OKRs (objectives and key results) is a goal-setting framework that has become increasingly popular over the past decade. Used by Google, Co-Founder Larry Page credits them for its successful growth. You can learn more about OKRs in our eBook.
Objectives and Key Results
Objectives are memorable, qualitative descriptions of what you want to achieve. Objectives should be short, inspirational, and engaging to motivate and challenge the team.
Key Results are a set of metrics that measure your progress towards the Objective. For each Objective, you should have a set of 2 to 5 Key Results. Any more than this and no one will remember them.
How to create an organization objective
Any admin can create an organization objective. To do so, follow these steps:
From the Goals and OKRs page, navigate to ‘create an objective’
Select ‘organization objective’ in the dropdown menu
Add the title of the objective in the title field
As it’s an organization objective, the default visibility is set to everyone
Select the due date
Optional: once the objective is created, you can choose to add a description
How to create a team objective
Any admin or manager can create a team objective. Also, any user can create an objective for the team they are part of.
From the Goals and OKRs page, navigate to ‘create an objective’
Select ‘team objective’ in the dropdown menu
In the dropdown menu, select which team you would like to create an objective for
Optional: In the dropdown menu you can choose to link the team objective to an existing organization objective
Optional: In case you’ve linked the team objective to an organization objective, another dropdown menu appears from which you can select an organization key result to contribute to.
Add the title of the objective in the title field
As it’s a team objective, the default visibility is set for everyone
Select the due date
Click ‘create objective’
Optional: once you’ve created the objective, you can add a description and contributors
How to create a personal business objective
Any user can create their own personal business objective. Any manager can set an objective on behalf of their direct reports.
From the Goals and OKRs page, navigate to ‘create an objective’
Select ‘personal business objective’ in the dropdown menu
Optional: in the dropdown menu, select an organization or team objective you’d like to contribute to
Optional: If you’ve linked the individual objective to an existing organization or team objective, another dropdown menu appears from which you can select a team key result to directly contribute to
Add the title of the objective in the title field
Set the visibility of your objective. It’s automatically visible to your manager (in case you have one). You can extend the visibility to everyone in your company
Select the due date
Click ‘create objective’
Optional: once you’ve created the objective, you can add a description, contributors, or add it as a topic in a 1:1.
How to create key results for objectives
If you have editing rights on an objective, you can add key results. It’s possible to create key results for any type of objective (organization, team, or individual) and you can also assign key results to the organization, a team, or an individual.
From a previously created objective, you can create a key result by clicking ‘Add a key result’ at the bottom of the page.
Add a title and assign an owner to the key result.
Select the metric type from the dropdown menu: task completion, #, $ or %
Optional: If you selected either a unit of measurement (#, $ or %), then enter your target.
Click ‘save'
Linking your objective to existing team or organization OKRs
You can also create your personal or team business objective directly from the organization or team business objectives detail page.
Linking to an existing key result
Navigate to the organization or team key result you want to link to
Click on the 3 dots on the right-hand side of the key result
Select ‘Add an objective for this key result’
Now you can finish creating your OKR
Linking to an existing objective
Navigate to the organization or team objective you want to link to
Click on ‘add an objective’ at the bottom of the page
Now you can finish creating your OKR
How to link and unlink existing individual or team OKRs
It’s possible to link individual objectives to team or organization OKRs. It’s also possible to link team objectives to organization OKRs. If you change your mind, you can easily unlink these as well. To link an individual or team objective:
Navigate to the objective you would like to link to (or unlink from)
Click on three dots in the top right corner and click ‘edit’
From the dropdown menu ‘contributes to’, you can select which objective you’d like to or (if applicable) which Key Result you’d like to link your objective to.
To unlink your objectives, follow the same steps as above. From the dropdown menu, you can select ‘none’ to unlink or you can also select a different objective/key result to link to.