Table of Contents

● Part I: Concept & Pain Points

● What are OKRs?
● OKRs. The Beginning
● Google Trends – OKRs in the USA
● The 5 Key Elements of OKRs

● Part II: OKRs Examples

● Tips to write Good OKRs
● Objectives
● Key Results
● Examples of well-developed OKRs

● Part III: Rolling Out OKRs

● Four OKR Levels
● Get a feel for OKRs
● Department-Centric OKRs
● Individual Centric OKRs
● Department OKRs + Individual OKRs
● Cross Functional OKRs

● Conclusion
INTRODUCTION

Are you ready to begin your OKR journey?

If you downloaded this eBook, you may already be familiar with OKRs--the goal-setting methodology that is
actively used by the technology titans revolutionizing our 21st-century world such as Apple, Google, Amazon,
Microsoft, Netflix, Twitter, Spotify, as well as countless start-ups and innovative companies of all sizes. Maybe
their success has you wanting to learn more.

Alternatively, you might not be at all familiar with OKRs, and want to test the waters. Wherever you are in your
OKR journey, this eBook will help you learn:

01 02 03

The purpose and mechanics All the components needed for Methods for rolling out your
of the OKR framework strong, measurable OKRs OKRs in your organization
CONCEPT & “PAIN POINTS”

What are OKRs?

OKR is a goal management system used by teams of all sizes to collaborate and achieve stretch goals the
OKR framework that requires regular check-ins, feedback, continuous learning, collaboration, and
problem-solving for teams to execute their strategic goals with alignment and efficiency. Objectives (the
O in OKR) are qualitative, inspirational, time-bound (typically set on a quarterly or annual basis) goals to
be executed by a team, department, or an individual.

Here is an example of an objective that meets these requirements:

Build a high-performance analytics team.

Key Results (KR in OKR), quantify the qualitative objective and break it down into measurable targets that
help determine whether or not the Objective is achieved. Key results commonly use KPIs to help quantify
Objectives.
The above Objective can be broken down into Key Results such as:

➔ KR1 — Hire 10 new employees for the Analytics team.

➔ KR2 — 95% completion rate of “closed tickets” by team members within 30 days of hire.

➔ KR3 — Achieve 90% and above scores on Employee satisfaction surveys for new hires.

Build a high-performance customer

service team
51%

KR1: Hire 10 new employees for the

analytics team
30% 30%
0% 100%

KR2: 95% completion rate of "closed tickets" by team

members within 30 days of hire
83% 52%
70% 95%

KR3: Achieve 90% and above scores on employee

Satisfaction surveys for new hires
89% 70%
75% 95%
OKRs: The Beginning

In the 1970s, Intel President and CEO Andy Grove introduced the concept of OKRs.

His coworker and mentee, John Doerr, took Grove’s idea and developed it even further. In 1999, Doerr
introduced OKRs to Google when they were just 60 employees. Google has publicly credited OKRs for
their phenomenal success. From Google, OKRs spread like wildfire across companies in Silicon Valley
and beyond.
As you can see from the Google Trends curve depicted below — the interest in OKRS has been
steadily increasing from 2012, and it surged when John Doerr published his best-seller Measure
What Matters in 2018. Doerr's book has made OKRs mainstream, and its popularity has steadily
grown outside the tech industry.

The Business Optimization Wave

The 5 Key Benefits of OKRs

According to John Doerr, there are 5 key benefits of OKRs that can be summarized with the acronym
FACTS, or Focus, Alignment, Commitment, Tracking, and Stretching.

1. Focus
This rule forces organizations and teams to focus on their most important goals and targets. OKRs
require your team to focus on the most important strategic goals. The limit on both the number of
Objectives and the number of Key Results for each Objective ensures that focus is not diluted with too
many targets.

2. Alignment

The next vital element of OKRs is Alignment. Research indicates that over 85% of corporate employees
are unaware of organizational strategy and goals. OKRs help solve this problem by ensuring that the
company-level goals (OKRs) are cascaded to department and team goals through top-down
assignment or bottom-up alignment.

Alignment gives clarity to employees about how their work contributes to the corporate goals. Proper
alignment helps an entire organization execute their strategy with precision and clarity.

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Focus
A limited number of objectives and key results promotes
exceptional focus

Alignment
Transparency enables better alignment between individual, team,
department, and corporate goals

Commitment
Motivating and public objectives help employees stay committed to
their goals

Tracking
Measurable key results enables careful tracking throughout the quarter

Stretching
OKRs should always be ambitious, pushing your team to find creative ways
to achieve more
3. Commitment
Commitments are OKRs that should be achieved without fail in the chosen time period. (Example:
100% of employees to be given sexual harassment awareness training this quarter).

Employees should always feel committed to their goals. Leaders can help foster commitment and
accountability by writing motivating and ambitious corporate-level goals, as well as making all OKRs
within an organization transparent. When employees know that their progress is publicly available,
they're more committed to achieving their targets.

4. Tracking
OKRs are commonly updated on a weekly basis using a three-part check-in. Check-ins should include
an updated progress value, insight on how confident the key result owner feels about achieving this
target, and any relevant comments about this target's progress.

In order to reap the benefits of OKRs, all key results must be measurable. Whenever possible, use
KPIs, or key performance indicators, to help quantify your objectives and precisely track goal
progress.

5. Stretchings
OKRs should help the team elevate their performance beyond what they thought was possible. In the
OKR framework, it's common to set ambitious goals, and expect to achieve about 70% of the goal.
This is considered strong performance when your goals are stretching your team.

An excellent way to encourage stretch goals is to unlink OKR achievement from compensation
discussions and performance reviews. Instead, use other metrics to gauge performance, and evaluate
OKR success based on consistent check-ins, following best practices, and demonstrating
commitment to ambitious goals.
Writing OKRS

Tips to write Good OKRs

We all know that practice makes perfect. OKRs are no exception to this rule. Writing OKRs and observing
what works and what does not work for your organization is the best way to improve your experience
with the OKR framework. To help you get started, here are some tips to write better Objectives and Key
Results.

Objectives
➔ Objectives must be short and memorable. Ideally, team members will be able to recall their
Objectives without referring to their app.
➔ Objectives should motivate your team with active, ambitious language that encourages employees.
➔ Objectives should encapsulate only the most important priorities for your organization. Remember:
each OKR level should be limited to 3-5 Objectives.

Here are a few OKRs set by some companies that we all know:
➔ YouTube: “Reach 1 billion hours of watch time per day (by 2016).“
➔ Google: “We should make the web as fast as flipping through a magazine.”
➔ MyFitnessPal: “Help more people around the world.”
➔ The Gates Foundation: “Global eradication of Malaria by 2040“.
Key Results :
➔ Key Results should follow the MECE rule: mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. Set between
3-5 Key Results to address objectives fully without diluting focus.
➔ Key Results are not "tasks". These are measurable outcomes, and should be measured using KPIs.
When a baseline KPI is given a target, deadline, and owner, it becomes a Key Result.
➔ Key Results should follow the SMART goal framework. This means Key Results must be specific,
measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound.

Here are a few examples of Key Results that prolific companies have used
to quantify their Objectives:

➔ YouTube: “Grow kids’ engagement and gaming watch time (X watch hours per day).“
➔ Google: “Achieve 20 million weekly active users for Google Chrome by year-end.”
➔ MyFitnessPal: “Add 27 million new users in 2014“.
➔ The Gates Foundation: “Sustain current global progress to ensure the environment is conducive to
eradication push.“
Examples of well-developed OKRs
➔ Obj: Increase Inbound Demo Success

➔ KR 1: Increase Inbound demo to trial conversion from 0 to 240

➔ KR 2: Convert 60% scheduled demos to demo closed for US

➔ KR 3: Optimize demo follow up process

Objective

Obj: Increase Inbound Demo Success

Increase Inbound demo to trial

KR1:
conversion from 0 to 240

Convert 60% scheduled demos to

KR2:
Key Results demo closed for US

KR3: Optimize demo follow up

process
Marketing OKR
➔ Obj: Establish a Solid Lead Gen Engine

➔ KR 1: Increase advisory sites from 5 to 8

➔ KR 2: Complete product integration with linkedIn lead gen forms

➔ KR 3: Increase number of marketplaces from 1 to 5

Objective

Obj: Establish a Solid Lead Gen Engine

Increase advisory sites from

KR1:
5 to 8

Complete product integration

KR2:
Key Results with linkedIn lead gen forms

KR3: Increase number of

marketplaces from 1 to 5
HR OKR
➔ Obj: Improve Training for Frontline Employees

➔ KR 1: Achieve 100% course completion rate for frontline employees

➔ KR 2: 90% of Employees achieve pass scores at the end of training quiz

➔ KR 3: Increase training satisfaction score from 70% to 90%

Objective

Obj: Improve Training for Frontline

Employees

Achieve 100% course completion

KR1:
rate for frontline employees

90% of Employees achieve pass

KR2:
Key Results scores at the end of training quiz

KR3: Increase training satisfaction

score from 70% to 90%
Engineering OKR
➔ Obj: Improve User Experience

➔ KR 1: Achieve 100% course completion rate for frontline employees

➔ KR 2: Increase task success rate from 70% to 90%

➔ KR 3: Reduce time on task for opening new accounts from 5 mins to 2 mins

Objective

Obj: Improve User Experience

Achieve 100% course completion

KR1:
rate for frontline employees

Increase task success rate from

KR2:
Key Results 70% to 90%

Reduce time on task for opening

KR3:
new accounts from 5 mins to 2
mins
 Rolling Out OKRs

The Four OKR Levels

One of the most important decisions to make while launching your OKR program is to decide specifically
at what level you choose to set your OKRs. There are four levels at which OKRs can be set:

➔ Corporate OKRs
➔ Department OKRs
➔ Team OKRs
➔ Individual OKRs

Most businesses use two or three levels in their OKR program. Corporate OKRs are almost always there.
Other levels are included or excluded based on the company's specific strategy. There are five different
combinations you can use to launch your OKR program. Let's review these options.
 Corporate Department Team OKRs Individual
OKRs OKRs OKRs

Get a feel for OKRs

Department centric

Individual centric

Department
Centric, individual
as needed

Cross Functional
initiatives

It's important to remember that you don't need to choose one roll out strategy for your OKRs and
stick to it. You can develop the structure of your OKR program based on the goals you have for your
organization, and how your team adapts to the framework. That being said, thinking ahead will help
you establish a roadmap for your OKR journey.

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Take the time in the planning stage of your OKR journey to understand the benefits and
shortcomings of each of these approaches and how they would benefit your business. Any of these
five options can be fine-tuned throughout the quarter. Let's take a look at these five OKR level roll
out option in more detail.

➔ Get a feel for OKRs

➔ Department centric
➔ Individual centric
➔ Department centric, but individual as needed
➔ Cross functional initiatives
Get a feel for OKRs

The first option for rolling out your OKRs is to enable corporate OKRs. With this method, department OKRs,
team OKRs and individual OKRs are turned off. Many small companies take this approach. This method
usually works for start-ups, or small companies of less than twenty employees who are getting started with
OKRs and have clear goals they need to meet.

This method is very straightforward and easy for users to understand. Companies taking this approach
might push the 5 objectives per level rule when they're only operating with one OKR level, which is a good
indicator that in a quarter or two, they might need to expand their OKR level approach. This roll out option
has many advantages, not the least of which is visual simplicity that helps new users understand the OKR
methodology on a deeper level, before the program becomes more detailed with alignments, assignments,
and dependencies. This is a safe option for many companies.

Another benefit is that it is obvious that the company is committing to OKRs. You could easily tell a single
department to try out OKRs for a quarter, and then report back. However, if you launch your OKR program
at the corporate level, it's clear that the top leaders in the company are committed to the framework. This
sends a completely different message to employees, demonstrating commitment.
Department-Centric OKRs

Now, the second roll out option is department centric approach. This approach also includes corporate
OKRs, but the emphasis is usually on the OKRs set at the department level, which might align to a
corporate OKR. So, the approach or the underlying theme here is that we are going to have OKRs at the
department or function level , but no OKRs cascading down to the team or individual level.

Many organizations have a hierarchy of departments. For example, your marketing department might have
a handful of sub-departments, such as inbound marketing. In this sub-department, the team focuses on
bringing leads into the business. Within this sub-department you might have separate initiatives related to
search marketing, content development, and social media outreach. These sub-functions can have their
own OKRs. This approach to your OKR roll out offers a lot of flexibility for your business.
So, you want to create a department to represent the main functions of your organization, which need to lead
important initiatives. Depending on your size, your departments may only include a handful of people. It's
important to remember your OKR program will be unique to your organization. If a function is important for
your goals and business success, go ahead and create a department to track your OKRs as accurately as
possible.

Although the OKRs are at the department level, you still may want to assign key results to individuals. That’s
perfectly okay in this approach. The difference is, unlike with the individual-centric approach, those
individuals will not expand the assigned key result as their own OKR. But key results can be assigned to
individuals.

Department-owned OKRs also help emphasize that OKRs and HR performance management are two different
functions. When a goal is owned by an entire department, with smaller targets assigned to individuals, teams
know that they're responsible for collaborating with their peers and working towards the set goal.

While individual employee performance is kept private, the OKR framework is meant to function is the central
pillar for business strategy and execution. These are set goals that the entire department, and the entire
organization is united on achieving. This roll out option is not as broad as our first option, to only roll-out
corporate OKRs, and provides more detailed goals and alignments without becoming too granular.

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Individual-Centric OKRs

The third approach is called Individual-Centric OKRs. OKRs here follow the management reporting hierarchy. For
example, the CEO has six different people reporting to him, one of them being the Chief Marketing Officer. Some
of the CEO’s OKRs will become the next level objectives for the CMO and some of the CMO’s key results will
become next level objectives for director of digital marketing and so on and so forth.

This rollout option has the cascading responsibility according to the management reporting hierarchy. There is
certainly a lot more clarity in terms of who owns what: for example, at the department level, key results are owned
by the department manager or department head, while key results are assigned to individual employees and
contributors. This options makes it easier to determine responsibility, and specifically assign certain targets.
Department OKRs + Individual OKRs

The fourth option for rolling out your OKRs is department centric with individuals as needed. Sometimes there
are situations in which individuals have to expand a key result that has been assigned to them as their own
personal OKR. The assigned key result becomes their objective, and it's their responsibility to determine the
key results they need to achieve in order to fulfill the objective.

There are benefits to this option, including the ability to be flexible with your approach to OKRs, but in general,
it’s a lot simpler if you just choose to have one of the two levels. Either a department level or an individual level.
If you do take this: you should have clear guidelines as to what is the norm: either department centric or
individual centric. And then you should use the other very, very sparingly as you need it.

If you keep going around back and forth, it’s a lot more difficult to track, report and manage.
Cross Functional OKRs
The final option for rolling out your OKRs isn’t entirely unique from the others; it’s more of a combination, called
cross functional OKRs or cross functional initiatives.

This roll out option commonly comes in handy when there are time-sensitive projects on hand; for example, if a
new product needs to be launched on a war footing basis. A competitor might launch an incredible product,
and your team could get a corporate mandate that you must quickly respond with a strong product. In that
case, a cross functional team is created to specifically achieve this objective to develop and launch a product.
Conclusion

OKRs are a powerful methodology that can help your business reach its full potential and beyond. Taking
the time to focus on your goals, write strong objectives and key results, and roll out your OKR program at
the right levels of your company is a great starting point for utilizing this methodology. OKRs are no
longer just for the likes of Google, Apple, and other industry-leaders. No matter your size or industry,
you can use the OKR framework alongside intuitive software such as Profit.co to bring focus and
alignment to your organization and turn your abstract goals into concrete realities.

Want to know how to roll out OKRs for the first time in your organization?
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