Good OKRs clarify what’s important and what trade-offs to make.

Bad or weak OKRs are pointless.

Writing good OKRs take time. To make the most of this project, expect to spend some time, maybe 30 minutes, drafting your OKRs before your on-boarding meeting.

The objectives page explains and has prompts for clarifying your ideas. Once you are clear what your objective is, download this objective sheet to can put it all together. As you are writing your first OKRs, here are a few guidelines and tips.

Learn from Examples

The best examples are at WhatMatters.com. The link will take you right to them. These are developed by John Doerr, OKR champion and idea-man, and I can’t do better than that.

Also, once you log into your Slack channel for MY OKR Project and from there log into your Ally Dashboard, you will have access to more examples on Ally designed for customer satisfaction, sales teams, etc.

Avoid Pitfalls

Again, most of these are inspired by John Doerr and his work with Google which you can find here. For this list, I’ve curated ideas most valuable to my clients.

Your objectives must be defined as committed or aspirational. Failing to make this distinction leads to confusion rather than clarity. You risk failing at an essential task or getting demoralized by unrealistic expectations.
Your objectives cannot be business-as-usual tasks. Your OKR should define something that will make a meaningful change for you, your customers, your boss, or your organization.
Your objectives must be defined as aligned or not aligned. Either your objective is tied to a greater goal that you or your organization is working to achieve, or it is an objective you want to accomplish this quarter that has meaning right now, independent of others or a long-term goal. See the alignment page for more detail.
Your aspirational objectives cannot be timid or incremental. They must be big. Try starting with, “What could my world or my customers’ world look like in a few years if I didn’t have any obstacles?” The OKR helps you understand and articulate the desired end state. Then you can start to figure out how you’ll get to what you want.
Good OKRs must make you and others care. If the result doesn’t have much value or won’t make a noticeable difference in your life, it’s not aggressive enough. If you are the only one who will notice, it’s not a good OKR.
Make sure your KRs define the complete set of actions required to achieve the objective. Ultimately, OKRs are not about getting a certain score, but about getting where you want to go. If you achieve all your KRs, but you did not define something necessary to achieve your larger goal, you end up with a good score but not the success you want. KRs are the process. If you find you need something mid-quarter to achieve your objective, you can add another KR, or adjust the ones you have. The point is not to score high but to learn how to achieve and get results.
Do not avoid difficult KRs. Avoidance of difficult key results can cause problems, delays, and hide the results you most want to achieve. By including the toughest requirements in your KRs, you will be tasked with figuring out what resources, time, or people you need to break through.

Check to Make Sure You Have Good OKRs

Again, with thanks to John Doerr and Google’s OKR Playbook, but

clarified here for beyond the walls of Google.

If you write them in five minutes, they probably aren’t good.
If you didn’t talk to anyone about them, they might not inspire or impact anyone but you. Check with me or a colleague and be open to feedback.
Your objective should fit on one line. Clarity is important.
If your OKRs are expressed in terms that relate to you alone, they probably won’t inspire anyone else. What matters is impact. “Get a job” or “get paid more” isn’t a good objective. “Get experience to learn how to be a better marketer” is a good objective.
Use real dates. If every key result happens on the last day of the quarter, you probably don’t have a real plan.
Make sure your key results are measurable. “Improve page views” isn’t a good key result. Better: “Improve daily unique page views by 25 percent by May 1.” Your dashboad will help you keep track of how far you have come. Every week when you check in, you will put your current percentage count. The dashboard will automatically calculate how much this is contributing to your goal.
Make sure the metrics are unambiguous. If you say “100 Linked In views” is that all-time views, seven-day views, views of posts, or profile views? Be specific and know what you are measuring. What you measure will help you make decisions about what you need to do.
If there are important activities you or your team want to achieve that aren’t covered by OKRs, add more.
For larger groups, make OKRs hierarchical. Have high-level ones for the entire team, more detailed ones for sub-teams. Company OKRs can also be “horizontal” OKRs, identifying projects that need multiple teams to contribute. Each sub-team and contributor must take time to develop supporting key results for themselves. See the alignment page for more details.
KRs at a higher level can become an objective at a lower level or a sub-team member. Let team members define their own KRs. Empower them and avoid micro-managing. Support them in learning. Tolerate misses and encourage them to try again as soon as possible.

What a Good OKR Looks Like

Good OKRs clarify what’s important and what trade-offs to make.

Bad or weak OKRs are pointless.

Writing good OKRs take time. To make the most of this project, expect to spend some time, maybe 30 minutes, drafting your OKRs before your on-boarding meeting.

The objectives page explains and has prompts for clarifying your ideas. Once you are clear what your objective is, download this objective sheet to can put it all together. As you are writing your first OKRs, here are a few guidelines and tips.

Learn from Examples

The best examples are at WhatMatters.com. The link will take you right to them. These are developed by John Doerr, OKR champion and idea-man, and I can’t do better than that.

Also, once you log into your Slack channel for MY OKR Project and from there log into your Ally Dashboard, you will have access to more examples on Ally designed for customer satisfaction, sales teams, etc.

Avoid Pitfalls

Again, most of these are inspired by John Doerr and his work with Google which you can find here. For this list, I’ve curated ideas most valuable to my clients.

Your objectives must be defined as committed or aspirational. Failing to make this distinction leads to confusion rather than clarity. You risk failing at an essential task or getting demoralized by unrealistic expectations.

Your objectives cannot be business-as-usual tasks. Your OKR should define something that will make a meaningful change for you, your customers, your boss, or your organization.

Good OKRs must make you and others care. If the result doesn’t have much value or won’t make a noticeable difference in your life, it’s not aggressive enough. If you are the only one who will notice, it’s not a good OKR.

Do not avoid difficult KRs. Avoidance of difficult key results can cause problems, delays, and hide the results you most want to achieve. By including the toughest requirements in your KRs, you will be tasked with figuring out what resources, time, or people you need to break through.

Check to Make Sure You Have Good OKRs

Again, with thanks to John Doerr and Google’s OKR Playbook, but

clarified here for beyond the walls of Google.

If you write them in five minutes, they probably aren’t good.

If you didn’t talk to anyone about them, they might not inspire or impact anyone but you. Check with me or a colleague and be open to feedback.

Your objective should fit on one line. Clarity is important.

If your OKRs are expressed in terms that relate to you alone, they probably won’t inspire anyone else. What matters is impact. “Get a job” or “get paid more” isn’t a good objective. “Get experience to learn how to be a better marketer” is a good objective.

Use real dates. If every key result happens on the last day of the quarter, you probably don’t have a real plan.

Make sure the metrics are unambiguous. If you say “100 Linked In views” is that all-time views, seven-day views, views of posts, or profile views? Be specific and know what you are measuring. What you measure will help you make decisions about what you need to do.

If there are important activities you or your team want to achieve that aren’t covered by OKRs, add more.

KRs at a higher level can become an objective at a lower level or a sub-team member. Let team members define their own KRs. Empower them and avoid micro-managing. Support them in learning. Tolerate misses and encourage them to try again as soon as possible.