OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results, a goal-setting framework that helps organizations and individuals define and track ambitious goals. It's a collaborative approach that aligns teams and encourages engagement around measurable objectives.
With OKRs, a company can do the following:
Sets measurable and specific corporate goals that align with team and individual employee goals. This means that the company's goals are broken down into smaller, more manageable goals that can be tracked and measured. This helps to ensure that everyone in the company is working towards the same objectives.
Defines key results that help to track progress and ensure that the team is progressing towards its goals. This means that the company identifies specific metrics that will be used to measure the success of each goal. This helps to keep the team on track and make sure that they are making progress on the most important things.
OKRs vs. KPIs
OKRs are often compared to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). However, there are some key differences between the two:
Focus: OKRs drive ambitious outcomes, while KPIs track ongoing performance metrics.
Timeframe: OKRs are typically set for a specific timeframe, such as a quarter or a year, while KPIs can be measured on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
Scope: OKRs are typically broader and more strategic than KPIs.
OKR components
OKRs consist of two main components: objectives and key results.
Objectives
Objectives are simple and clear statements of what we want to achieve. They should be short, motivating, and inspiring to the team to get involved and invested in their work to develop themselves, their departments, and the company.
The objective always answers "What do we want to achieve?".
For example, “Enhance customer satisfaction”
Characteristics of Objectives:
Always aligned with the company's values, mission, and global goals
Have a significant positive impact on the team, their achievement is always a reason for celebration
Achievable within a clearly defined period
Objectives are displayed in the Perform > Objectives section in the following way:
Key Results
Key Results are specific, measurable outcomes that indicate what needs to be done to achieve the objective. They often express a numerical value and the period within which the goal must be achieved.
The key result always answers "What do we need to do to achieve this?".
For example: "Improve customer satisfaction score by one point based on surveys"
Characteristics of Key Results:
Always quantitatively measurable, and often a significant number for additional motivation
Always clear, without any ambiguous information
Everyone in the team understands how they can contribute to this result
Key results are displayed in the Perform > Objectives section in the following way:
Objective hierarchy
Every objective can have a relation to other objectives. It can have a parent or a child objective. You can create a hierarchy of objectives—a so-called tree of objectives. Progress on a parent objective is based on the progress of its key results and its sub-objectives.
Additional Resources
For a guide on how to use and update OKRs in the system as an employee, see Objectives. Guide for employees.
For a guide on how to create and manage OKRs in the system as an administrator, see Objectives. Guide for administrators.