OKRs
OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) is a goal-setting framework comprised of an objective—a qualitative statement that should inspire you and your team—and key results—quantitative measures that indicate you've reached that objective.
OKRs are a format for expressing outcomes, combining an inspirational objective with measurable key results. They can represent business outcomes or product outcomes.
How do OKRs relate to outcomes?
OKRs are a way to express an outcome. You can take any outcome and represent it as an OKR by asking: "What do we want to achieve?" (the objective) and "How will we know when we've done that?" (the key results).
For example, the objective "Help more teams adopt continuous discovery as a way of working" might have key results like:
- Increase percentage of members who interview customers every week
- Increase percentage of members who run assumption tests every week
- Increase percentage of members who define clear outcomes every quarter
To make key results effective, assign specific targets for a designated period of time. For instance, "Sell 10,000 books in Q1" or "Grow memberships by 100% in a year."
What's the difference between business OKRs and product OKRs?
OKRs can express both types of outcomes:
Business OKRs measure the health of the business through metrics like revenue, customer acquisition, or retention. These are often lagging indicators.
Product OKRs measure changes in customer behavior within the product, like engagement, feature adoption, or onboarding completion. These are leading indicators that teams can directly influence.
The real work isn't in formatting goals as OKRs—it's in figuring out which outcomes matter most to your business and customers right now. Once you've identified the right outcomes, you can represent them as OKRs if that format works for your organization.
Learn more:
- Ask Teresa: What's the Difference Between OKRs and Outcomes?
- Shifting from Outputs to Outcomes: Why It Matters and How to Get Started
Related terms:
- Outcome
- Desired Outcome
- Business Outcome
- Product Outcome
Last Updated: October 25, 2025