How to write OKRs

Oscar de la Hera Gomez
A flower that represents Project Management with the text “OKRs” beneath it.

Examples and best practices for writing OKRs.

Example of OKRs

The examples shown below are taken directly out of John Doerr's Measure What Matters and are a demonstration of how OKRs should cascade down an organization.

A chart that demonstrates how a sports team's objectives cascades down the ranks.

OKR Chart #2 from John Doerr's Measure What Matters

A chart that describes how the sports teams OKRs can applied to an organization at large.

OKR Chart #3 from John Doerr's Measure What Matters

Best practices

The best practices listed below are taken directly out of John Doerr's Measure What Matters.

The essence of a healthy OKR culture is ruthless intellectual honest, a disregard for self-interest, deep allegiance to the team.

Here are some of the lessons from Intel, Andy Grove and Jim Lally (Andy’s OKRs disciple):

Less is More.

Set goals from the bottom up

No Dictating

Stay Flexible

OKRs are adaptable by nature. They’re meant to be guardrails, not chains or blinkers.

As you asses and audit OKRs within a cycle, you have four options:

  • Continue: If a green zone (“on track”) isn’t broken, don’t fix it.

  • Update: Modify a yellow zone (“needs attention”) key result or objective to respond to changes in the workflow or external environment. What could be done differently to get the goal on track? Does it need a revised time line? Do we back-burner other initiatives to free up resources for this one?

  • Start: Launch a new OKR mid-cycle, whenever the need arises.

  • Stop: When a red zone (“at risk”) goal has outlived its usefulness, the best solution may be to drop it.


These events might be result during CFRs, a Post-Mortem or one of the scrum key ceremonies, such as a sprint review, sprint retrospective, backlog grooming session; or after receiving client/customer feedback.

Dare to Fail

A Tool not a Weapon

Be Patient, Be Resolute

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