Setting OKRs & Goals

Scope

Covers

• Turning strategy (or a North Star) into a small set of team/company OKRs

• Writing objectives that drive weekly execution (not just aspirational statements)

• Designing robust key results (prefer absolute counts; guard against gaming)

• Adding “default-on” systems/habits that make progress inevitable

• Defining review cadence + end-of-cycle grading to create a learning loop

When to use

• “Set our Q2 OKRs.”

• “Write objectives and key results for this team.”

• “We need quarterly goals that actually change behavior week-to-week.”

• “Our metrics are getting gamed / teams are optimizing the wrong thing.”

• “We need an OKR review + grading process.”

When NOT to use

• You don’t have an agreed strategy/North Star at all (use writing-north-star-metrics or defining-product-vision first)

• You need sprint planning or a delivery plan (tickets, estimates, timelines)

• You’re using OKRs primarily for individual performance evaluation

• You only need a single experiment metric for one test

• You need an analytics/event tracking implementation plan from scratch

Inputs

Minimum required

• Planning cycle + horizon (e.g., Q2; annual; 6 weeks) and the team(s) in scope

• Strategy anchor: company goal, North Star, or “why now” narrative for the cycle

• Current baseline for key metrics (or best-available proxy) + where the numbers come from

• Constraints: capacity, must-do commitments, dependencies, risk tolerance

• Stakeholders: decider(s), contributors, approvers, review cadence participants

Missing-info strategy

• Ask up to 5 questions from references/INTAKE.md.

• If still missing, proceed with clearly labeled assumptions and provide 2–3 OKR set options (conservative/base/ambitious).

Outputs (deliverables)

Produce an OKR & Goals Pack in Markdown (in-chat; or as files if the user requests), in this order:

• Context snapshot (strategy anchor, horizon, scope, constraints, stakeholders)

• Alignment map (company goal → team objective(s), no more than one step away)

• Draft OKRs (1–3 Objectives; 2–5 Key Results each) with metric definitions, baselines, targets, owners, cadence

• Metric robustness + guardrails (anti-gaming checks; ratio/denominator rules; quality guardrails)

• Systems & habits plan (“default-on” behaviors/processes that make progress recurring)

• Review + grading plan (weekly check-in; mid-cycle checkpoint; end-of-cycle scoring + learning retro)

• Risks / Open questions / Next steps (always included)

Templates: references/TEMPLATES.md

Workflow (8 steps)

1. Intake + decision framing

• Inputs: User context; references/INTAKE.md.

• Actions: Confirm horizon, scope, strategy anchor, baseline availability, constraints, and decision-maker(s).

• Outputs: Context snapshot.

• Checks: Everyone agrees what OKRs are for (alignment + learning), and what they are not (performance evaluation).

2. Establish alignment (“one step away”)

• Inputs: Strategy anchor; current company goal/North Star.

• Actions: Write a one-sentence company goal for the cycle; map each proposed team objective to it (no deep cascading).

• Outputs: Alignment map.

• Checks: For every team objective, you can answer: “How does this move the company goal within this horizon?”

3. Draft 1–3 Objectives (outcome-first)

• Inputs: Alignment map; key problems/opportunities.

• Actions: Draft objectives as outcomes + intent (not projects). Keep the set small.

• Outputs: Objective list with short rationale (“why now / why this”).

• Checks: An objective can be understood without reading its KRs; it changes what the team prioritizes weekly.

4. Generate candidate KRs (robust, measurable)

• Inputs: Objectives; baselines (or proxies).

• Actions: Draft 2–5 KRs per objective; define baseline, target, time window, metric owner, and data source. Prefer absolute metrics; if you use a ratio, also include its absolute numerator/denominator KRs or guardrails.

• Outputs: KR table(s) with metric definitions.

• Checks: Two analysts would compute the same number; targets are directionally ambitious but not fantasy.

5. Add systems/habits (default-on execution)

• Inputs: OKRs draft; team operating model.

• Actions: Specify the recurring mechanisms that will produce progress (cadences, routines, gates, customer touchpoints), not just one-off initiatives.

• Outputs: Systems & habits plan.

• Checks: At least one “default-on” system exists per objective, with an owner and cadence.

6. Anti-gaming + guardrails

• Inputs: KRs + systems plan.

• Actions: Identify how each KR could be gamed or cause harm. Add guardrails (quality, trust, margin, volume) and ratio/denominator checks.

• Outputs: Guardrails section + anti-gaming notes per KR.

• Checks: You can name 1–2 failure modes per KR and how you’ll detect them early.

7. Review cadence + grading plan (learning loop)

• Inputs: Full draft OKRs + guardrails.

• Actions: Define weekly review format, mid-cycle checkpoint rules, and end-of-cycle grading (scoring + retrospective questions).

• Outputs: Review + grading plan.

• Checks: The plan produces learning, not blame; it specifies who reviews, when, and what decisions can change mid-cycle.

8. Quality gate + finalize the pack

• Inputs: Entire OKR & Goals Pack.

• Actions: Run references/CHECKLISTS.md and score with references/RUBRIC.md. Add Risks/Open questions/Next steps.

• Outputs: Final OKR & Goals Pack.

• Checks: Pack is shareable as-is; alignment, metrics, guardrails, and cadence are unambiguous.

Quality gate (required)

• Use references/CHECKLISTS.md and references/RUBRIC.md.

• Always include: Risks, Open questions, Next steps.

Examples

Example 1 (B2B SaaS): “Set Q2 OKRs for Activation to improve time-to-first-value for new teams.”

Expected: 1–2 objectives focused on new-team success, KRs with baselines/targets, a weekly review cadence, and guardrails (e.g., support tickets/new team).

Example 2 (Growth): “Set quarterly OKRs for Growth; we keep arguing about conversion rate vs volume.”

Expected: KRs expressed as absolute numbers (e.g., activated users) plus denominator/quality guardrails to prevent ‘ratio gaming’.

Boundary example: “Write OKRs, but we don’t have a company goal or baseline metrics.”

Response: ask for the minimum strategy anchor + baselines; if unavailable, produce 2–3 draft OKR options with explicit assumptions and recommend doing North Star/vision first.