What are OKRs (objectives and key results)?

• Focus and discipline: Help people better prioritize time and manage workloads.
• Alignment and cooperation: Find better ways to work together toward larger goals and objectives.
• Reduced goal-setting time: Simplify the entire goal-setting process.
• Clearer communication: Allow everyone to see the organization’s goals and how their work contributes to growth.
• Increased employee engagement: Connect people to the larger mission and each other.
• Autonomy and accountability: Hold everyone accountable to their responsibilities while offering autonomy over daily work.
• Bolder goal-setting: Use stretch goals to challenge people and teams.
• Agility and innovation: Allow teams to pivot and adapt when necessary.

Read Engage Your Employees to Achieve Powerful Business Outcomes to learn more about helping your business thrive with OKRs.

Write OKRs that meet the unique needs and cycles of your business, whether you’re focusing on short-term goals and priorities or looking further into the future. A strong OKR identifies areas for meaningful improvement and clearly communicates measurable key results.

Effective OKRs begin with a simple template: I will [objective] as measured by [key result] via [initiatives]. Committing to this basic formula allows you and your team to see your goal and measurements clearly.

The objective portion of an OKR is the specific goal you’re aiming to accomplish. This objective could be personal or individual, specific to your team, or extending across your entire organization. It should be inspiring and ambitious.

The key result portion of an OKR is the metric you’ll use to measure your progress towards your objective. Your key result should be measurable and specific and should have a timeline for completion or reporting.

The initiatives portion of an OKR include the activities that help the team achieve your measurable outcomes. 

How to construct an objective

Begin by asking yourself specific questions about your priorities and goals. Think about how you define success, and articulate a clear objective based off these questions. If this is a committed OKR, remember to keep your goal reasonable and achievable.

How to articulate key results

Try to stick to three to five measurable key results for each objective and keep everyone accountable by ensuring someone oversees each result. Be as specific as possible so that your team understands their individual roles in achieving the outcome.

How to determine initiatives

Ask yourself: What are the core set of activities and actions that will be taken to drive the outcomes defined in your key results? Try to stick to three to five initiatives for each OKR, so you are being strategic about the work you are doing to accomplish your goal.

1. Decide how you’ll implement the OKR framework. Will you enact it across your organization? Stick with a specific team for a pilot program? Make sure you have buy-in from your leadership team, and plan how OKRs will operate on individual, team, and organizational levels.
2. Identify your timeline. Consider the amount of time it will reasonably take to achieve your goal. 
3. Discuss the OKR framework with your team. Discuss how the OKR framework works in alignment with your organization’s larger purpose, goals, or mission. Solicit feedback from your team on specific goals, responsibilities, and needs and make sure to answer any questions.
4. Assign responsibilities for specific key results. Make sure each team member understands their role and how they will contribute to achieving the objective. Each key result should have a person responsible for tracking progress.
5. Consider when and how you will review progress. If you need to make adjustments, now is the time to do so.
6. Report on results. Share final results with your team and leadership and identify opportunities for improvement with future OKRs.

Learn more about how to roll out OKRs in your organization in the Microsoft Viva blog post 4 real world tips from OKR champions to drive long term success.

1. Be specific. Create measurable key objectives that everyone can easily track and understand. Identify whether your OKR is a committed or aspirational OKR.
   a. Committed OKRs: Committed OKRs are achievable goals that individuals or teams can reasonably accomplish within the set period. Teams that agree upon clear, straightforward committed OKRs agree that they can realize the full extent of the OKR.
   b. Aspirational OKRs: Aspirational OKRs are stretch goals, or goals that push individuals and teams to go beyond what they know they can accomplish. Organizations that implement aspirational OKRs understand that their team may not fully achieve the goal, may need more time to achieve it, or may need to readjust the objective or key results over the course of an initiative. Aspirational OKRs push teams to realize more of their potential.
   
   
2. Take an iterative approach and be patient. OKRs can have enormous impact on your organization, but like any change, practice makes perfect.
   
   
3. Get buy-in from your team. Make sure team members understand the purpose of the OKR framework and feel aligned with their colleagues and organization.
   
   
4. Solicit feedback from your team. Check in over the course of your timeline and see what adjustments you might need to make.
   
   
5. Be transparent. OKRs work best when everyone understands how they operate within the larger organizational framework.
   
   
6. Align objectives with overarching organizational goals and mission. Clearly state how your OKR functions within or contributes toward your organization’s goals, mission, or purpose.
   
   
7. Ensure all key results are measurable. Specificity will keep your team on track with a clear vision of success.
   
   
8. Keep everyone updated on progress. Regularly report on how you’re doing and make adjustments as needed.

KPIs (key performance indicators) are tracking metrics that teams can use to measure performance against goals, while OKRs are a goal-setting framework designed to align and motivate teams.

KPIs can be useful in conjunction with OKRs. While an OKR looks at the bigger picture and sets a specific framework for achieving a goal, an KPI is a smaller snapshot of performance during the course of an initiative.

For example, a Marketing Objective might be to increase brand recognition, with a Key Result of increasing website traffic from 300,000 to 500,000 views. One KPI to be tracked might be having 99.5 percent website uptime. The KPI is important – you can't get visibility if the website is down – but the true goal, the Key Result outcome, is to increase traffic.