A Complete Guide On How To Succeed With OKR Workpath

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2 | A Complete Guide to OKRs

TABLE OF CONTENT

What are OKRs (Objectives and Key Results)? 4
Defining Objectives and Key Results 4
Why OKRs are important for you and your company 4
What are Objectives (“Os”)? 5
What are Key Results (“KRs”)? 5
What are Initiatives? 5
A brief history of OKRs and delineation to MBO 6
Why to work with the OKR framework 7
Common challenges that can be tackled by working with OKRs 7
Why it is worth it: A summary of benefits 8
Drafting OKRs that actually work 10
A hands-on checklist for drafting inspiring Objectives 10
A hands-on checklist for drafting Key Results putting performance power in your hands 12
OKR examples that can give you guidance 14
Working with OKRs along the OKR Cycle 20
Rolling out and implementing OKRs in your organization 20
What does working with OKRs look like? 20
Important roles when working with OKRs 20
OKRs on company and team level 21
The OKR Cycle 22
Best practices from actual practitioners 25
Who should own OKRs? 25
What is a good OKR cadence? 25
Becoming great fast: the most important success factors when working with OKRs 26
Kick-starting OKRs: what to do to get started 28
What others wanted to know: FAQs from OKR practitioners 30
Further resources and additional material 35
Templates 35
Further information 36
Opportunities to learn more and get started 37

What are OKRs (Objectives and Key

Results)?
Defining Objectives and Key Results

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are an agile leadership and goal management
framework. It is a strategy execution tool to guide result-focused work, create
alignment and engagement around measurable goals.
On a higher level, you can also think of OKRs as a result-oriented and data-driven
methodology that encourages people to think in new ways. OKRs are inevitable for
every organization today. But as every change process, effort, time and commitment
are needed to succeed.
Why OKRs are important for you and your company

In times of continuous change, complex information and increasingly dynamic
customer demands, OKRs help you to focus on the right things to do. They enable you
to execute your goals and strategy effectively as well as course-correct in real time, if
you encounter new challenges and demands.
Through OKR goal setting you can include employees in the strategy processes and
make every team a strategy executer. The framework intentionally promotes
autonomy and self-organization of teams. Leading organizations use OKRs to manage
ongoing growth, to create and optimize alignment and collaboration processes, as well
as to enable employee engagement and transparency in a more agile work context.
The goal management framework fosters cross-functional collaboration and alignment
across different roles and functions in your company. Moreover, it helps to align
priorities top-down and bottom-up along different levels of hierarchy.
Beyond this, OKRs support a more data-driven goal setting process and help to
allocate resources efficiently by focusing on the right metrics. Establishing an OKR
goal setting system, which is new and different for most employees, requires
management buy-in, persistence and time. Nonetheless, for more and more
organizations it is an important initiative as well as a relevant step to position their
company as an innovative workplace and an attractive employer.

What are Objectives (“Os”)?

OKRs consist of one Objective and several Key Results. The Objective is a desirable,
ambitious goal, qualitatively describing an aspired outcome. An Objective sets a clear
direction for everyone and is supposed to motivate you to work towards it. It basically
tells you where you want to go and is the final destination you want to reach.
An Objective of Elon Musk and his company SpaceX for example could be
“We have built the first sustainable city on Mars”.
What are Key Results (“KRs”)?

Key Results describe the levers you will use to achieve your Objective. They are
measurable results indicating if you have achieved your Objective. They tell you if you
are on the right path to get to your destination. Key Results usually have a starting and
a target value, which help you to measure how you progress towards your Objective.
Through this, you always know how close you are to your final destination.
A Key Result for SpaceX‘s Mars mission Objective could be

“We have raised € 2.5 bn for our first unit of space farms”.
What are Initiatives?

Very importantly, Key Results are not describing the exact work activities you do. For
this, you can define so-called Initiatives. They describe what you will do to influence
your Key Results. Initiatives tell you what to do to get closer to your final destination.
They simply are a clearly-defined hypothesis for what work might have the biggest
impact to get closer to the target value of your Key Result.
Checking if you have come closer to your Key Result‘s target value on a regular basis,
will tell you if your Initiatives were as successful as you thought. In case they are not,
you should think about new ones. This way you can stick to your goals, meaning your
OKR, throughout a goal cycle, while at the same time staying agile on an operational
level. Thanks to your Initiatives.
An initiative for SpaceX‘s fund-raising Key Result could be

“We have launched a crowdfunding campaign on kickstarter”.

A brief history of OKRs and delineation to MBO

Of course, objective-based management is hardly a new idea. Indeed, similar
frameworks have been existing for more than 60 years. OKRs unify the advantages of
many of these approaches such as Management by Objectives (MBO) and SMART
Goals while putting simplicity, agility and usability first. They break down silo mentality
and offer benefits to managers and employees alike.
Actually, also the idea of OKRs has come a long way already. Already in 1968, back
then CEO of Intel, Andy Grove, developed the Management by Objectives framework
from Peter Drucker into the model of OKRs.
In 1974, John Doerr joined Intel, got to know OKRs and took them with him, when he
joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers – one of the first major investors in Google.
Doerr introduced OKRs to the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who
implemented them in their organization, which still uses OKRs today.


Why to work with the OKR framework
Common challenges that can be tackled by working with OKRs

1. Teams and their members do not know the Objectives the company pursues,
what the strategy looks like or what contribution is expected from them.
2. The organization is not aligned with regards to its strategies and goals.
3. Coordination and alignment between teams is lacking.
4. Existing performance management systems do not have an impact on business

performance, communication, or engagement.
5. The individual cannot understand their contribution to the achievement of

team or company goals and their work’s purpose is not communicated.
6. There is a general lack of transparency (e.g. what “these people of team X“ are
working on and if it is relevant for your team).
7. Team’s contribution is not measurable and therefore is not acknowledged.
8. Lag measures do not support ‘forward-looking’ reporting and analytics.

Why it is worth it: A summary of benefits

Focus and Prioritization
With OKRs, a limited set of important goals is documented, being precisely and clearly
communicated to everyone. Actionable metrics that allow quantifying progress, lead to
discipline and a more effective allocation of work.
Coordination and Alignment

OKRs create alignment on strategy and goal level. Through the OKR process alignment
can not only be supported across teams but also up and down the hierarchy. Aligning
all teams and individuals from the beginning of a quarter, increases the overall
efficiency and reduces conflicts. This leads to concentrating all resources on the global
optimum (in contrast to everyone driving his or her best strategy locally).
Motivation among employees

OKRs clarify for every individual in the company, how they are contributing to the
overall value creation. Every team member understands how goals can be achieved
collectively and what is expected from them. This helps to create a stronger sense of
purpose on employee-level. Moreover, everybody is involved in the goal setting
process from the beginning, which increases motivation and commitment alike.
Transparency
Having all goals of an organization accessible in an OKR system, helps to increase
transparency. The alignment processes during the OKR drafting further strengthen
this transparency within and especially across teams. Next to this, OKRs make
accomplishments visible and hence promote recognition. Moreover, it becomes easier
to learn from past performance and optimize over time.
Autonomy
OKRs enable teams to work more autonomously. Through structured alignment
processes, teams can then work more independently when it‘s about execution. By
bringing everyone on the same page regarding the strategic priorities, the actual
initiatives to achieve them can be given in the hands of the teams most competent to
carry them out.
Measuring the right things

OKRs help to focus on results (outcomes) instead of mere output or resource input like
time spent.
Flexible organization structures

OKRs provide your organization with a fluid organizational layer through which teams
can more easily collaborate, also across functions. They allow teams to flexibly form
themselves around goals. As goals change due to shifting customer or market demand,

teams can rapidly adapt to these new conditions. Small OKR team units
can act almost like fictional start-ups within the organization.
Transforming leadership
Through OKRs, leadership teams for the first time can steer their organization
forward-looking. By equipping them with lead metrics stemming from their OKR data,
they can course-correct on the go. By having teams operating as autonomous strategy
executors, leaders can moreover shift their focus from mere control tasks to more
development- and growth-focused activities.


Drafting OKRs that actually work
A hands-on checklist for drafting inspiring Objectives

Great Objectives give everyone a clear understanding of what you are working on and
describe a state desirable to be achieved by everyone driving this Objective.
Defining effective Objectives takes time as they are a powerful tool to motivate and
engage all stakeholders in the process. Like a well-defined marketing slogan, they make
it very easy for everyone to understand who their customer and what their business
value is. So, the following three questions can be used to start drafting a valuable
Objective:
● Who are our customers (internally and externally)?

● Which problems do our customers have?
● Which problem for which customer do we focus on to (partly) solve this cycle?
The draft should then be challenged with the help of the following indicators:

To get started with good Objectives quickly, you can focus on the
following three most important quality criteria first:
Describing a desirable state or condition in the future

Qualitative (not measurable)

Radical focus on customer and business value

Keep in mind that you are usually defining OKRs for three months. That equals
40x12=180 working hours or 60 days. Hence, if you have 4 Objectives with 4 Key
Results each (16 Key Results), you can work 3.75 days on each of them. So, if one
Objective would take too long, break it up into two. This can help you as a rule of
thumb to define and subdivide Objectives and Key Results properly.
How to avoid inferior Objectives – Don'ts for Objective
Use an Objective as a “nice headline” for Key Results

Objective contains metrics like revenue

Describe timeless values like customer happiness

Abstract terms of improvement like “increase”, “optimize” oder “improve”

A hands-on checklist for drafting Key Results putting

performance power in your hands
Great Key Results are the drivers of success for their Objective. Drafting and
discussing Key Results helps the team to reflect about their set of metrics and learn
how to measure their success. In contrast to Objectives, Key Results should always be
measurable. They should contain metrics that measure the outcome you want to
realize.
Furthermore, they should reflect directly manipulable lead metrics that lead to the
achievement of certain results. They should not reflect only to-do lists or
interconnected milestones you are supposed to work through. This means, they
control the components of the Objective.
Moreover, it is important that Key Results are as independent from each other as
possible. A mistake in or failure to achieve one Key Result should not impair the
success of another Key Result.
From this, you can derive the following indicators for great Key Results:

To get started with good Key Results quickly, you can focus on the
following three most important quality criteria first:
Results: not milestones or tasks

Quantitative and measurable

Lead metrics that can be influenced

How to avoid inferior Key Results – Don'ts for Key Results
Formulation as milestones

Catenation: more than one metric in a Key Result

Too many binary Key Results (achieved/not achieved)

Key Results do not measure the Objective but something else/on top


OKR examples that can give you guidance

Since OKRs are always very specific to an organization and its context, it is usually best
to not just “transfer” OKR examples to your own company but rather use the quality
criteria from above. Many OKRs perfectly fit only a few or even just one organizational
context because usually there is no one-size-fits all solution to goals. If you still need
“just some starting point”, we summarized a few OKR examples for below.
The first paragraph of examples shows some OKRs fulfilling (almost) all the quality
criteria from above. As you might see, they are therefore not very short and easily
memorable though.
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Our team's compliance to programming standards is continuously reviewed

in-depth and improved so that our product is more maintainable and stable
KR: Compliance manually checked and communicated 6 times in cycle

(manual info)
Derived 15 specific improvement advocates for developers to improve

code quality (manual info)
Automated 70% of static code review with in-tool applications

(Estimation)
Decreased average code complexity metrics for new code by 50% (Code
analysis tool)
Integrated 100% of development staff (excl. Business Analyst) into

compliance sessions

MARKETING
Our product website is search engine optimized so that potential customers can
easily find and explore our product portfolio
Improved SEO Score from 0.4 to 0.7 (SEO score tool)
Improved share of our target group clicking our homepage from 15% to
25% (Google Analytics)
Decreased organic bounce rate on landing page from 80% to 65%

(Google Analytics)
Increased average session time on landing page from 1:40 to 2:00

minutes (Google Analytics)
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
In daily development work, our predict teams have virtually no headwind, so they
can produce products faster and without frustration
90 % of the identified impediments have been removed (Self-report

based in dialogue with Team SMs)
Decreased perceived severity of impediments for product teams by 20%

(Employee Survey)
Improved team velocity by 3% – comparing last three sprints with

average of previous cycle (Jira)
Improved team satisfaction score from 65% to 76% (Employee survey)
To make the OKRs more brief as well as easier to understand and memorize, many
organizations go for a “lighter-version” of OKRs. They decide consciously to not fulfill
all the quality criteria perfectly from the beginning to make them operational quicker.
The OKRs in the subsequent paragraphs describe a specific goal state or outcome, but
are weaker regarding the focus on the customer and the value the team brings to this
customer.
As long as such OKRs still help the teams to guide effectively towards goal
achievement, they can be used. Nonetheless, teams should still think about the
customer and value created for this customer through the OKR – even if it is not
written down explicitly.

Furthermore, teams should always aim to improve their OKR drafting
skills and process, to get closer to meeting all quality criteria each cycle.
PEOPLE
All employees are so satisfied that they actively recommend working at our
company
The response rate of our employee survey rises from 60% to 75%
Our ‘Employee Net Promoter Score’ (eNPS) rises from 40 to 55 points.
Our overall score at Kununu.com rises from 4,0 to 4,7
Comment: This OKR makes it explicit what the company wants to achieve on a qualitative
basis in the given cycle. It does not specifically why it is important (value) or who specifically
benefits (internal or external customer), however in this case it might be understood based on
the context.
OPERATIONS
Our company reaches a stable profitability level
Our ‘Monthly Recurring Revenue’ (MRR) increases from € 100.000 to €

150.000
We make our service better scalable by reducing our call rate from 90%
to 60%
Expenses for external service provides are from € 50.000 to € 20.000
Comment: Here, the Objective also holds a clear qualitative goal state that the company
wants to reach by the end of the cycle. As the one before it does not hold any additional
information as to why it is important to achieve this (who is the external or internal customer
and what is his or her benefit).

PRODUCT AND MARKETING
We have launched the most popular new iPhone App in our category
KR: Achieve 90% recommendation of our app prototype in 10 user tests

with current users
Achieve in app recommendation of 30 %
KR: Be the number one app in our category for 7 out of 14 weeks
Comment: This Objective also “checks” the quality criteria of having a specific goal state to
achieve by end of the cycle. Adding a reason why, by stating how the company or
stakeholders might benefit could add additional motivation for the teams to work on and
guidance on what to optimise for when solving the challenge.
The last set of OKR examples also lack a specific goal state next to customer and
customer value. A lot of companies use OKRs like this. Drafting OKRs like this makes
them very unspecific though. Such OKRs will guide teams significantly less as they do
not describe the exact outcome a team wants to achieve in that cycle.
SALES
The length of our sales lifecycle is reduced significantly
The sales lifecycle for our basic product is reduced from 8 to 2 weeks
The sales lifecycle for our professional product is reduced from 4 to 2

months
The sales lifecycle for our enterprise edition is reduced from 6 to 4

months
Comment: “Reduce sales lifecycle” does not make it explicit what the team actually plans to
achieve in the given OKR cycle and therefore does not make the Objective by itself effective
when being read by other teams or leadership.

MARKETING
We get the value proposition on our website to the point
The bounce rate of our homepage is reduced from 45% to 20%
We achieve an increase of 20% on our click rate of the main

call-to-action
We have a 20% watch rate of the explainer video on our product page
Comment: Here “getting the value proposition on point” appears to be very vague. Trying to
specifically understand and communicate what the team wants to achieve in a qualitative
way could add guidance to that team in addition to the metrics in the Key Results.
PRODUCT
Our app is lightning-fast
The loading time of the initial screen is reduced by 1.5 seconds
KR: The time for filtering 5000 items is reduced from 3 to 0.5 seconds
The number of support tickets complaining about sluggishness has

decreased by 20%
Comment: Similarly to the previous OKR, “making the app lightning-fast” appears to be
rather vague. What specifically does the team want to achieve? What is achievable in this
cycle? A goal state in the Objective motivates the team beyond the metrics in the Key Results.
FINANCE
Our annual budgeting process improved
A new online training for all 12 managers has been attended by all of
them
Our budget proposals get in 22 days earlier than last year
Our quarterly budgeting is closed 2 days earlier than last the average of
the last three quarters
Comment: This OKR also lacks a clear state the team

wants to achieve and much more describes something

the team is planning on doing. It therefore does not focus on outcome but
input.
OPERATIONS
We become a data-driven organization
20 most important KPIs are available in real-time to stakeholders
OKRs have been adopted by 3 teams
1 person from each division has been ramped up for Tableau
Comment: Similarly to the previous OKRs, this Objective does not hold a specific goal state.
Additionally the description appears to be unrealistic for a goal cycle. Becoming a
data-driven company is most likely a long-term goal and the company would benefit from
breaking it down to focus on something achievable for the given OKR cycle.


Working with OKRs along the OKR Cycle
Rolling out and implementing OKRs in your organization
What does working with OKRs look like?

Defining OKRs should follow simple guidelines: every Objective usually should have a
set of two to five Key Results. Thereby, you do not only have an important goal but also
ensure a quantification of how you measure your way of getting there.

The most successful companies using OKRs regularly define OKRs for both, the
organizational and the team level. In order to ensure disciplined planning and a focus
on the most important activities, it is recommended that the number of Objectives for
each unit should not exceed three. Sometimes even one Objective might be enough.
Similarly, you should aim to limit the number of Key Results to two to five per
Objective.

Key is to ensure that during the definition of OKRs, all teams and individuals can
already participate. By doing so, employee engagement is increased and alignment can
be achieved. Not just top-down and bottom-up across different hierarchy levels, but
also across teams, bridging different functional silos. This OKR definition process can
range from two up to six week and explicitly defines the short-term directions
stemming from continuous strategic planning endeavours.

Important questions that you can ask yourself during the process are:

● Does the majority of team goals contribute to company goals?
● Are there teams working on the same goal(s) which can be brought together?
● Are there teams with conflicting goals that need to resolve their misalignment?
● Does every team have an achievable number of OKRs and Key Results?
● Does the whole organization have an appropriate amount of goals in relation to
the number of employees?
Important roles when working with OKRs

When working with OKRs and especially when rolling them out throughout the
company, there are two important
roles:

OKR Coaches: Coaches facilitate planning, alignment and weekly
communication processes around goals and priorities for and with their teams.
Program Leads: Program Leads are responsible for the overall rollout and
development of the OKR process. They drive change and build bridges between teams
and the leadership.
OKRs on company and team level

If you want to make OKRs work throughout your organization, OKRs have to be set on
company and team level.
Organizational OKRs
Organizational OKRs are the selected strategic priorities, the organization declared as

must wins for this cycle. It is important that a company manages to really create focus
regarding these must wins. This means that they should limit the number of
organizational OKRs to the two, three or four things they consider the most important
at this very moment.
Organizational OKRs do not mean that teams cannot be involved in the prioritization
process. Many companies start by gathering ideas and input from employees on their
perception of the top strategic priorities. Then, the key stakeholders of the
organizational OKRs can sort, discuss and fit these priorities into the landscape of
vision, mission, company strategy as well as long term goals.
Eventually, an agreement should be made on what the organization should have
achieved by the end of the next cycle. The achievement of these should really have an
impact for the entire organization and propel it to the next level.
Team OKRs
Team OKRs reflect the top priorities of a single team in an organization. This does not
mean however, that they can be treated completely independent from the company
and other team OKRs.
Team OKRs should always align with and even better, support organizational OKRs.
When choosing OKRs as a team, it should moreover be looked after which other team
OKRs your OKR set can be aligned to. This way you can support each other's efforts
better, double work can be prevented and new synergies can be discovered.

The OKR Cycle

To really make OKRs work, the process component of the framework is just as
important as its different parts (e.g. Objectives, Key Results) and the different roles
(e.g. OKR Coaches, Program Leads).
The process component of the framework is also called OKR Cycle. It describes a
sequence of different events that ensure
● proper definition
● execution
● measurement
● and continuous improvement
of goals and the overall strategy execution.
A clearly defined OKR process with regular events to plan, align, update, reflect and
adjust is the heart of a successful agile goal and strategy execution system. Workpath’s
standard cycle is designed for organizations to implement and successfully work with
OKRs. The OKR Cycle allows companies to tailor and refine the OKR process to its
needs and requirements in order to optimize adoption, engagement and efficiency.
Of course, the idea of the OKR Cycle is not to radically change and shift priorities after

each quarter. Rather, new ideas and suggestions for strategic adjustments should be
collected on a continuous basis. Then, they can be reviewed and challenged to see if
they are relevant for the upcoming cycle.


The below timeline should give organizations guidance for their respective OKR
Cycles. However, it is clear that the duration and timing of phases will be different for
and should be adjusted to the individual requirements of each company. Moreover,
timelines for OKR definition and alignment should be adjusted according to the
number of employees and organizational levels involved.

The timeline

-3 weeks: Announce Organizational Priorities and Drafting Team OKRs

Until three weeks before a new cycle starts, C-level executives and team leads from
executive teams should work on a guiding set of top company priorities for the next
quarter. Depending on the situation, these priorities can either be just giving rough
directions or come as a set of more detailed OKR drafts already. They are then publicly
shared within the organization.
Subsequently, all teams now discuss their own priorities and how they can contribute
to the overarching, guiding company goals. Accordingly, they draft their team OKRs
and assign owners.

-2 weeks: Alignment Workshop

All OKR owners, OKR Coaches, the executive team as well as owners of important
organizational Initiatives and metrics meet to

● screen the goals from other
teams
● discuss them

● align goals around the results to be achieved
● prioritize their OKR drafts
● and allocate resources to them.

Taking the feedback from the alignment workshop with them, the teams internally
discuss and iterate on their pre-final Objectives and Key Results that will be presented
at the Kick-off. Through the alignment workshop, teams now have more knowledge
about the scope, impact and dependencies of their OKRs.

OKR Kick-off

The participants of the alignment workshop decide on their final OKRs. Moreover,
they ultimately determine which other higher-level OKRs their team OKRs will
contribute to.

Finally, the OKR owners present the final OKRs to the entire organization during the
official OKR Kick-off event. To start the new quarter with the highest possible level of
energy and motivation, many organizations decide to actually celebrate the OKR
Kick-off.

+1 week: Retrospective

The teams, internally as well as between team leads and OKR owners, discuss how to
improve the process and collaboration around OKRs.

These conversations are about minimizing the gaps between OKR planning and
achievement in the future. Through the retrospective, teams analyze and identify how
to further optimize the process to more effectively create the desired results.

Also, the teams carve out what activities, routines and ways of working they should
start, stop and continue doing.

+10 weeks: Review

In the Review workshop the OKR progress and results of the ending cycle are assessed
by the team and analyzed to prepare the upcoming goal drafting sessions. It creates
clarity around achievements as well as anticipated results that have not been achieved
and need to be analyzed. Additionally it
enables actionable lessons that will
help the team to achieve their results in
the future. The following conclusions
could be made in the Review session:


● Celebrate the achievements with OKRs that have been fully
completed
● Analyze which OKRs might need to be continued with a new focus based on
OKRs that have not been achieved
● Analyze what could have been improved in the overall process for OKRs that
have not been achieved for the upcoming cycles

Part of the results of this review meeting are later used to draft goals for the new cycle
in the following OKR workshops.
Best practices from actual practitioners
Who should own OKRs?

To be successful in achieving your goals, you need somebody, who feels accountable
for them. This is why you should define owners for your OKRs.
We recommend having owners for Objectives as well as for different Key Results. The

Objective owner usually should also be the owner of at least one Key Result of this
Objective. The other Key Results can be owned by other team members or sometimes
even by members from another team.
This way, you ensure accountability but also make sure, Objective owners are not
given a mere steering function. And you also allow for and strengthen cross-functional
collaboration.
Sometimes, it might look logical to put down a whole team as the owner of an OKR.
This is generally possible. However, you should be aware that in most cases you
+undermine the main benefit of an OKR owner then: accountability. This is why we
recommend to rather use individuals as OKR owners.
What is a good OKR cadence?

Every organization has a different rhythm. Oftentimes this rhythm is strongly
influenced by the company culture. Therefore, every organization should define its
individual cadence for OKRs.
The most common cadence and also the

cadence we recommend is to set
quarterly OKRs. Usually this nicely aligns
with fiscal quarters or other regular
business cycles. Furthermore, three

months have proven to be a good time span to:
a) be able to actually achieve an ambitiously set goal, but at the same time
b) not get stuck with something about which you have already learned that it
needs optimization
Becoming great fast: the most important success factors when working
with OKRs
Go in the game with a clear agenda. OKRs are not a silver bullet and will not solve all
of your problems. Certainly, not at once. So, go in the OKR game with a clear idea, what
you want to achieve with them on a short, mid and long term time horizon.
Plan ahead. Making OKRs successful needs good planning. This is not just true for the
initial rollout but for each cycle. Important sessions like alignment workshops or the
OKR Kick-off should be added to everyone’s calendar with sufficient lead time. A
recommended lead time is to plan one quarter in advance.
Keep focus. Be specific. OKRs are there to increase your focus. So keep it concise and
pay attention to not start with too many OKRs. This will also help you to keep focus
over the course of the cycle. Try to moreover be specific in the formulation of OKRs. A
good OKR is easily recallable and got rid of all unnecessary frills. For your Key Results,
ask yourself if they will truly leave you with evidence of the achieved.
Never forget: frequent communication. This one always seems to be clear to
everybody, but seldomly gets carried out thoroughly. Clarify and communicate OKRs
with your whole company and each and every team. This is not a one time effort.
Repeated explanations are key. Work with posters, announcements during company
events and reminder mails – and take your weekly Check-ins seriously!
Train experts. Create a community. Appointing and training a sufficient number of
OKR Coaches (~8% of the total number of employees) is one of the most important
things when implementing OKRs. From experience, not doing so will have a
tremendous negative impact on your OKR success. Some organizations have moreover
created communities of practice to exchange best practices of different departments
and teams. It is also possible to do so across organizations – offline at e.g. meetups or
online in communities like the one of
Workpath.
Make it a habit. An event-driven process

will help you to structure the OKR Cycle
and engage all employees in open and
tangible conversations (e.g. weekly

Check-ins, OKR power Check-ins, OKR Kick-off celebrations or
presenting OKRs in town halls). Ceremonies that fit your company’s culture can help to
integrate agile goal management in your daily and weekly routine. They will also
strengthen motivation and team spirit. Be careful to not just add and thereby double
your meetings. Identify where you can sensibly integrate OKR practices and cycle
elements into existing processes to make them a natural part of your organization‘s
operations.
Embrace difficulties. Practice patience and persistence. Expect and embrace

difficulties while implementing the OKR process. It is important to understand that
OKRs are designed to identify challenges and inefficiencies in your organization.
Hence, the OKR process is meant to be refined and it will take several quarters until a
smoothly running process is fully established. It is really important to create an
infrastructure to continuously measure, learn and optimize: Track OKRs on an ongoing
basis to have your progress visualized, set up regular OKR review meetings, establish
feedback rhythms and draw conclusions for concrete next steps and actionable
improvements.


Kick-starting OKRs: what to do to get started

1. Fill the roles of OKR Program Lead and OKR Coaches with great people
To make your OKR program a success, there should be an owner for it. As described in
the section Who should own OKRs, it is therefore sensible to define an OKR Program
Lead.
Next, a sufficient amount of trained OKR Coaches should be able to support every
team in drafting their OKRs.
2. Decide on and use a system for organizing, communicating and tracking OKRs
This is an important one for companies of all sizes and industries. Whether you decide
to track OKRs in a spreadsheet, an internal tool or if you opt for a dedicated software
tool – it is crucial to have one system for your OKRs that lets everybody access them
easily and helps you to continuously measure your progress.
Define a process upfront that helps all users to have their OKRs present, supports and
nudges them to track their progress and makes it easy to communicate about OKRs on
an ongoing basis. Without such a process, you will most likely never see concrete
results and experience actual value from your OKR process.
3. Pilot OKRs and make them a success case
For organizations of several thousands of employees it is very difficult to roll out OKRs
at once across the whole organization. This is why many companies start to pilot OKRs
with dedicated teams or departments. In many organizations, there are teams and
departments more prone to experimenting with new ways of working. Such groups
with high amounts of intrinsic motivation to innovate are usually good pilot groups.
Maybe there is even a dedicated transformation or change department that can serve
as a pilot group.
Starting OKRs with a smaller group of employees will make it easy to learn, adapt and
improve quicker. Furthermore, being able to demonstrate a success case in the
company, will make it more likely to motivate other teams and master OKRs
throughout the whole organization.

4. Explain OKRs to the entire company
Even if you start with OKRs in only a part of your company, you should explain them to
the entirety of employees. This way, you can dispel concern and refusal towards the
new program and bring agile goal setting closer to your whole workforce early on.
Maybe you will even nudge some additional teams to look into OKRs. In any case let
them know, whom they can contact for and where they can find more information.
5. Draft your first OKRs
Many companies then start with OKR drafting workshops. They can be conducted by
executive team members for the organizational OKRs and within each team for the
respective team OKRs.
If you need external support for your first drafting sessions, this is completely normal.
There are various consulting and coaching services for this. Nonetheless, you can also
decide to bring in practitioners from other companies or do the drafting yourself with
the help of guides like this one, checklists, templates and ask pressing questions in
online communities.
6. Monitor and continuously optimize your process
If you really want to kick-start your OKR process and lay the foundations for success
from the beginning, you should measure and monitor them from day one. Your OKR
(tracking) system should help you with this. This regular monitoring should then be
accompanied by a process that helps you to derive conclusions from your data leading
to concrete steps for adjustments and optimization.
Ready to kick-start OKRs? If you want to establish the OKR processes more easily and
effectively, monitor and track your data automatically and optimize on the basis of
hands-on, insightful analytics, make use of the Workpath software. Request your
demo today.

What others wanted to know: FAQs from

OKR practitioners

Are OKRs meant only for companies of specific size, large or small?
The quick answer is no. OKRs can be implemented in a company of any size. The core
principles of the methodology (Objectives with measurable Key Results) can be scaled
for one person or for huge enterprises of several thousand and ten thousands of
employees.
What’s the easiest way to get started with OKRs?
The easiest way to get started with OKRs is to start using them. There are a lot of
resources you can read and watch before. You can find some of them in our Content
Hub or in the Workpath magazine. There are also really good workshops that prepare
you to start with OKRs. But to understand how they work, they need to be tested on
your team.
An easy way to do so is to start with a spreadsheet (find a free template here). To work

well, they must be used constantly though and the progress must be improved every
quarter. In four to six quarters, you should have a clear idea on how they work. Then
you’re all set – but remember: there will always be more to improve.
What can help us to prioritize OKRs?
You can use frameworks like the Eisenhower Matrix for example:
You list all your goals in one or another of
the boxes. As you list them in the box, do so
by priority. When finished, address the
“Urgent”/“Important” Goals immediately
and dismiss the “Not Urgent”/“Not
Important” tasks.

With regards to prioritizing, which OKRs should be done for the next
quarter, we recommend to have a thorough discussion within your team on your
priorities and how they link to overarching, company-level priorities. It is also helpful
to remind yourself that you are creating value for your customer, so it helps to ask
yourself, what is (s)he longing for right now.
How do OKRs work with remote teams?
Our customers’ experience shows that OKRs can work with remote teams as well as
with teams that see each other in the office. They can even be a valuable way to lead a
remote team. OKRs support communication and transparency within the team by
giving members a good overview of how they are working towards shared goals.
Through regular consultation and documentation of progress, everyone is always up to
date and can act more autonomously.
How can we track our OKRs?
How you track your OKRs depends on the size and status of your company. In most
companies with less than 100 people it is the easiest way to track the progress and
confidence level of your OKRs in a spreadsheet file. With more than 100 people you
should think about using an internal tool or a dedicated software to track your results
and get support by respective analytics tools.
How often shall we track our OKRs?
It is very important to track your OKRs on a regular basis. Most teams do soweekly in
their Check-ins. There they have a look at the OKR progress as well as at the
corresponding confidence levels.
What are stretch goals and should we use them?
Stretch goals are very ambitious goals that seem highly unlikely to be fully achieved.
They should force teams and individuals to rethink how they work and take you out of
your comfort zone. They should make everyone involved wonder, how far you can go.
From our perspective it has to do a lot with the working and organizational culture, if
stretch goals are a sensible instrument for the respective firm. This is why stretch goals
are e.g. way more often found in US firms
than German ones. We recommend to not
straight away start with stretch goals when
you only started to use OKRs or at least to
clearly mark and communicate them as
such to manage expectations accordingly.

In what rhythm should OKRs be set?
The length of the recurring Goal setting cycle can range from one month to one year,
depending on the company. We consider three months to be a reasonable period, as a
quarter offers enough time to realize projects and at the same time enough flexibility
to assess on the basis of the results whether a direction should be maintained or
changed.
How many OKRs should a team have?
There is no strict rule, but from our experience, having too many OKRs often means
that you will not be able to focus on any of your goals or that some tasks are not done
at all.
A quick example:
Os | KRs per O | Total KRs
3 | 3 | 9
4 | 4 | 16
5 | 5 | 25
Most of the time, it’s a lot better to prioritize your goals before setting OKRs and focus

on 9 things rather than try to focus on 25.
Should OKRs be part of employee bonus and salary schemes?
In general we do not recommend it. OKRs should not be directly tied to employee
bonuses and salary schemes to make sure employees are still willing to take risks and
work ambitiously on their OKRs. Further, OKRs should rather strengthen teams and
reduce situations where they work in competition – for this goals bonuses are often
counterproductive.
What are linked or aligned OKRs?
To get the best results OKRs should be aligned to one another. So you help each part of
your company to know what’s going on and
how each part contributes to the whole.
This alignment can be vertical (between
levels) or horizontal (between teams). Our
belief is that in order to get all the
employees in your company working as
one, all teams should share an aligned
network of Objectives and Key Results.

What are the benefits of OKRs for leadership?
For leadership and managers, the benefits are:
● Improve strategy execution through connecting strategic and operative work

successfully
● Increasing workforce productivity through experienced purpose
● Increased clarity, focus and better prioritization of strategic priorities
● Better alignment across teams as well as top down and bottom-up
● Transform every employee into a strategy executor
● Making better more informed decisions based on leading data
● Know when and how to course-correct on the go
What is the difference between a retrospective and a review?
Reviews are team meetings at the end of the cycle, where the content of OKRs as well
as hypotheses about success drivers, the goal achievement and how the goals are
graded, are discussed.
Retrospectives are there to “sharpen the saw” and to enhance the OKR process. They
are carried out in form of team meetings where the OKR process, including timelines,
meeting rhythms, Check-ins and other rules are discussed. Retros are an opportunity
to adapt the OKR framework for the organization.Try to optimize the framing rules,
communication formats and rhythms. We recommend to separate retrospective and
review to be even more effective.
What’s the difference between OKRs and KPIs?
KPIs and Key Results look very similar at the first sight but there are some differences

that are important to understand for a well-working goal management.
OKRs define manipulatable success drivers of a goal while KPIs rather verify a result.
This makes clear that OKRs and KPIs are not identical and furthermore not mutually
exclusive. For comprehensive goal management you should use both concepts in a
coordinated manner. Learn more about
OKRs and KPIs in our magazine article.
Would you recommend setting

personal/individual OKRs?
In general, we recommend to focus on

setting goals on team and company level.
This supports collaboration in the teams as

well as transparency and alignment instead of everyone just working for
themselves.
If people nevertheless want to add personal goals, it is important that they do not
contradict team or company OKRs.
What’s the difference between OKRs and MBO?
At first glance, the two approaches are very similar. Both frameworks structure the
work based on goals and start at all levels of the company. Nevertheless, OKRs differ
considerably from MBOs. While MBO goals are formulated quantitatively and often as
KPIs, OKRs consist of qualitative Objectives that are broken down into quantitative
metrics through Key Results. By structuring the goal in detail and setting qualitative
Objectives, OKRs emphasize the process of goal achievement, whereas for MBOs the
focus is on results. This fundamental difference between MBOs and OKRs goes far
beyond the pure goal-setting technique and affects all levels of a company.
What’s the difference between OKRs and SMART goals?
SMART Goals and OKRs are not simply two concepts that exist side by side. Rather,
the quality of OKRs depends heavily on whether the SMART goal rule has been
observed in their definition. The proven tool of SMART goals therefore retains its
validity even in times of modern goal setting. However, it should be noted that SMART
should rather be used as a control tool and filter and is no guarantee for effective
Objectives and Key Results.
What’s the difference between OKRs and Balanced Scorecards?
Both frameworks, OKRs and Balanced Scorecard, are concerned with goal setting and
performance management.
While Balanced Scorecards help to choose the right goals through the establishment of
a performance measurement system that goes beyond mere profit focus (lag measure),
OKRs are dedicated with the process of goal achievement (lead measures). Due to
their similar philosophy and the complementation of lead and lag measures, OKRs and
Balanced Scorecards work together
perfectly in the day-to-day business. If you
are interested in reading more about the
topic, see our article about an overview
about the frameworks.

Who should be in charge of our OKR program?
For a properly executed introduction of the OKR method and processes into your
company, it is essential that leadership supports the process from scratch on. A
dedicated program lead is then responsible for rolling out the process together with a
team of OKR Coaches and further support of C-Level.
Was this guide helpful?


Further resources and additional material
Templates
OKR template
If you want to try out or get started with Objectives and Key Results you can use
Workpath’s intuitive and free OKR template:

Check-in template
A regular Check-in meeting is the most effective success driver of any OKR process. If
you already got started with OKRs and search for ideas how to structure your
Check-ins or a helpful template, you might want to check out: The Check-in: success
driver of effective OKR systems.

Further information
You got all hooked and want to know more about OKRs?
Here is what we have got for you: Find more sources (articles) on OKRs in this article
(DE).

Also check out our Whitepaper: Agile Steuerung mit OKRs (DE) for insights on how to
combine daily business and strategic thinking with OKRs.

If you want to know more about how to get started with OKRs check out our OKR
Rollout Guide.

You’re already a pro with OKRs? Maybe our guide 3 Steps to OKR-based Portfolio
Management is interesting for you.

If you are more of a hands-on person, you might like our Metro Case Study.

What is better than a good book on the topic of your interest. We have created some
amazing reading lists on OKRs and related topics for you:

● 5 books for OKR success (German article but English books)
● Book recommendations on “Organizing for a new working world”
● Book recommendations on “Leadership”
Make OKRs a success in your company: establish processes more easily and
effectively, monitor and track your data automatically and optimize on the basis of
hands-on, insightful analytics, make use of the Workpath software. Request your
demo to talk to an expert.


Opportunities to learn more and get started

Workpath Masterclass
The OKR Goal Setting Masterclasses cover basic knowledge, important best practices
and solutions to common challenges. Elaborate how you can just get started and tailor
the process to your organization’s and teams’ needs and culture. The workshop is aimed
at agile coaches, HR managers, directors and executives who want to learn more about
this framework for agile management.

Workpath Quarterly
At our quarterly conference, we want to offer companies in our ecosystem and
designers of a new economic world the opportunity to get in touch not only with other
practitioners, but also with experts, and to deal specifically with the upcoming goal
cycle. Through an interactive offer of keynotes, case studies, expert 1-on-1s,
discussion rounds and workshops, each team can put together an individual
programme depending on its focus.

Online Community
The Workpath Community connects you with peers and experts, helps you to learn
from each other and provides access to useful content like guides, videos and
templates. We welcome all, aim to support each other to thrive and succeed together.
Join us in finding and sharing the best insights around OKRs, agility and a new working
world. There is always more to discover.

Workpath Academy
With our online training you can acquire the skills and knowledge needed to cope with
strategic as well as everyday challenges and complexity of an agile, ever-changing
working world. Whenever and wherever you want.
Hint: You want to get some first
impressions on the e-learning course? Find
some of the videos in our Community
Content Hub.

Superkinetics Podcast
In Workpath’s Superkinetics podcast,
leading personalities from industry, science
and politics share their ideas and search for
answers to questions that organizations
must ask themselves in order to be
successful in today's working world.

Contact

About Workpath
Workpath is the leading enterprise software provider enabling organizations to execute their strategies
fast, flexible and effective in an increasingly dynamic and complex world. With simple and intuitive
workflow tools Workpath engages all employees in the strategy and execution process. Its
comprehensive analytics suite empowers executives to make better decisions on when to adapt focus,
budgets or structures as early as possible.

Workpath GmbH
Nymphenburger Straße 86
80636 Munich
Germany

www.workpath.com
Email: hello@workpath.com

A Complete Guide to OKRs
March 2020
Copyright © Workpath GmbH 2020. All rights reserved.
www.workpath.com


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1

2 | A Complete Guide to OKRs

What are OKRs (Objectives and Key Results)? ​4

Defining Objectives and Key Results 4

Why OKRs are important for you and your company 4

What are Objectives (“Os”)? 5

What are Key Results (“KRs”)? 5

What are Initiatives? 5

A brief history of OKRs and delineation to MBO 6

Why to work with the OKR framework 7

Common challenges that can be tackled by working with OKRs 7

Why it is worth it: A summary of benefits 8

Drafting OKRs that actually work 10

A hands-on checklist for drafting inspiring Objectives 10

OKR examples that can give you guidance 14

Working with OKRs along the OKR Cycle 20

Rolling out and implementing OKRs in your organization 20

What does working with OKRs look like? 20

Important roles when working with OKRs 20

OKRs on company and team level 21

The OKR Cycle 22

Best practices from actual practitioners 25

Who should own OKRs? 25

What is a good OKR cadence? 25

Kick-starting OKRs: what to do to get started 28

What others wanted to know: FAQs from OKR practitioners 30

Further resources and additional material 35

Further information 36

Opportunities to learn more and get started 37

3 | A Complete Guide to OKRs

What are OKRs (Objectives and Key

Defining Objectives and Key Results

Why OKRs are important for you and your company

4 | A Complete Guide to OKRs

What are Objectives (“Os”)?

What are Key Results (“KRs”)?

A Key Result for SpaceX‘s Mars mission Objective could be

What are Initiatives?

An initiative for SpaceX‘s fund-raising Key Result could be

5 | A Complete Guide to OKRs

A brief history of OKRs and delineation to MBO

6 | A Complete Guide to OKRs

Why to work with the OKR framework

Common challenges that can be tackled by working with OKRs

3. Coordination and alignment between teams is lacking.

4. Existing performance management systems do not have an impact on business

5. The individual cannot understand their contribution to the achievement of

7. Team’s contribution is not measurable and therefore is not acknowledged.

8. Lag measures​ ​do not support ‘forward-looking’ reporting and analytics.

7 | A Complete Guide to OKRs

Why it is worth it: A summary of benefits

Coordination and Alignment

Motivation among employees

Measuring the right things

Flexible organization structures

8 | A Complete Guide to OKRs

9 | A Complete Guide to OKRs

Drafting OKRs that actually work

A hands-on checklist for drafting inspiring Objectives

● Who are our customers (internally and externally)?

10 | A Complete Guide to OKRs

Describing a desirable state or condition in the future

How to avoid inferior Objectives – Don'ts for Objective

What are OKRs (Objectives and Key Results)? 4

8. Lag measures do not support ‘forward-looking’ reporting and analytics.