What is OKR

What are OKRs?

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) is methodology for goal setting where an objective outlines a desired outcome and is supported by 3-5 quantifiable and measurable key results to achieve that outcome.

Objectives?are defined as what you want to achieve; these outcomes should be expressed in a strong, motivating way.?Key Results?are how you will achieve an objective. Key Results can be either quantifiable performance measures or deliverables (effort or projects).

Defining Great Objectives for OKRs

Objectives are the “Whats.” Objectives are company-wide, or in larger organizations, are also team-wide. They should be expressed in a tangible, motivating and unambiguous way, so that what the organization or team wants to achieve is clear, actionable and inspiring. Furthermore, we believe strongly that the successful achievement of an objective must provide clear value for the organization.

Validate your Objectives:

• Is what we want to accomplish and why is it important crystal clear?
• If others read the objective, will it guide their focus and effort (key results)?

Defining Great Key Results

Key Results are the “Hows” an objective will be achieved. They must describe a deliverable in the form of a measure (e.g., 15% growth in customer retention) or in the form of a clear result of effort (e.g., Launch a new CRM by Dec 30, 2022).

OKR Examples

OKR examples for CEOs

Because OKRs are used to align all teams with an organization’s top goals, your entire company’s OKRs are only as effective as the ones you set at the very top. Therefore, it’s critically important to make sure you’re setting CEO-level goals effectively.

To help set effective executive-level goals, here are some OKR examples for CEOs you can refer to.

OBJECTIVE:?Sell $10M in bookings

Key results:

• Win 1,000 deals worth $10M in bookings by 12/31/17
• Generate 50,000 marketing qualified leads

OBJECTIVE:?Grow our business

Key results:

• Grow revenue to $3M
• Launch the new product
• Reduce churn to <5% annually through customer success

OBJECTIVE:?Please our customers

Key results:

• Collect feedback from 20 customers/month
• Boost customer retention to 97%
• Maintain NPS of 9

OBJECTIVE:?Strengthen our corporate culture

Key results:

• Roll out a continuous two-way feedback loop via weekly surveys
• Maintain an average employee satisfaction score of 8 or higher
• Create & launch new mentorship program by the end of Q3

OBJECTIVE:?Successfully launch our new product by the end of Q2

Key results:

• Develop 15 customer case studies by 4/30/17
• Secure an award at an industry conference
• Get into the Gartner Magic Quadrant

Once you have a balance of both aspirational and operational CEO-level OKRs, you can then begin to?cascade goals ?throughout the rest of the company to achieve organizational alignment.

Top company objectives—OKR examples

OBJECTIVE:?Grow our corporate global business

Key results:

• Hit company global sales target of $100 Million in Sales
• Achieve 100% year-to-year sales growth in the EMEA geography
• Increase the company average deal size by 30% (with upsells)
• Reduce churn to less than 5% annually (via Customer Success)

OBJECTIVE:?Delight our company customers

Key results:

• Interview 20 customers per month and get feedback
• Achieve an NPS of 9 from our customers
• Increase customer retention to 98%
• Achieve a product engagement of 80% WAU

OBJECTIVE:?Build a great corporate culture (delight our employees)

Key results:

• Launch an ongoing 2-way closed-loop feedback process
• Achieve a weekly Employee Satisfaction / Pulse Score of 8+
• Celebrate “small wins” and any type of progress every single week
• CEO and SVPs to launch a monthly all-hands Town Hall and open Q&A meeting

OBJECTIVE:?Launch the new product successfully in Q1

Key Results:

• Create 20 customer case studies
• Get into the Gartner Magic Quadrant
• Win a “Best Product of the Year” award at the industry conference

Marketing goals—OKR examples

Demand generation goals—OKR examples

OBJECTIVE:?Generate more Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)

Key Results:

• Generate 150 MQLs from email marketing
• Generate 100 MQLs from AdWords
• Generate 50 MQLs from organic search
• Generate Net-New Unique leads via Account-Based Marketing

OBJECTIVE:?Optimize our customer acquisition

Key Results:

• Improve our new marketing automation process
• Reduce the Customer Acquisition Costs by 20% in Q3
• Build a new top-down and bottom-up Excel model to analyze the ROI

OBJECTIVE:?Implement Account Based Marketing (ABM)

Key Results:

• Document and implement the new ABM process
• Do 2 weekly alignment meetings with the SDR team
• Do 1 weekly alignment meeting with SDR team managers
• Generate 20% of closed-won sales via ABM efforts in Q4

Online marketing goals—OKR examples

OBJECTIVE:?Improve Our Website and Grow Conversions

Key Results:

• Grow website visitors by 7% every month
• Improve conversions on Landing Pages by 10% in Q2

OBJECTIVE:?Improve Our PPC Campaign

Key Results:

• Get 150 MQLs from Google AdWords
• Ensure a Cost per Lead of $4 or less
• Ensure a 2% CTR

OBJECTIVE:?Improve Our SEO

Key Results:

• Get 10 new inbound links from relevant websites
• Improve our internal on-page optimization
• Improve our website loading speed

Content marketing goals — OKR examples

OBJECTIVE:?Launch the new monthly newsletter successfully.

Key Results:

• Publish 3 new newsletters this quarter
• Finalize and launch 1 newsletter per month
• Ensure we get a 3% CTR or above

OBJECTIVE:?Improve Our Blog Strategy

Key results:

• Publish 50 new blog posts in Q3
• Do 5 VIP interviews of industry experts
• Get 5,000 subscribers on our blog

PR / Analyst Relations Goals — OKR Examples

OBJECTIVE:?Increase Our Brand Awareness

Key Results:

• Have 30 media calls/meetings by end of Q1
• Have 15 calls/meetings with key industry influencers
• Secure 2 speaking spots at the Annual Industry conference

OBJECTIVE:?Build Strong Relationships with Forrester and Gartner

Key Results:

• Do 2 analyst briefings in Q1
• Submit analyst report applications
• Feature 2 analysts on our webinars
• Do 2 analyst calls - provide the new product launch update

Community Manager Goals — OKR Examples

OBJECTIVE:?Launch a New Customer Community

Key Results:

• Create a Customer Community Strategy based on best practices
• Publish 60 articles during the quarter and get 6,000+ page visits
• Get 30% of our customers to participate in the community

OBJECTIVE:?Make our community known by industry experts and thought leaders

Key Results:

• Reach out to 12 industry experts and thought leaders in Q1
• Interview them and publish the interview articles on our community site
• Research and publish the Industry Report & Infographics for the community

Product Marketing Goals — OKR Examples

OBJECTIVE:?Launch the new product successfully.

Key Results:

• Finish all the new product website updates
• Work with PR to provide technical product specs
• Give an exclusive pre-launch update to customers and partners
• Finalize product datasheets, feature briefs and sales enablement info

Partner Marketing Goals — OKR examples

OBJECTIVE:?Create a community for our partners/resellers (MQLs).

Key Results:

• Publish 5 new partner-focused whitepapers by Q1
• Launch 7 webinars to educate our partners
• Do a 5-city Lunch & Learn event for partners

Sales Goals — OKR examples

Sales Group Goals — OKR Examples

OBJECTIVE:?Generate new bookings pipeline

Key Results:

• Generate inflow of $12M in pipeline
• Keep pipeline above 5x of quota to ensure a 20% Win Rate
• Do 7 product demos per week

OBJECTIVE:?Recruit World-Class A-Players for Our Sales Team

Key Results:

• Hire 10 new AEs by the end of January
• Hire 20 new SDRs by the end of January
• Hire 5 new Sales Managers by the end of January
• Maintain a 4:1 onsite "Interview Offer" ratio

OBJECTIVE:?Develop Our Reps into the Best Sales Team in the Industry

Key Results:

• Implement a better onboarding process
• Ensure we do regular sales coaching every week
• Bring in the new sales training company to improve our training
• Do regular monthly anonymous surveys of SDRs and AEs and get their feedback

Sales Manager Goals — OKR Examples

OBJECTIVE:?Grow Our Sales in the Central region

Key Results:

• Develop relationships with 50 new targets or named accounts
• Onboard 10 new resellers that focus on the Central region
• Offer extra kicker to AEs to achieve 120% focusing on the Central region

OBJECTIVE:?Improve Sales in South America

Key Results:

• Find 30 new customers in South America
• Implement a new sales training program for our South American team
• Receive 5-star reviews from our customers who will serve as references

SDR Manager Goals — OKR Examples

OBJECTIVE:?Implement SDR social selling process

Key Results:

• Pass SQL’s to sales executives
• Train 5 SDRs on social selling practices

OBJECTIVE:?Exceed our Q4 quotas by 50%

Key Results:

• Generate 80 Sales Qualified Leads
• Bring in $50,000 in bookings by end of Q3

OBJECTIVE: Grow Our Upsell and Cross-sell

Key Results:

• Promote 3 SDRs to the upsell AE role
• Increase upsell and cross-sell revenue by 40%
• Increase customer retention to 98%
• Have regular weekly alignment meetings with Customer Success

Sales Enablement Goals — OKR Examples

OBJECTIVE:?Enable Our Sales to Be More Successful

Key Results:

• Ensure we update our new sales technology stack
• Implement the new process for measuring Outbound vs. Inbound
• Revise all the email sequences and upload it into the new sales messaging tool
• Update the CRM based on the new sales pipeline review process
• Help the VP of Sales with the new data to finalize the new compensation plan

OBJECTIVE:?Improve our Sales Analytics Process

Key Results:

• Implement a sales analytics and Business Intelligence platform
• Set up sales cycle and average deal size triggers to email our VP of Sales
• Review Sales Activity metrics and send a weekly summary to the team
• Review Sales Pipeline metrics and send a weekly summary to the team
• Review retrospective Sales Results metrics and send a weekly summary to the team

Channel Partner Sales Goals — OKR Examples

OBJECTIVE:?Grow Sales Through our Channel Partner

Key Results:

• Recruit 30 new channel partners in Eastern, Central and Western geographies
• Finalize the new 20% channel sales promotion for Q3
• Implement the new channel partner website section
• Improve the channel partner onboarding process and documents

Human Resources Goals — OKR Examples

VP of HR / People Ops Goals — OKR Examples

OBJECTIVE:?Create an Exceptional Corporate Culture / Delight Our Employees

Key Results:

• Launch an ongoing 2-way closed-loop feedback process
• Create clarity of all departments and teams via clear OKR goals
• Achieve a weekly Employee Satisfaction / Pulse Score of 8+
• Celebrate "small wins" and any type of progress every single week
• CEO and SVPs to launch a monthly Town Hall with Open Q&A

OBJECTIVE:?Improve Our Employee Retention

Key Results:

• Improve our 2-way closed-loop feedback and ongoing performance management process
• Improve our employee engagement score and employee satisfaction to 8 or above
• Survey employees monthly on how to make our company an even better place to work
• Assess if we are paying salaries and benefits at market rates

OBJECTIVE:?Grow Our Team With A-Players

Key Results:

• Offer our employees a $500 reward for referrals of A-Players whom we hire
• Hire 25 new employees this quarter for the 5 requesting departments
• Survey interviewees after each interview process and get feedback
• Maintain a 4:1 Interview-to-hire ratio

OBJECTIVE:?Improve Our Employee Engagement and Satisfaction Score

Key Results:

• Ensure every manager company-wide is doing an ongoing, 2-way feedback loop
• Survey employees using a Pulse (Employee Satisfaction Index) weekly
• Ensure we are setting clarity of work with goals to boost engagement

OBJECTIVE:?Make All of Our Managers More Effective and Successful

Key Results:

• Provide consistent training to managers on how to manage effectively
• Ensure every manager is doing regular 1-on-1 meetings with 2-way feedback
• Do monthly anonymous employee surveys to get feedback on managerial effectiveness

OBJECTIVE:?Complete Our Employee Reviews Efficiently and on Time

Key Results:

• Get free gym membership for employees
• Survey our employees on how they like our new ongoing performance process
• Collect all performance review notes from our 30 front-line managers

OBJECTIVE:?Transition to Ongoing Performance Management

Key Results:

• Announce the transition from the outdated annual performance review process
• Implement the ongoing 2-way closed-loop feedback with lite check-ins
• Institute quarterly performance reviews
• Announce new annual reviews to serve as a summary for the ongoing process

Engineering Goals — OKR Examples

VP of Engineering Goals — OKR Examples

OBJECTIVE:?Launch the New Product Architecture

Key Results:

• Have engineering team contribute X story points
• Design 5 tests with QA
• Upgrade our database and complete data migration

OBJECTIVE:?Build a World-Class Engineering Team

Key Results:

• Offer a $500 reward for referrals to A-Players
• Hire 5 referred engineers with exceptional references by end of Q2
• Maintain a 4:1 onsite "Interview Hire" ratio

QA Engineer Goals — OKR Examples

OBJECTIVE:?Drive Quality for Features in Our New Release

Key Results:

• Identify 30 bugs by the end Q2
• Implement the new QA automation tool and process
• Ensure no more than 1 critical bug reported in Q3
• Have zero regressions in Q3

OBJECTIVE:?Maintain an Agile Process

Key Results:

• Create and implement workflow graph
• Install new Migration field
• Create Knowledge Base documentation

Software Engineer Goals — OKR Examples

OBJECTIVE:?Improve the Email Delivery Architecture

Key Results:

• Provide a new refactoring plan
• Ship the new architecture docs to all internal teams

OBJECTIVE:?Launch a high-quality Product Beta

Key Results:

• 10% of our existing customers try it
• Get an NPS score of 7

Product Management Goals — OKR Examples

OBJECTIVE:?Launch the New Product Successfully

Key Results:

• Conduct 30 customer development interviews
• Review 10 usage videos via UserTesting.com and summarize it internally
• Do 2 training sessions on the new product for Marketing and Sales teams
• Help Product Marketing by reviewing their technical spec documents

OBJECTIVE:?Develop a New Product Vision

Key Results:

• Interview 50 prospective customers and get their initial feedback
• Get usability score above 8/10 on UX mockups from 20 prospective customers
• Specify 5 elements in UX mockups to increase product's usage engagement
• Get internal feedback score of 10/10 from the sales team

Customer Success Goals — OKR Examples

OBJECTIVE:?Customer Success

Key Results:

• Increase the adoption of our new product
• Be proactive in assessing our drops in account usage or at-risk usage
• Apply Best Practices to ensure we have NPS score of 8 and above

OBJECTIVE:?Be Proactive with Customer Success

Key Results:

• Implement a Customer Success platform to track customer health
• Actively monitor customer health
• Reach out to customers who appear to be at-risk

Customer Support Goals — OKR Examples

OBJECTIVE:?Deliver a World-Class Customer Support Experience

Key Results:

• Achieve a CSAT of 90%+ for all Tier-1 tickets
• Troubleshoot Tier-1 issues within 1 hour
• Resolve 95% of Tier-2 support tickets in under 24 hours
• Each support rep to maintain a personal CSAT of 95% or more

OBJECTIVE:?Ensure Customer Support is a High-Performance Team

Key Results:

• Maintain a weekly Support group ESI/Pulse score of 8 or greater
• Finalize resource allocation with the VP of Support
• Promote 2 customer support reps to managers
• Recruit 6 more customer support reps

OBJECTIVE:?Implement a Scalable Customer Support Process

Key Results:

• Implement our new customer support platform
• Updated 30 "How-To" articles on the Knowledge Base

OBJECTIVE:?Track All Critical Support Metrics

Key Results:

• Track and report on Number of New Tickets to Resolved Tickets
• Track and report on Average Resolution Time
• Track and report on Top 10 Customers by Active Tickets

Finance Goals — OKR Examples

OBJECTIVE:?Improve our Annual Budgeting Process

Key Results:

• Have a meeting with every VP about the new process
• Review everyone's budget proposals before mid-Q3
• Finalize the final budget by Sep 15

OBJECTIVE:?Improve our Financial Reporting Process

Key Results:

• Hire a new bookkeeper
• Implement the cloud-based version of QuickBooks
• Ensure we close our financials within 2 weeks of a quarter

Operations Goals — OKR Examples

OBJECTIVE:?Improve our IT and Infrastructure

Key Results:

• Eliminate systems downtime in Q2
• Implement the new cloud backup system and process
• Improve internal IT satisfaction and response time