OKRS: OBJECTIVES

AND KEY RESULTS

Focusing in what matters

Eneida de Lucca
Contact via www.linkedin.com/in/eneidadelucca

PUBLISHED BY FLEKS MODEL

AVAILABLE FOR FREE DOWNLOAD AT
WWW.FLEKSMODEL.COM

April 2022
This ebook can not be commercialized, changed, or reproduced
without written permission of the author and FLEKS MODEL
 INTRODUCTION

We are now facing the 4th Industrial Revolution with concepts such as IoT, AI, robotics,
machine learning and biotechnology. The digital age!

In the face of this new scenario, companies must evolve quickly, generating more results
in shorter timeframes and doing more with less. Managers are frequently improving their
management skills to deal with the present and the future. Old concepts have been replaced
by modern management approaches. Never before have things changed so quickly!

The evolution of management and administration over the years (from Taylor, Ford, Toyota
system until the current OKRs concepts) has brought lots of changes to a new context.
The year 2020 specifically showed many uncertainties due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19).
Company and personal goals suddenly had to be shifted and adjusted to a reality of constant
change.

In this context OKRs play an important strategic role, encouraging constant evaluation of
objectives and results in shorter cycles, favoring results during volatile moments. The classical
form of planning – thinking for the long term with a few people involved - is being replaced by
a concept of participation by several levels of the company, transparency, and brief periods
for follow-ups.

It is therefore important to implement change regarding cultural aspects as well as mindset,

demystifying and introducing new concepts such as OKRs, originated in Intel and implemented
in Google with expressive results.

OKRs are increasingly becoming part of the company’s business management and strategy,
providing a clear direction at a moment of exponential growth, innovation, and agile mindsets.

This E-book intends to provide an overview of OKR concepts, implementation tips and
practical examples.

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 MAIN CONCEPTS

UNDERSTANDING THE OKRS

What is OKR?

The acronym OKR means Objectives and Key Results. It is a goal management system with short
cadences, an approach for business performance management, also seen as a framework.

John Doerr (Doerr, 2018) writes that it is a collaborative protocol for companies, teams, and
individuals. The OKRs keep everyone within the company aligned, with efforts made on points
that are important.

“At any level, you will only have four or five objectives followed by
three key results. If everything is a priority, nothing is”.
John Doerr

OKRs do not, however, replace common sense, leadership or even the creative culture in the
work environment. If these elements are present, OKRs can work as a powerful guide.

A common mistake is to consider OKRs as indicators and metrics, such as KPIs. We emphasize
that OKRs represent a goal system, based on agile principle management.

Historical Information

The timeline displayed in the picture below illustrates some of the milestones relating to the
evolution of performance management throughout the years.

It starts with Peter Drucker and the MBO (management by objective), which is briefly
described as a process of defining specific objectives within an organization, with a responsible
party, and how to achieve each of the objectives. It is an organized way to execute what must
be done in a step by step approach. MBO is based on competition and covers improvement
on existing products and processes.

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 Intel CEO Andrew Grove was inspired by Peter Drucker and the MBO concepts. He then
developed and implemented OKR concepts to accelerate growth at Intel as a startup.

John Doerr joined Intel in 1974. Later on, he shared the OKR concepts with Google founders
Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The OKR ideas were then introduced at Google, which made this
goal management system very popular. With OKRs, Google experienced exponential growth,
launching several functionalities and services.

OKR central feature: Agile mindset

The OKR concept is based on agile mentality. The picture below covers the main Agile goals
that support the OKRs.

Agile goals:

z Short term goals, usually quarterly, instead of yearly.

z Standard cycle of three months – in the case of changes, it allows for goal adequacy
(differs from the old models, in which the goals are static).

z The three-month cycle may be adjusted according to the company’s needs. It is

important that the validation periods be short.

z The framework can be customized to fit company needs, but basic principles must
be kept.

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 z Strict association to bonuses is not recommended.

z 60% of the goals are bottom-up, coming from the teams; 40% are top-down.

OKR Anti-Patterns – what they are not!

Although an agile vision is the foundation of OKRs, it is very common that some confusion
arises during concept understanding and implementation. The picture below lists “what OKRs
are not”.

OKRs Anti-Patterns

z Not confidential; it is transparent and available to all the organization.

z Neither a punitive, nor a reward system, it encourages trial and error.

z Not associated to financial bonuses.

z It is just one of the inputs to show how well the collaborator is doing.

OKRs: Definitions & Concepts

OBJECTIVE (O): it means WHAT must be achieved. It is what the company wants to do.
Objectives are inspiring, concrete and action oriented. It is a qualitative statement.

KEY-RESULTS (KR): they establish and monitor HOW we reach the objectives. They are about
the way the company will reach the objectives, measured by indicators. KRs are quantitative,
represented by an increase or reduction. Verbs are used at the beginning of a statement.

The KRs are specific and time limited, somewhat aggressive but realistic. They are measurable
and verifiable. They tell us if we’re reaching our objective.

KRs are monitored according to specific periods of time, usually quarterly, when it is verified
whether the KR was accomplished or not. In the case of long-term goals, the KRs evolve as
work advances. When all KRs are completed, the Objective is reached (if not, the OKR was
either not well defined or must be adapted).

PS. OKRs are a methodology for performance management of organizations; it is not just a
tool to list and track goals (Filho, 2021).

Doerr’s Goal Formula: I will achieve an Objective and know I am on the right track when there is
progress on certain Key results.

It is important that KRs represent actual results, containing numbers, and not activities.

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 OBJECTIVES (I WILL)

AND WILL BE MEASURED BY

KEY RESULTS (HOW)

Differences between OKRs and KPIs

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are measures used to track the organization’s operation
(@whatmatters, march/2021). KPIs contain important information that supports project and
process decisions, such as the product line or cycle time for a specific part of production.

OKRs are somehow related to the KPIs. The objective is what you want to accomplish; KRs indicate
how to get there; KPIs are measures and make good KRs.

To illustrate the concept, an example is given below. A museum collects data on the number
of visitors and donors and the data serves as some of its KPIs. This museum in particular has
the objective of making the museum more relevant to the community. A good pair of key
results would be: to increase the number of monthly visitors from the local area by 30% by
next quarter and host 2 community events focused on attracting local donors. Both KRs occur
in order to incorporate the museum’s KPIs.

O Make the museum more relevant to the community.

Increase number of monthly visitors from the local area by 30%

KR1
by next quarter
KR1 Host 2 community events focused on attracting local donors.

Using this example, it is recommended that it be evaluated according to the tips given in
the table below. Good Os and KRs require some guidelines that will be described in detail
throughout this e-book.

OBJECTIVES KEY-RESULTS
(WHAT) (HOW)

Inspiring Results, not daily activities

Emotional engagement Quantitative (with numbers)

Based on results: Increase/ Lower from
Qualitative (not numeric)
X to Y
Moonshot or Roofshot* Based on activities: reach level X

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 GOOD TIPS – LEARNING MORE ABOUT GOAL SETTING AND OKRs: GOOGLE´S
OKR PLAYBOOK

Google is certainly the reference on OKRs, a company with wide collective experience in
implementing OKRs (Doerr, 1998). So it is a good idea to use its background to understand
key success points related to OKRs.

Google is a company that thinks big: “(…) a team composed of a small percentage of the
company’s workforce, acting jointly towards an ambitious common goal, can change an entire
mature industry in less than two years. Thus, it is crucial that as Google employees and managers
we make conscious, careful, and informed choices about how we allocate our time and energy —
as individuals and as team members. OKRs are the manifestation of those careful choices, and the
means by which we coordinate the actions of individuals to achieve outstanding collective goals.
We use OKRs to plan what people are going to produce, track their progress vs. plan, and coordinate
priorities and milestones between people and teams. We also use OKRs to help people stay focused
on the most important goals and help them avoid being distracted by urgent but less important
goals.” (Doerr, 1998).

OKRs: big, not incremental – Google doesn’t expect to achieve them all (reaching 100% would
seem like not setting them aggressively enough).

A color scale is used to measure how well Google did (explained in detail throughout this
e-book)

Writing effective OKRs

OKRs, when well defined, are an important management tool, clarifying what is really
important, what to optimize and necessary tradeoffs.

PS. Writing OKRs is not an easy task, but it’s not impossible. Some good practices adopted by
Google:

Objectives (O) – “What”.

z goals and intentions;

z aggressive, yet realistic;

z must be tangible, objective, and unambiguous (must be clear whether an objective

has been achieved or not);

z the achievement of an objective must add clear value.

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 Key Results (KR) – “How”.

z measurable milestones – if achieved, will advance the objectives;

z they must describe an outcome, not an activity;

z evidence of completion – available, credible, and easily discoverable.

Remark: projects at Google usually involve different groups. Cross-team OKRs should include
all the teams that must participate in the OKRs. Also, these OKRs should appear in each
group’s OKRs.

Stretch Goals: Moonshot (Aspirational) and Roofshot (Commited) OKRs

There are two OKR variants:

z Committed or Roofshot – the ones that are agreed to be reached. Settings on

schedule and resources will be established in order to have these OKRs delivered.

o Expected score for a roofshot OKR is 1.0; if less than 1.0, an explanation is required
regarding the difference, and it shows planning and/or execution errors.

z Aspirational or Moonshot – to deliver the OKR, the idea of how to get there and/or
the resources necessary are not so clear.

o Expected average score for moonshot OKR is 0.7, with high variance.

The main points of the stretch goals are summarized here.

COMMITTED OR ROOFSHOT

z Challenging but feasible goals.

z Success: achieve 100% of the goals

z It is recommended that, in the first OKR cycles, the company starts off with just
Roofshot goals.

ASPIRATIONAL OR MOONSHOT

z Extremely challenging goals

z Success: achieve 60-70% of the goals

z It is recommended not to use Moonshot goals in the first OKR cycles (people are still
getting to grips with the framework).

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 Classic OKR-writing mistakes and traps

Being a reference for OKRs, Google contributes not just with good practices but also with
lessons learned from traps the team faced during several OKR cycles.

An overview of Google’s mistakes and traps can be seen below:

TRAP #1: Failing to distinguish between committed and aspirational OKRs, increasing the
chance of failure.

TRAP #2: Business-as-usual OKRs: based on what the team believes it can achieve, different
from what clients and team really want.

TRAP #3: Timid aspirational OKRs: important to understand the desired end state to be able
to achieve it.

TRAP #4: Sandbagging: when employees are part of a punishment system which is associated
to financial bonuses and confidential, the OKRs tend to be weak and presenting little
challenge.

TRAP #5: Low value objectives (“who cares?” OKR): the OKRs must demonstrate clear business
value and must be understood by the teams (I know why I´m doing this!). Otherwise, people
won’t see value in executing them.

TRAP #6: Insufficient KRs for committed Os: it is important to set a sufficient amount of KRs
so that scoring 1.0 for all of them results in a 1.0 score for the specific objective. The amount
of KRs must be enough to collectively complete the objective.

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 THE OKR LIFE CYCLE

OKR Nested Cadences

Different goals have different cycles - tactical ones tend to change faster than strategic ones.
That is why OKRs have nested cadences, described according to the diagram below.

STRATEGIC TACTICAL OPERATIONAL ALL LEVELS

z Annual z Quarterly z Weekly z End of quarter

z CEO prepares the z Strategical OKRs z Monitoring z Managers and

OKRS - company are the guideline. OKRs tactics and team close OKRs
vision operationals
z Usually defined
z Not fixed, must at the beggining z Considered the
be discussed of the quarter heart cadence,
frequently; are and closed at its once the
the base for the end. progress of OKRs
quarterly goals is monitored. If
z Managers
progress is not
prepare the
satisfatory, an
operational OKRs
action plan is
z Teams prepare
defined.
the operational
z Based on results:
OKR
Increase/ Lower
z Moonshot
from X to Y
or
z Based on
Roofshot*
activities: reach
level X

GOOD TIPS!

During the follow-up period:

It is not recommended to include new OKRs.

Some objectives may not be important anymore; in

this case, the OKR can be closed in advance.

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 OKR development steps

As mentioned by Filho (2021), the OKRs must reflect the company’s strategic context and the
challenges the organization is facing in a competitive environment. Although there is a desire
to quickly start off the OKRs with the Objectives, it is important to consider the strategic
direction.

This diagram summarizes the steps and responsible parties involved in the OKR development
cycle.

Strategic Guidelines & Strategic Vision for

the short, medium, and long term

Define Strategical OKRs Draft Tactical OKRs

CEO with Managers
(yearly)

Define Tactical OKRs Draft Operational

MANAGER 1 MANAGER 2 OKRs with teams
(quarterly)

Define
TEAM TEAM TEAM TEAM
Operational OKRs

Operation, Processes, Projects, Metrics, Indicators, KPIs

1. CEOs develop strategic OKRs for the entire organization, on a yearly basis.

2. CEOs present the strategic OKRs for their direct group, in this case represented by
managers. The managers draft the tactical OKRs jointly with the CEOs.

Tactical OKRs for the quarter are concluded by managers.

3. Managers present the tactical OKRs for their team. Team members draft the
operational OKRs with their manager.

4. Operational OKRs for the quarter are concluded by the team members.

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 Roles & Responsibilities during the OKR cycle

CEO: Sponsor, the main stakeholder

OKR Coach (facilitator)

The OKR coaches are the guardians of the OKRs process, with the following responsibilities:

z Responsible for the OKR process.

z Teach the OKRs concepts to the company.

z Conduct weekly check-in meetings.

z Update the progress of each OKR in percentage terms.

z Help to define action plans for OKRs not reached.

z It is best that it is not the manager.

OKR Owner (leader)

Usually the person or leader that is mostly involved with that specific OKR. Important to
reinforce that all the team members are responsible for the OKRs.

z Works with the team to develop the OKRs.

z Coordinates the action plan, aligning it with team members.

z Updates the OKR Coach during weekly check-in meetings.

z Takes the team to present the OKRs results.

z May be the manager.

OKR Cadences (main meetings): Elaboration, Check-in, and Results

z Elaboration cadence: several meetings to develop the OKRs for the following year
or quarter.

o Conducted by the OKR Coach.

o Development of suggested OKRs to start the quarter.

o Involves the managers and their managed team members.

o Define/ prioritize1 the OKRs to be considered in the following quarter.

o Define and align the evidence that will have to be shared in order to measure OKR
progress.

Remarks:
(1) Brainstorming sessions usually help teams to raise a large number of OKRs. As
previously mentioned, it is recommended there be 4-5 Objectives followed by 2-3
KRs, avoiding “set and forget” (lack of monitoring capacity). A bad OKR follow-up
may convey a false perception of result achievement.

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 A system of value measurement and prioritization is recommended. Some examples:
RUT (relevance, urgency, and tendency), Cost of Delay, Cost of opportunity.

z Check-in cadence: this is the heart of the OKR; each OKR is reviewed, and a progress
index is measured. In case the progress is below that expected, an action plan is
defined to recover the target. The following ruler is usually used:

0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0
Small advance - we failed to Medium advance – Expected advance – we
make real progress we made progress, delivered
but feel short of
completion

Smiley faces (confidence indexes) are also used, according to the table below. The following
question must be raised: what is your level of confidence to achieve this OKR within the quarter?

Green face: high level of confidence that the OKR will be achieved

Yellow face: there is some level of confidence that the OKR will be achieved, with
some attention points.

Red face: no confidence or extremely low level of confidence the OKR will be
achieved

Monitoring requires discipline. Once the frequency of the check-in is defined, it is important
that it take place as planned. It avoids certain mistakes such as “set and forget”.

A practical example for measuring OKR progress is show below.

O Recruit three new players.

KR1 Attend 25 games to scout out potential recruits.

KR1 Approach 30 players throughout these games.

KR3 Contact the agents of 10 potential recruits

Consider the following situations during the OKR review:

ü You could only get to 20 games: 20/25= 0.8, an admirable score.

ü You approached 30 players, 30/30=1.0, perfect.
ü You were only able to get hold of 6 agents, 6/10=0.6, a borderline green.
Average of KR1, KR2 and KR3 is 0.80 (passing grade).

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 z Results cadence: quarterly, all those involved are assembled to present their OKRs
and share lessons learned. It is considered a motivational meeting, a “Yes we can”
mindset.
For very large companies, several Results events are recommended, according to
management, area, or board. However, participation by top management and CEOs
is essential at these presentations.

o Taking place every end of the quarter, creating a positive environment.

o All Teams Gathered.

o OKRs achieved = Celebrate.

o OKRs not achieved = What we have learned.

o OKRs not achieved = Action Plans.

Are tracking tools necessary?

A common question: should a tracking tool be considered during OKRs life cycle?

It is not mandatory. The adoption of a system in the first cycles may cause a loss of focus,
that should be on OKRs learning not on systems learning. So, an easy control system is
recommended.

Visual management is a good practice, facilitating monitoring and improving critical thought
over the OKR process.

PS. Further details of a typical OKR cycle can be consulted in Appendix A.

GENERAL ASPECTS OF OKRs

z OKR balancing: it is very important to evaluate if the KRs have adverse effects,
including non-ethical conduct and risks for the business (Doerr, 1998).
For each metric, there should be another parallel metric to deal with the first adverse
consequences, in other words, KRs to mitigate the effects of the original KRs.

z OKRs of Protection (different from the previous OKRs balancing): Cristina Wodtke
recommends a balance between deliverable OKRs and protection team OKRs.
Examples: team health, product integrity, regulatory rules compliance, business
sustainability, etc. It is a good practice to include OKRs of Protection as part of OKRs
to be executed in the quarter.

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 LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE PRACTICE

Doerr (1998) shares some OKR lessons and good practices learned during the time he worked
for Intel (as Grove legacy), until the introduction of this practice at Google.

Good Practices

a. Less is more: Grove wrote “A few extremely well-chosen goals” that will share a clear
message. A limit of 3 to 5 OKRs per cycle will support the companies, teams, and
individuals to choose what matters most. Each goal will be associated to a maximum
of 5 KRs.

b. Define bottom-up goals: in order to promote engagement, teams and individuals

must be encouraged to create their own OKR, consulting with managers. If all goals
are set in a top-down way, motivation decreases.

c. Without impositions: OKRs are a cooperative social contract to establish priorities

and define how advances and progress are going to be measured. When the
company agrees on its goals, the key results continue to be negotiated. Collective
commitment and transparency are essential to achieve goals.

d. Be flexible: if for some reason the initial goals don’t look practical or relevant
anymore, KRs can be modified or even discharged in the current cycle.

e. Dare to fail: Grove says: “production will tend to be higher when everyone struggles
for a level of achievement beyond their immediate reach. This goal setting is
extremely important if your objective is maximum performance by yourself and
your subordinates”. Although several operational goals must be fully accomplished,
certain OKRs should be uncomfortable and possibly unattainable. “Exceptional
goals” will take the organization to new levels.

f. A tool, not a weapon: The OKR system follows the person so he/she will track his/
her self-accomplishment. In order to encourage decision-making and avoid unfair
treatment, OKRs and performance bonuses must be kept separate.

g. Be patient and resolute: new processes require trial and error. Intel, as mentioned
by Grove, failed many times after adopting OKRs. At the beginning, they did not
understand the complete purpose of this. Over time, they became better. An
organization may require 4 to 5 quarterly cycles to adopt the system completely, and
even more in order to develop a strong, mature structure.

Filho (2021) also raises important practices:

ü Goal definition improves the performance of the organization, labor teams and
personnel.

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 ü Employees will be more inspired and motivated if goals are shared.
ü Moonshot goals (more challenging goals) boost people development, in contrast
with roofshot (comfort zone) ones.

ü Objectives and results to be achieved provide focus to organization members.

ü Transparency: the goals defined by top management up until the frontline explain
what is important to be accomplished in the organization.

ü Business OKRs connect each professional to the organizational strategy.

ü Resources and investments are targeted towards business priorities.
ü Education programs and new skills development are based on the organization’s
strategic priorities.

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 EXAMPLES

All the examples brought to this e-book were fully extracted from the @whatmatters.com
(march/2021).

To cover certain important practical applications, we decided to choose some applications

according to segment.

While reading them, revisiting the tips of good Os and KRs is recommended, starting with
previous tables and detailed throughout this e-book.

Company-Wide:

O Become the #1 free mobile banking app for developing countries.

KR1 Improve weekly sign-ups by 15% by July.

KR1 Launch a marketing campaign in every language by August.

Establish at least one ATM-access point across all countries by
KR3
September.

Marketing:

O Extend Coursera’s reach to new students.

Perform A/B tests, learn, and iterate on ways to attract new
KR1
students and engage existing students.
KR1 Increase mobile monthly active users (MAU) to 150k.

KR3 Create internal tools to track key growth metrics.

Launch features to enable instructors to create more engaging
KR4
videos.

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 Sales:

O Increase sales by 50 percent over last quarter.

KR1 Generate $10 million in sales.

KR1 At least 10 percent of sales must come from repeat clients.

KR3 Reach 95% customer satisfaction.

KR4 Provide monthly training for sales team.

Engineering:

Achieve product superiority within the consideration set for our

O
key markets
Bring to market one unique technology feature that doubles
KR1 retention in our top customer segment (i.e., simplify administration,
reduce CPU utilization, increase security, streamline integration).
Land in the top third of the curve on the Challenger section for
KR2
the Gartner Magic Quadrant.

HR:

O Become the most efficient HR department in our industry.

Automate management of time off and administrative leave
KR1
requests.
100% of employee and leadership employee training complete by
KR1
end of quarter.
All new employees pass follow-up questions that accompany our
KR3
company orientation video series

Government:

O Fix Healthcare.gov for the vast majority of consumers.

KR1 7/10 people able to apply

KR1 1000 ms response time

KR3 1% error rate

KR4 99% uptime

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 SUMMARY

z OKR: Objectives and Key Results.

z It is a goal management system, with agile practices as the basis.

z Objectives are associated with “What” and KRs with “How”.

z There are differences between OKRs and KPIs and how they are related.

z Align OKRs with strategy and cultural points (vision and mission).

z Good practices and traps are lessons learned from previous implementation efforts
and should be followed for effective OKRs writing (consider the Google example)

z The OKRs life cycle covers the OKRs cadences of strategical, tactical, and operational
levels.

z Examples for several segments are presented to illustrate good practices when
writing effective OKRs.

z The first cycles are challenging but the knowledge, aligned with experience, will
certainly come.

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 CONCLUSION

OKRs methodologies and good practices are increasingly present in the company routine.

The current world scenario of uncertainty and fast changes requires that companies and
people adapt to fast changes. In this context, OKRs play an important role due to: shorter cycle
goals (agility), focus on what is really important, cross-functional alignment, communication,
transparency, and employee engagement.

Increasing number of practical examples from several companies, not just Google and Intel,
available through books, articles and internet publications reinforcing that OKRs are here to
stay.

Additionally, professionals that have this strategical “OKR mindset” are important resources
which will certainly be valued, especially in large corporations.

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 REFERENCES

FILHO, H.F. (2021). OS OKRs E AS MÉTRICAS EXPONENCIAIS: a Gestão Ágil da Estratégia na Era
Digital. Editora Alta Books.

DOERR, J. (2018). Measure What Matters. Portfolio/ Penguin.

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 APPENDIX A

A TYPICAL OKR CYCLE

This content was extracted in full from @whatmatters (march/2021).

Let’s assume you are setting OKRs at the company, team, and contributor levels. Larger
companies may have additional levels.

Picture: what matters or Doerr, 1998

Let’s assume you are setting OKRs at the company, team, and contributor levels. Larger
companies may have additional levels.

4 to 6 weeks before quarter

Brainstorm Annual and Q1 OKRs for the Company

z Senior leaders start brainstorming top-line company OKRs.

z If you are setting OKRs for Q1, this is also the time to set your annual plan, which can
help to guide the direction of company.

2 weeks before quarter

Communicate Company-wide OKRs for Upcoming Year and Q1

z Finalize company OKRs and communicate them to everyone.

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 Start of quarter

Communicate Team Q1 OKRs

z Based on the company’s OKRs, teams develop their own OKRs and share them at
their meetings.

1 week after start of quarter

Share Employee Q1 OKRs

z One week after team OKRs are communicated, contributors share their own OKRs.

z This may require negotiation between contributors and their managers, typically in
one-on-one settings.

Throughout quarter

Employees Track Progress and Check in

z Throughout the quarter, employees measure and share their progress, checking in
regularly with their managers.

z Periodically throughout the quarter, contributors assess how likely they are to fully
achieve their OKRs.

z If attainment appears unlikely, they may need to recalibrate.

Near end of quarter

Employees Reflect and Score Q1 OKRs

z Toward the end of the quarter, contributors score their OKRs, perform a self-
assessment and reflect on what they have accomplished.

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