OKR or Objectives and Key Results is a popular framework for setting ambitious goals with measurable results. Every organization needs to articulate the work they need to do in order to achieve their goals. OKRs are an easy way to organize this work so it’s clear, measurable, and transparent. But in order to be effective, OKRs need to be written with a couple of important ideas in mind. Read below for a quick primer on how to write OKRs well.
An objectives is a qualitative statement that describes what your team is going to do this month, this quarter, or this year. Simply put, use words not numbers. For example, “Increase daily active users by targeting online advertising to the enterprise market in the US.” Notice the objective informs the reader what the team is going to do and provides a high-level description on “how” the team plans to do it. To be specific, the team wants to increase daily active users and they plan to do this by “targeting the enterprise market in the US”.
Qualities of a good Objectives:
They describe the change, growth, or innovation the team wants to achieve
They are as specific as possible. If the same objective can be used the next quarter/year, it’s too general.
Limit the number of objectives to six or less
Keep the objective action oriented (i.e. start the objective with a “verb” like increase, launch, achieve, maintain, grow, etc…)
They have business value and demonstrate why this is important to the organization. As much as possible, they shouldn’t capture activity, but “end results”.
Stay tuned for part #2 on how to write good key results in 60 seconds?