet

Setting OKRs

		Brainstorm	Check
1	Objective	What is the outcome* we are trying to achieve?*	Concise Motivating and challenging (should make you slightly uncomfortable). Achieving this will move the needle for our customers or company Up to 3 objective per division
2	Key result	How are we going to measure* it?* `metric` How will we know we got there? `target` Tip: start with the phrase “as measured by…”	Demonstrates the result of the work the team has done, not the work itself Create 5 web pages” is an initiative (see below) “5% increase in page views” is a key result Measurable on a monthly basis If achieved, it would indicate progress in the associated objective Our goal is to achieve 100% on ~70% to 80% of all KRs, otherwise we weren't ambitious enough Up to 3 KRs per objective
3	Initiatives	What steps* will we take to make progress toward the outcome?*	This is the work itself, i.e. the roadmap! They are hypotheses for what work will deliver the biggest impact This should not be copy/paste from the key result above.

Need inspiration? Here’s a guide on practical examples

Process

What are the steps to implement OKRs and what role does each team play?

First, senior leadership will develop a 4-year strategy and identify our winning aspirations which are company-wide objectives and key results. See Mission 2026 in Our Strategy.
Then, each division will collaborate with senior leadership and their team members to build up to 3 team-level OKRs aligned with the company’s goals (i.e. they should help meet the company OKRs!).
Finally, key result data will be updated in the Domo dashboard.

OKRs are not roadmaps!

Objectives are goals that show where we are going and KRs are how we measure our progress to getting there. They don’t tell you how to make progress. That’s up to the team to strategize and develop a roadmap.

OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results.

Why OKRs?

Setting OKRs

Objective

Key result

Process