The Koan OKR examples worksheet is a guide to deciding which OKRs to prioritize and how to write them effectively
We would like to introduce you to Koan’s OKR Examples Worksheet, a great tool to use as you’re preparing for an OKR planning cycle.
The worksheet will walk you through the steps of answering crucial questions and devising solutions:
But before we dig into the worksheet, we want to provide a refresher of the goal-setting framework itself. Objectives and Key Results include:
The simple template for writing OKRs:
We will __(Objective)__ as measured by __(these Key Results)__.
Flexibility is an important part of the OKR framework, but the lack of prescription leaves room to create less-than-inspiring goals. Here’s an example.
Bad OKR example:
Objective: Rollout the new employee benefits package (an action item, not an outcome)
A better goal would focus on what we’re trying to achieve, plus the specific criteria for success.
Good OKR example:
Objective: Significantly improve our employee satisfaction
As you craft your own team’s OKRs, consider the following tips:
To avoid common pitfalls when crafting OKRS, ask yourself the following questions:
The more you and your team challenge your OKRs, the more effective they will be.
It’s important to differentiate between OKRs set for the company and OKRs set for each of your departments. You also want to recognize the importance of communication and asynchronous (async) feedback loops, which are top-down, bottom-up and horizontal across departments. Ultimately, the goal is alignment—everyone working on the right stuff
It’s also important to set clear expectations on when and how feedback is given. You also want to be transparent and make sure you have the best possible goals in place by prioritizing three types of async feedback loops:
Having shared that, we can focus on how we’ve illustrated these different types of OKRs in the worksheet.
Here are some example Company level Objectives:
Objective: Build a great corporate culture (delight our employees)
Key results:
We’ve also crafted departmental Objectives, examples for all of which you can also find in the Examples Worksheet.
For example, with Marketing, the Objectives and Key results are pretty straightforward and fairly easy to measure:
Objective: Boost customer acquisition via our website
Key Results:
Whereas with Product Management there is a temptation to have Key Results that ‘deliver this feature,’ and the challenge is how to measure this Objective more effectively. So for example, we suggest the following:
Objective: Successfully Launch the New Product
Key Results:
When you download the Examples Worksheet, you will also find examples for Engineering, HR, Sales, Customer Success, Design, Operations, and Finance. Similar to Product Management, not all of the identified examples are straightforward. Take Sales. There are other things you can measure beyond quotas. But you’re going to have to push yourself to identify them.
And this is why attention to OKR planning cycles and listening to teams is so important when crafting OKRs: this work demands both our focus and a range of diverse thinkers to be successful.
The golden rule of writing Objectives is that any reasonable person should be able to understand the Objective’s aim and motivation at a glance. And that a Key Result can be thought of as a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) that measures the progress of the Objective.
Deploying and managing the OKR process can be challenging, especially if you’re using shared documents and an ad-hoc process that doesn’t bake-in best practices. Using a purpose-built solution, such as Koan, helps you deploy the OKR methodology at scale, with the appropriate guardrails and reporting that makes the information you’re gathering actionable.
To make goal management easier and to drive alignment and transparency—consider trying Koan for free as you roll out your OKRs with your teams.
Join thousands of companies discovering more purposeful work with Koan.
Sign up for free