Establish a clear roadmap for your team by aligning everyone around measurable objectives. This checklist covers strategic planning, metric selection, and the quarterly review cycle.
Align quarterly goals with long-term survival and growth targets. If a proposed OKR doesn't move you closer to the annual vision, discard it immediately.
Appoint a single OKR Shepherd
Assign an operations lead or founder to own the process timeline. This person manages deadlines, follows up on late drafts, and organizes the review meetings.
Analyze previous quarter performance data
Look for a 70% completion rate as the target for ambitious goals. Hitting 100% consistently suggests your goals are too easy, while under 40% indicates they are unrealistic.
Define the quarterly timeline
Drafting phase: 2 weeks before quarter start
Alignment phase: 1 week before quarter start
Finalization: Day 1 of the new quarter
Identify top 3 company-wide priorities
Drafting Company-Level OKRs
Limit to 3-5 high-level Objectives
Focus creates impact in small teams. Startups with more than 5 objectives often dilute resources and fail to achieve significant progress on any single front.
Write qualitative and inspirational Objectives
Use aggressive, action-oriented language like 'Dominate the mid-market segment' rather than 'Increase sales.' The Objective should describe a desired end-state.
Assign 3-5 Key Results per Objective
Key Results must be quantitative. If a KR cannot be measured by a number, it is a task, not a result.
Use the 'from X to Y' formula for Key Results
Define the starting point and the target clearly. For example, 'Increase monthly active users from 10,000 to 15,000 by March 31.'
Verify KRs are outcomes, not activities
Avoid KRs like 'Launch new website.' Instead, use 'Decrease homepage bounce rate from 50% to 35%.' Outcomes measure value; activities only measure effort.
Cascading and Team Alignment
Hold a company-wide kickoff meeting
Present the company-level OKRs first to provide context. Give teams 3-5 days to draft their own goals that support these top-level priorities.
Verify horizontal alignment between departments
Check if Marketing's KRs for lead volume align with Sales' capacity to process them. Misalignment here leads to wasted spend and internal friction.
Identify resource dependencies
Flag any KR that requires significant work from another team. If Engineering needs to build a tool for Marketing to hit their KR, both teams must reflect this in their plans.
Limit team-level OKRs to 3 per department
Refining and Finalizing
Review drafts for 'sandbagging'
Challenge KRs that look like business-as-usual tasks. OKRs should represent 30-50% growth or significant structural changes, not just clearing a backlog.
Decouple OKRs from performance reviews
Separate goal attainment from salary bonuses to encourage risk-taking. If pay is tied to 100% completion, employees will set safe, uninspiring goals.
Assign a single owner to every Key Result
Shared ownership often results in no ownership. One person must be responsible for reporting progress and identifying blockers for each specific metric.
Publish OKRs in a shared, accessible document
Transparency is critical for accountability. Use a simple spreadsheet or a shared internal page so every employee can see what other teams are working toward.
Confirm all metrics are trackable
Ensure you have the software or data pipelines in place to measure every KR before the quarter begins. If you cannot track it, you cannot use it as a KR.
Monitoring and Tracking
Schedule weekly 15-minute check-ins
Focus only on progress and blockers. Use a color-coded system (Green, Yellow, Red) to quickly identify which KRs need immediate attention.
Update progress metrics every Friday
Regular updates prevent end-of-quarter surprises. Fresh data allows the team to pivot tactics mid-month if a metric is trending downward.
Conduct a mid-quarter review
Use this session to 'red-flag' KRs with 0% progress by week 6. Decide whether to reallocate resources or abandon the goal to save the rest of the quarter.
Perform final grading at quarter-end
Score each KR on a scale of 0.0 to 1.0. Use these scores to inform the next quarter's planning rather than as a tool for punishment.
Archive and share the quarterly retrospective
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between OKRs and KPIs?
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) measure the ongoing health of a business, such as server uptime or recurring revenue. OKRs are used for specific growth initiatives or changes in direction. Think of KPIs as the dashboard of a car and OKRs as the GPS destination.
How many OKRs should an individual contributor have?
Individual contributors should ideally have 0-2 OKRs. In early-stage startups, it is often more effective to have team-level OKRs rather than individual ones to maintain flexibility. Excessive individual tracking creates administrative bloat that slows down execution.
What happens if we miss our OKRs?
Missing an OKR is an opportunity for a retrospective. If you hit 60-70%, you succeeded at a 'stretch' goal. If you hit 30%, analyze whether the failure was due to poor execution, unrealistic planning, or shifting market conditions before setting the next cycle's goals.
Can we change OKRs mid-quarter?
Only change OKRs if a major market shift or business pivot makes the current goals irrelevant. Changing them simply because they are difficult defeats the purpose of the framework. If you must pivot, document the reason and communicate the change to the entire company immediately.