Before you start
Company OKRs and the existing roadmap should be on the table. Without both, you'll either write OKRs that don't connect to strategy or end up with abstract outcomes engineering can't translate into work. PMs should bring the most recent product analytics — Day-7 activation, feature usage, conversion benchmarks.
The 6 steps
6 steps · sequentialAlign product strategy with company goals
Ensure product priorities reflect broader business strategy. The product team's biggest failure mode is optimizing for what's interesting, not what's needed.
- Review company and departmental OKRs
- Identify where product can drive the most impact (retention, acquisition, engagement)
- Collaborate with leadership, design, and engineering on focus areas
- Define 2–3 strategic product objectives for the cycle
Draft product management OKRs
Write OKRs that emphasize outcomes, not just outputs. "Ship feature X" is a deliverable; "Increase activation by 15 points" is an outcome.
- Define Objectives (e.g., "Improve user onboarding experience")
- Write Key Results that measure impact (e.g., "Increase Day 7 activation from 30% → 45%")
- Balance delivery-based KRs (e.g., "Ship feature X by Q2") with impact-based KRs
- Assign ownership to PMs, not just engineering leads
Map OKRs to roadmaps and initiatives
Connect OKRs to the actual work being delivered. This is the step that prevents engineering from saying "wait, none of our sprints connect to these OKRs."
- Map features and initiatives directly to Key Results
- Use prioritization frameworks (RICE, MoSCoW) to align work with OKRs
- Highlight dependencies with design, engineering, and marketing
- Create a roadmap that balances short-term delivery with long-term outcomes
Build OKRs into team rituals
Keep OKRs visible and relevant throughout delivery. The OKRs that get referenced in sprint planning are the OKRs that survive.
- Include OKR updates in sprint planning and retrospectives
- Tie backlog grooming and prioritization discussions back to OKRs
- Display OKRs in OKR software so it's visible to the entire product team
- Reference OKRs when making trade-offs between scope, speed, and quality
Monitor and adjust
Stay responsive. Product OKRs drift more than any other function's — that's not a flaw, it's product reality. What matters is whether you adjust transparently.
- Track both delivery progress and impact metrics
- Reassess KRs mid-quarter if assumptions prove wrong
- Adjust scope or roadmap if timelines slip
- Use reviews to communicate trade-offs to leadership
Review outcomes and share learnings
Strengthen product OKRs each cycle through reflection. Shipped doesn't mean successful — and the retro is where you make sure the team knows the difference.
- At cycle end, compare delivered features against their impact
- Run retrospectives with PMs, design, and engineering
- Document what drove real customer or business outcomes
- Share results with leadership and cross-functional teams
Outputs of this workflow
- 2–3 product Objectives mapped to company strategy
- Key Results that name customer behavior changes, not just feature deliverables
- A roadmap where every backlog item supports a named KR
- OKRs integrated into sprint ceremonies (planning, grooming, retros)
- Documented trade-offs when scope shifted mid-cycle — for leadership transparency
- End-of-cycle insight on which features actually moved the metrics they were meant to
Run product OKRs inside OKRs Tool.
Outcome-based KRs, roadmap-to-KR linking, and integrations with Jira and Linear — so engineering work rolls up to outcomes automatically. Free for up to 5 users.