Objectives & key results template

Unite team goals with company targets through OKR planning

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Objectives & key results

Objectives & key results template FAQs

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Use this template to facilitate an OKR planning session. Identify strategic themes for your project, bring all your stakeholders together, define your OKRs, and build out a framework together so that everyone is aligned and has actionable next steps.

The OKR template helps you:

Define your objectives
Get aligned on metrics and define key results
Build a shared resource that helps track progress over time
Identify areas of opportunity midstream

How to use the OKR template

This template has built-in tips and instructions to help you run and effective and efficient OKR planning meeting.

Defining your objectives and key results (OKRs) for a project is an important part of effective project management. By clearly articulating what you hope to achieve, you can ensure that everyone involved is working towards the same goals.

Here are a few steps to help you get started:

Step 1: Identify strategic themes with your team

Before you get started, have your team brainstorm key themes tied to your objectives. This will help foster alignment throughout the process of building your OKRs.

Step 2: Define your objectives

Next, identify the overall objective for the project. The template has sections for each participant to brainstorm objectives — these should be actionable, inspirational, and time-bound, but need not have specific metrics associated with them (this will come in the key results section).

Step 3: Brainstorm key results

Once you have your objective, it's time to brainstorm some key results that will help you achieve it. These could be things like increasing website traffic by 20% or reducing production costs by 5%.

Step 4: Build out your OKR framework

Now that you have strategic themes, objectives, and key results defined, it’s time to lay them out in a framework that names leads for each objective, and associates each objective with appropriate key results.

Once you begin to see how it all comes together, have your team define confidence levels for achieving your objectives, and record any debate, questions, or stories in the final section of the template.

Tips for running an OKR template workshop

To get the most out of the Mural OKRs template, you should:

Have your goals in mind before the meeting, as well as an idea of what the key strategic themes should be, so that you can quickly get aligned and into the define stage of your OKR planning
Use Mural’s private mode and anonymous voting to avoid groupthink when brainstorming, and gather honest feedback in real-time
Keep your OKR template up to date to keep track of progress and note any key changes or strategic shifts that may alter your outcomes

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Objectives & key results template FAQs

What does OKR planning mean?

OKR (Objectives and Key Results) planning is a strategic framework used by organizations to set, track, and achieve their goals. It is built around the establishment of high-level objectives that are transparent across the entire organization and measurable key results to track progress towards those objectives. OKR planning involves defining, communicating, tracking, and assessing objectives and their outcomes. It fosters alignment, engagement, and transparency within the team or organization.

What are the 5 elements of OKR?

The 5 key elements that comprise the OKR framework are:

1. Objectives: These are qualitative descriptions of what you want to achieve. Objectives should be short, inspirational, and engaging.

2. Key Results: Key Results are a set of metrics which measure your progress towards the Objective. They are quantitative, time-bound, and measurable.

3. Initiatives: Initiatives are the collection of tasks or activities that you believe will influence the Key Results. They serve as roadmaps for achieving Key Results.

4. Check-ins: Regular check-ins are designed to ensure progress and recalibrate Key Results when necessary. They help in maintaining focus and resolving blockers.

5. Reflections: At the end of an OKR cycle, it's essential to reflect on the achievements, learnings, and areas of improvement. This allows for better planning and goal setting in the future.

What are good examples of OKRs?

Here are a few examples that demonstrate the OKR framework:

For a company:

Objective: Increase brand visibility globally.
Key Result 1: Increase website traffic by 50% by the end of Q2.
Key Result 2: Achieve 100 press mentions in top-tier outlets by Q4.
Key Result 3: Boost social media followers by 30% across all platforms by Q4.

For a sales team:

Objective: Improve customer retention rate.
Key Result 1: Decrease customer churn rate by 10% by Q2.
Key Result 2: Increase customer lifetime value by 20% by Q4.
Key Result 3: Achieve 90% customer satisfaction score by Q4.

For an engineering team:

Objective: Improve app performance and user experience.
Key Result 1: Reduce app load time to under 3 seconds by Q3.
Key Result 2: Increase app store ratings to 4.5 stars by Q4.
Key Result 3: Decrease app crash instances by 50% by Q4.

In each case, the Objective defines a clear and inspirational goal, while the Key Results serve as measurable indicators of progress towards achieving that goal.