There’s nothing new about describing goals and setting performance expectations. We do it every January. Achieving those goals is another thing entirely.

OKRs are a way of achieving results, or at least of keeping yourself and others honest while you try. The also enable people to feel a sense of progress. Fitbit for work. But before you start (or re-start):

Clear up the strategy. First, there is no point in setting OKRs unless you have a clear strategy, and people have a clear sense of direction and their roles. Without this people will tie themselves in knots. If you have a North Star Metric (e.g. monthly active users) that can help you.

Not business as usual. Second, OKRs are there to make meaningful shifts on critical areas for the business. If a team doesn’t have to change anything it’s doing to achieve an objective (and they’ll try) you’ve been had.

Objectives are poetry, key results are numbers. Objectives are qualitative, aspirational, memorable. Test - ‘would I even remember this?” Key results are prose and numbers.

Outcomes not output. The R in OKR means result. A result must be a meaningful outcome - which is a desired-for change in customer experience, behaviour or your revenue. Completing a project is not a key result.

Don’t dictate the action. The genuine innovation in OKRs is that results are agreed up front, but you let the teams figure out how to achieve it.

Key results should guarantee objectives If you delivered on all the key results, would the goal be attained, or at least its intent? If not rework them. But don’t have any more than 4 KRs for each objective.

Less is more. Don’t have too many OKR sets (three is good, two is better) and don’t try and spread them all over the business.