Objectives and Key Results
Goal-setting framework linking objectives to measurable outcomes
Objectives and Key Results is a goal-setting framework that connects ambitious objectives to specific, measurable key results, creating alignment and focus across organizations. Popularized by Google, OKRs help teams prioritize work and measure progress toward meaningful outcomes. An Objective is a qualitative, inspirational goal describing what you want to achieve. It should be significant, concrete, and action-oriented. Key Results are quantitative metrics measuring progress toward the objective. They should be specific, measurable, time-bound, and aggressive but achievable. Typically each objective has three to five key results. For example: Objective - Become the most loved product management tool. Key Results - Increase NPS from forty to sixty, Achieve ninety percent feature adoption among power users, Reduce time to value from ten days to two days. OKRs operate on quarterly cycles, though some organizations also set annual OKRs. The framework provides several benefits: creating strategic alignment across organization, focusing efforts on priorities, making goals transparent and visible, enabling autonomous decision-making through clarity, measuring progress objectively, and fostering ambitious thinking. OKRs encourage stretch goals where achieving seventy percent is success, promoting innovation over incremental thinking. Best practices include limiting to three to five objectives, ensuring key results are measurable not tasks, cascading OKRs from company to team to individual, scoring progress quarterly, celebrating learning from missed OKRs, and maintaining discipline in regular reviews. Common mistakes include treating OKRs as task lists, setting easily achievable versus stretch goals, creating too many OKRs diluting focus, cascading too rigidly losing flexibility, or treating OKRs as performance reviews. Product managers use OKRs to define product goals, align teams around outcomes, prioritize roadmap items, measure progress, and communicate strategy clearly. The framework shifts focus from outputs to outcomes.
Learn about OKRs in product management. Discover how this framework aligns teams and drives focus on measurable outcomes.