What Is OKR? A Clear Guide to Objectives and Key Results
OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results — a powerful goal-setting framework used by companies like Google, Intel, and LinkedIn. Designed to create focus, alignment, and measurable progress, OKRs help teams set ambitious goals and track outcomes. Whether you're new to OKRs or looking to improve your current system, this guide breaks it all down.
OKR Examples:
Objective: Improve customer satisfaction
Key Results:
Increase Net Promoter Score (NPS) from 65 to 75
Resolve 90% of support tickets within 24 hours
Reduce customer churn by 10%
What is an Objective?
An objective is a concise statement outlining a broad qualitative goal designed to propel the organization forward in a desired direction. Basically, it asks, “What do we want to do?” A well-worded objective is time-bound (doable in a quarter) and should inspire and capture the shared imagination of your team.
OKR example: Drive better attendance at our annual user conference to boost the member experience.
What is a Key Result?
A key result is a quantitative statement that measures the achievement of a given objective. If the objective asks, “What do we want to do?” the key result asks, “How will we know if we’ve met our objective?”
For the objective above (Drive better attendance at our annual user conference to boost the member experience) a key result could be: Increase the number of attendees from 350 to 600.
Benefits of OKR
Align and connect your employees to your corporate goals.
Give clear direction to every team and individual.
Increase productivity through focus on goals.
Track regular progress towards goals.
Make more effective and informed decisions.
Achieve measurement, accountability, and transparency.
HISTORY OF OKR
1954 — Peter Drucker introduced OKR to MBO.
The 1970s — Andy Grove improved MBO and introduced OKR while being CEO at Intel.
1999 — John Doerr introduced OKR to Google.
2010 — Linkedin, Mercedes-Benz, Facebook, Amazon and many other companies have adopted OKR.