Setting goals sounds simple - until you try it.
You want them to be ambitious, but not unrealistic. Measurable, but not overly narrow.
And above all, you want your team to not just set OKRs - but to actually use them to focus, execute, and improve.
If you’ve ever stared at a blank planning doc wondering how to turn priorities into progress, you’re not alone. The challenge isn’t knowing what matters - it’s figuring out how to translate that into goals your team will believe in, own, and track.
That’s where setting OKRs comes in.
In this article, we’ll break down what great OKRs look like, how to set them step by step, and how to make them stick - without overcomplicating the process.
What Are OKRs, Really?
At a glance, OKRs are simple:
- Objectives = What you want to achieve
- Key Results = How you’ll measure success
But in practice, they’re more than just a format. OKRs are a goal-setting system designed to build focus, alignment, and accountability across teams.
The Objective is your direction - clear, qualitative, and inspiring.
The Key Results are your indicators - specific, measurable, and time-bound.
Example:
Objective: Strengthen onboarding to improve retention
- KR1: Increase Day 7 retention from 38% → 50%
- KR2: Launch new onboarding flow and reach 80% completion
- KR3: Achieve NPS of 45+ from new users in their first 14 days
If written well, OKRs shift your team’s mindset from “What are we doing?” to “What outcome are we driving - and how will we know it’s working?”
Why Setting OKRs Is a Skill
Writing strong OKRs isn’t a checkbox - it’s a capability your team develops over time. Why? Because goal-setting forces clarity, and clarity isn’t always easy.
It takes skill to:
- Distill complex work into simple outcomes
- Balance ambition with reality
- Define what “success” actually looks like
- Align across multiple teams and functions
- Say no to good ideas in favor of the right ones
In early-stage teams, it’s tempting to set OKR goals reactively - based on what feels urgent, or what you didn’t get to last quarter.
But the best OKRs require perspective, not just pressure. They challenge you to prioritize, focus, and write goals that reflect your strategy - not just your backlog.
And like any skill, the more you do it, the better you get. That’s why setting OKRs isn’t just a quarterly task - it’s part of building a high-performing, goal-driven culture.
How to Set OKRs: A Step-by-Step Guide
The good news? OKR planning doesn’t have to be complicated.
But it does need to be intentional.
Here’s a cycle-tested process to help your team set OKRs that are aligned, measurable, and meaningful - without slipping into generic or task-based goals.
Step 1: Define Company Priorities First
Before anyone starts writing, leadership needs to set the direction.
That means clearly defining 2–3 company-wide priorities for the upcoming cycle. These priorities aren’t just high-level themes like “growth” or “efficiency” - they’re specific, time-sensitive outcomes the company is betting on.
Examples:
- “Acquire 50 new customers in a new market”
- “Reduce churn by 25% quarter over quarter”
- “Successfully launch self-serve onboarding for SMB segment”
These priorities become the anchor points for every team’s planning.
Without them, OKRs drift or compete. With them, teams know what matters most and how to point their own efforts in the same direction. Company priorities don’t have to be perfect, but they do need to be public, focused, and non-negotiable for the quarter ahead.
Step 2: Cascade Context, Not Control
OKRs only work if teams have ownership.
That’s why, once company-level priorities are set, the goal isn’t to dictate OKRs - it’s to cascade context. This means giving teams the information and direction they need to write their own goals, aligned to the bigger picture.
How do you do that? Simple. Share your thinking.
Explain the “why” behind each company objective. Show teams how success will be measured. Offer examples of strategic initiatives you’re betting on - but don’t hand down a prewritten OKR for each team.
This balance - top-down clarity, bottom-up input - is where the magic happens. It gives teams the freedom to think creatively while still staying aligned to what the business needs. And it builds ownership from day one.
Step 3: Draft Objectives (1–3 Per Team)
Objectives should be short, memorable, and directional.
They should answer the question:
What outcome do we want to drive this cycle - and why does it matter?
Unlike key results, objectives are not meant to be metrics. They’re meant to be rallying points - bold, qualitative statements that get people moving.
A few guidelines:
- Keep it simple - one sentence, plain English
- Avoid jargon or internal code words
- Connect it to a bigger story (growth, retention, expansion, etc.)
❌Weak: “Improve product workflows”
✅Strong: “Streamline product experience to reduce user drop-off during onboarding”
Each team should aim for 1–3 objectives. Any more than that, and it becomes unclear what the real priority is. A well-written objective makes the team’s focus instantly obvious - and energizing.
Step 4: Add 2–4 Key Results Per Objective
Key Results make your objectives real.
They’re how you’ll know whether you’ve succeeded - not based on what you did, but based on what changed. These should be data-backed, outcome-focused, and tracked regularly (ideally weekly).
Strong KRs are:
- Specific: “Launch onboarding V2” is vague. “Increase onboarding completion from 60% to 85%” is clear.
- Quantifiable: If you can’t measure it, it’s not a KR.
- Impact-based: Avoid tracking effort. Focus on outcomes.
- Owned: Someone on the team should be clearly responsible for each KR.
❌Weak KR: “Talk to users”
✅Strong KR: “Conduct 20 onboarding interviews and surface 5 recurring friction points”
2–4 KRs is the sweet spot. Less than that and you risk under-defining success. More than that, and teams get overwhelmed.
Step 5: Review and Refine Together
Once every team drafts their OKRs, don’t move straight to execution. Step back and review together. This isn’t just about catching typos - it’s about stress-testing alignment, language, and clarity across the company.
In this step, ask:
- Are these goals connected to the company’s top priorities?
- Are any teams duplicating effort - or working at cross-purposes?
- Are the key results measurable, not just descriptive?
- Are we stretching appropriately without setting up unrealistic expectations?
This is also a good moment to check for team-specific blind spots. Invite cross-functional feedback. When teams explain their goals out loud, it forces clarity - and often leads to small but powerful revisions that improve focus and accountability.
Step 6: Lock and Launch
The final step is all about momentum.
Once OKRs are refined and aligned, don’t let them sit in a doc that never gets opened again. Publish them where everyone can see them, use them, and update them - ideally in a shared OKR dashboard or dedicated OKR software.
Then make it official:
- Hold a short kickoff or planning recap
- Walk through the top-level OKRs and how teams ladder up
- Clarify what updates will look like - weekly check-ins, async reviews, etc.
- Set the tone: these aren’t just goals - they’re how we execute
When teams see that OKRs are treated as a core operating system (not just a planning ritual), they engage differently. This launch moment builds energy - and accountability - for the cycle ahead.
How to Know If You’ve Set Good OKRs
You’ve written the goals. They’re aligned and measurable.
But before locking them in, run this gut-check table with your team.
You don’t have to score them perfectly. It’s about pressure-testing clarity, alignment, and ambition. This quick scan helps teams catch weak spots early - before they show up mid-cycle as confusion or drift.
These five criteria make the difference between goals that sit in a doc and goals that drive execution. If you can confidently say yes to each one, you're not just checking a box - you’re setting your OKR cycle up for real clarity, alignment, and momentum.
And that’s what transforms goals from strategy slides into results your whole team can feel.
Final thoughts
Anyone can write goals.
But setting OKRs that actually drive execution? That’s a craft.
The most effective teams don’t aim for perfect OKRs. They aim for useful ones - goals that guide effort, clarify outcomes, and evolve with what’s learned each cycle.
That means:
- Prioritizing fewer, clearer objectives
- Tracking progress regularly
- Reflecting at the end of each cycle
- Improving how you set goals next time
Start small, stay focused and treat OKRs like a living system, not a quarterly formality.
Over time, you’ll go from “writing goals” to running on them - and that’s when the real traction begins.
Because the best OKRs aren’t just written. They’re used.
Want help setting OKRs without the spreadsheets?
OKRs Tool gives your team a fast, flexible way to set, track, and align goals - without extra meetings or manual updates. Built for startups that care about clarity and execution.
Sign up today and set your first OKR in seconds.
