60+ OKR Examples – How To Write Effective OKRs 2023

Erica Golightly

Senior Writer

October 26, 2022

Max 15min read

OKRs—one of the most popular goal management methodologies used by companies like Google, Netflix, and Twitter— is the secret sauce to creating alignment around measurable goals and objectives in an organization.

When appropriately used, teams can meet today’s goals while progressing for tomorrow’s challenges. If not, it will create barriers to project management and ultimately hurt a business’s success.

It can be intimidating to implement a goal-setting system like OKRs. Where do we start? What are the right objectives to focus on? How do we measure results? Do we need to set company OKRs, individual OKRs, or both? 🤔

Whether you’re in the middle of a restructure in your business, looking for company goals inspiration for the next quarter, or seeking writing tips to improve your objectives and key results—we’ve got you covered!

If you’re more of a visual learner check out this vlog on writing effective OKR’s!

Let’s jump in!

What Are OKRs?

OKR (Objectives and Key Results) is a goal-setting framework that helps a business define individual and company goals while devising a way to measure them.

The OKR framework has two components:

• Objectives: Goals that specify what you want to achieve
• Key results: Metrics that track your progress towards meeting your objectives

In one sentence: You complete a set of key results to achieve your objective.

60+ Team OKRs examples

Browse our OKR examples library below, and feel free to use any examples as a jumpstart to your team OKRs!

Content Marketing OKR Examples

🏆 Create helpful and informative blog articles

1. Interview 20 industry thought leaders
2. Drive 1M organic traffic visitors to the blog by [date]
3. Earn 400 PDF downloads this quarter

🏆 Optimize every blog post’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

1. Include at least seven internal links per blog post
2. Achieve 80-100 in SEO score per blog post
3. Include descriptive alt text for every static image and GIF per blog post

🏆 Improve blog process documentation

1. Audit current blog process every two weeks
2. Reduce feedback loops from department heads from five days to two days
3. Create a blog process dashboard to eliminate 100% of bottlenecks

Creative Operations OKR Examples

🏆 Implement company-wide creative requests process

1. Identify 10-15 common requests and build task templates
2. Decrease request backlog by 60% across all departments
3. Increase number of team team satisfaction score by 85% by the end of [date]

🏆 Create a Creative Learning Wiki as a single source of truth for all creative team members

1. Decrease one-off email requests in the shared inbox by 55%
2. Develop three video tutorials to reduce in-person training meetings
3. Identify one owner and three co-authors to optimize the wiki document

🏆 Maximize creative team productivity

1. Decrease average time to approve department requests from three days to one day
2. Audit team calendar every two weeks for meeting relevancy
3. Increase on-time task completion rate from 60% to 90%

Customer Success OKR Examples

🏆 Enhance the capabilities and training of the Customer Sucess team members

1. Build personal development plans with 100% of the team
2. Increase task success rate from 80% to 95%
3. Submit 5-8 training and coaching opportunities

🏆 Assist our customers as an inside voice to guarantee that their input drives company outcomes

1. Interview 30 customers every month to provide suggestions for improved use of products/services
2. Decrease product-related complaints from 45 to 20
3. Hire two Customer Success Managers

🏆 Provide the team with the support needed to succeed and achieve company-wide goals

1. Assist in running four training sessions
2. Maintain a max 24-hour response time in the support queue
3. Successfully onboard 12 new customers

Customer Support OKR Examples

🏆 Create a set standard for training to promote career development and growth

1. Defined documentation of 3 core responsibilities: Lead, Manager, and Specialist
2. Launch Support department growth plan and org structure by [date] (Check out these SOP Templates)
3. Launch Lead and Manager “certification” and continued skill building/training by [date]

🏆 Efficient monitoring of Support consistency with performance measures

1. Build one feedback loop dashboard between managers, leads, and squad members
2. Increase customer feedback rate from 8.9 to 9.9
3. Improve employee satisfaction score from 7.6 to 8.9

🏆 Maximize the efficiency of the support team to respond to customers with urgency and optimism 24/7/365

1. Launch squad reorganization plan by [date]
2. Promote two Leads
3. Increase percentage of support tickets resolved per week from 60% to 80%

Engineering OKR Examples

🏆 Reduce the number of Customer-Reported bug tasks after major launches

1. Find 30-50 volunteers across the organization to test features before launch
2. Decrease time to fix critical bugs in production from 24 hours to 16 hours
3. Audit QA testing every three weeks for efficiency

🏆 Implement Agile management across the engineering team

1. Pilot a test project in the first four months for individual feedback and results
2. Implement automated performance reporting by [quarter and year]
3. Launch communication dashboard for all issues and risks by [quarter and year] (Check out these communication plan templates)

🏆 Improve the response rate for critical bugs in testing

1. Hire seven engineers by [date]
2. Improve response time from 20 to ten minutes
3. Audit non-critical meetings on the team calendar every two weeks to determine if necessary

Events OKR Examples

🏆 Host a successful in-person industry conference in [year]

1. Achieve 40,000 registrants
2. Achieve 9.5 attendee rating
3. Scan 1,200 badges during the event

🏆 Create a high-performing events team

1. Hire four new events coordinators by the end of the quarter
2. Participate in 3-5 events training classes every two months
3. Set and track 8-10 individual contribution tasks by [date]

🏆 Drive record ROI from marketing event

1. Increase percentage of post-show engagement from 12% to 40%
2. Host training sessions for all on-site volunteers one month before the event
3. Generate 500K in sales pipeline from the event by [date]

Executive Office Operations OKR Examples

🏆 Grow and align the entire organization through monthly company meetings

1. Create 5-7 monthly topics for high-level transparency
2. Collect 10-15 post-meeting surveys for evaluation
3. Increase participation rate from 70% to 90%

Bonus: See how Spekit uses ClickUp to track quarterly OKRs!

🏆 Improve information management procedures by the end of [quarter and year]

1. Source and test cloud-based software to launch in [date]
2. Process policy changes from 24 hours to eight hours
3. Increase employee office satisfaction score from 7.8 to 9.8

🏆 Launch a successful and exciting company swag program for office and remote employees

1. Offer one new product option each quarter
2. Ship packages within 11 business days
3. Establish a reward point system for complimentary company swag

Facilities OKR Examples

🏆 Maintain a world-class office

1. Implement quarterly training for facilities staff
2. Increase office satisfaction rating from 88% to 98%
3. Reduce spending on office supplies from 20% to 10%

🏆 Implement a successful online conference room reservation system by [quarter and year]

1. Source and test 3-5 booking software with mobile capabilities
2. Evaluate current room usage to propose 5-8 solutions for workplace design and costs
3. Reduce booking conflicts from 20% to 12% by the end of the quarter

🏆 Streamline all departmental operation requests into ticketing system for management and tracking

1. Decrease time spent on switching between inboxes and voicemails from 14% to 5%
2. Lower resolution time from 24 hours to ten hours
3. Create a knowledge base for 10-20 most common requests that can be resolved without creating a ticket

Finance OKR Examples

🏆 Boost individual career growth

1. Offer one personalized training program for eligible team members
2. Offer two employees each month to shadow leadership team members
3. Host free education seminars for all team members every six weeks

🏆  Implement a purchasing management process

1. Integrate all purchasing requests to cloud-based software by [date]
2. Present 3-6 bids for purchases over $10k
3. Adjusting spending levels across all departments by 30% without sacrificing quality

🏆 Maintain accurate record-keeping at all times

1. Decrease contracts and payments uploading time from two hours to 30 minutes
2. Score 89 or higher in external audits
3. Decrease time spent backtracking receipts and logs from two weeks to three days

Human Resources OKR Examples

🏆 Interview quality candidates

1. Develop 5-7 training materials for HR coordinators to build interview skills
2. Propose 7-10 manual tasks to automate using HR software
3. Implement an employee referral program by the end of the quarter

🏆 Strengthen the communication for employee policy updates

1. Decrease help tickets from 20% to 8%
2. Create a 2-4 minute video for policy update and awareness
3. Source and launch one communication channel within the first 20 days in [date]

🏆 Offer development programs to help all team members reach their career goals

1. Launch five career roadmaps every month
2. Maintain employee retention rate above 80%
3. Create free and available 24/7/365 online professional programs for the top 10 roles

Information Technology OKR Examples

🏆 Become a mobile-first workplace

1. Source and implement one mobile-friendly software in the first 30 days of [date]
2. Decrease average ticket response time via mobile from one hour to 15 minutes
3. Increase number of training videos and materials from one to four

🏆 Optimize software costs

1. Set, track, and manage pricing terms for top 3 critical business systems
2. Propose 3-5 target operating models to adopt by [date]
3. Decrease monthly software spending from $10k to $5k

🏆 Reduce communications technology stack

1. Bring software and application usage from 12 to three
2. Perform audits every four weeks to assess individual workloads and software usage
3. Improve operational efficiency from 78% to 89%

Legal OKR Examples

🏆 Align internal department communications

1. Publish 5-8 workflow visual aids
2. Propose 3-5 solutions for a mobile-first communication tool
3. Achieve a score of 90 in internal communications surveys

🏆Deliver on strategic initiatives and activities

1. Increase goal completion rate from 74% to 89%
2. Meet with 10-15 team members for role-specific needs and issues
3. Create one data use plan and publish it in the first 30 days of [quarter]

🏆 Implement a review intake process

1. Increase approval turnaround from three days to one day
2. Create four levels to categorize request type
3. Develop new form agreements to launch by [date]

Marketing OKR Examples

🏆 Launch rebrand on [date]

1. Increase Net Promoter Score (NPS) from 30 to 45 or better
2. Source 3-5 marketing agencies for asset and messaging
3. Drop four public previews before the launch date

🏆 Successfully launch podcast campaign in [year and quarter]

1. Write 15 blog posts to help promote the podcast
2. Gain 5,000 podcast subscribers in the first month of launch
3. Source 40 potential guests by [date]

🏆 Improve customer retention and customer lifetime value (CLV)

1. Share 20 customer case studies by [date]
2. Increase email newsletter open rates from 40% to 60%
3. Increase positive mentions from customers from 50 to 80

For more tips on marketing OKRs, read our in-depth guide.

Onboarding OKR Examples

🏆 Offer a positive onboarding experience for remote employees

1. Send all hardware and application access within three days of their start date
2. Replace text-based manuals and guides with visual aids by [date]
3. Implement onboarding dashboard to reduce overlap work from 12% to 5%

🏆 Scale the onboarding team

1. Hire two coordinators by [date]
2. Offer 5-7 online courses for continued growth
3. Conduct role-specific training every eight weeks

🏆 Design onboarding program

1. Streamline all tasks and HR paperwork into one task list per role by [date]
2. Develop product training tools by [date]
3. Determine one onboarding coordinator to oversee individual department onboarding activities

Product OKR Examples

🏆 Implement detailed product testing for every major launch

1. Improve trial sign-ups from 20% to 35%
2. Perform testing interviews with ten key accounts
3. Increase speed of product bug resolution by 75%

🏆 Build and lead a world-class product team

1. Hire 2 UX designers and 3 product managers by [date]
2. Perform six one-on-one product training sessions for new hires within 60 days of their start date
3. Evaluate 3-5 individual contributors going beyond their roles to improve processes and product

🏆 Increase product learning across the organization

1. Host five Lunch and Learn sessions to showcase new features before launch late
2. Increase learning time with each department from 5% to 15%
3. Conduct five cross-functional knowledge sharing sessions

Bonus: Learn more about product OKRs.

Public Relations and Communications OKR Examples

🏆 Create an Awards promotion preparation strategy

1. Publish three original brand stories every week
2. Promote through 5 industry news press releases
3. Grow Reddit presence from 15% to 28%

🏆 Improve partnership pitches

1. Create a templated creative collateral kit by [date]
2. Audit assets every four weeks for necessary updates
3. Increase outreach activities from 20% to 40%

🏆 Improve affiliate program upgrades

1. Convert influencers into affiliates from 8% to 20%
2. Interview ten current affiliates for feedback
3. Generate over $90K in revenue by [date]

Quality Assurance OKR Examples

🏆 Define clear policies for task completion

1. Publish official criteria guide by [date]
2. Increase score of automation tests from 75% to 89%
3. Data validation is completed within one hour after testing

🏆 Improve cross-functional meetings and processes

1. Identify one lead in each department to gather communication feedback bi-weekly
2. Share the progress of unfinished and completed work two hours before the end of the workday
3. Reduce team meetings from twice a day to once a day without sacrificing quality

🏆 Establish a bug-assigning process

1. Maintain review response time of fewer than eight hours on every task
2. Create a Master Feature and Team Lead list by [date]
3. Identify 5-7 categories of bug severity by [date]

Sales OKR Examples

🏆 Increase Inbound Demo Success

1. Conduct three request button tests each month
2. Increase Request Demo form submissions from 40% to 60%
3. Collect 20 user testimonials

🏆 Increase hiring and training activities

1. Hire four sales team leads by [date]
2. Require one enterprise and one startup sales webinar participation per month
3. Collaborate with the product team to produce a knowledge wiki by [date]

🏆 Increase Customer Engagement

1. Increase customer satisfaction score from 50% to 89%
2. Publish 15 customer FAQs by [date]
3. Implement 5-7 strategies for personal presentation plans for enterprise customers

Find more sales OKR examples in our guide.

Social Media OKR Examples

🏆 Improve Linkedin content and engagement

1. Increase monthly leadership posts from 20 to 50
2. Increase audience impressions from 16,00 to 20,000
3. Maintain video content posts at 4 per week

🏆 Boost brand awareness and engagement

1. Increase response rate to social media comments from 45% to 65%
2. Increase the number of Twitter mentions and replies from 2,000 to 4,000 by [date]
3. Source 3-5 potential social media management tools by [date]

🏆 Improve social media content strategy

1. Increase customer satisfaction score from 78 to 89
2. Hire two social content specialists by [date]
3. Propose 2-4 strategies by [date] to promote and distribute content

Talent & Development OKR Examples

🏆 Create manager development programs

1. Propose a financial plan for cost implementation and technology resources by [date]
2. Interview 20 managers to determine gaps in career development
3. Identify five top roles to pilot a trial run by [date]

🏆 Boost employee engagement

1. Launch performance coaching program by [date]
2. Interview 200 team members to gather learning opportunities feedback
3. Allocate 20 hours per T&L team member per month for training compliance

🏆 Build a strong employer brand

1. Achieve a weekly Employee Satisfaction Score of >8
2. Survey ten candidates and 100 new employees for improvements
3. Collaborate with the marketing and creative teams to reskin the most viewed brand collateral

Bonus: OKR Templates

Video Production OKR Examples

🏆 Maintain a world-class studio

1. Design a sound mix studio by [date]
2. Build ten sustainable sets for perpetual use
3. Develop training materials for equipment handling by [date]

🏆 Scale video production team

1. Partner with Recruiting team to fill four on-call videographer roles
2. Hire two editors and four video coordinators
3. Offer one training seminar for all team members every six weeks

🏆 Execute a new ideation and writing process for all video materials

1. Clarify role and assignments by [date]
2. Interview ten team members for feedback on the current process
3. Research top-performing and less-engaged video content to propose 3-6 writing strategies

Three Benefits of OKRs

Sure, Google and tons of other businesses use OKRs to manage their company goals. But why do they use it? 

1. Fast to create and easy to use

Many companies take weeks trying to develop a large-scale goal instead of spending time actually achieving that goal.

But writing OKRs is no biggie – you just need to identify an objective, its key results and the initiatives you’ll take to achieve them.

Moreover, OKRs are super simple to use. 

You break down a measurable objective into simple results that help you quickly determine if you achieved the objective or not. 

2. Boosts focus and commitment to goals 

When you set OKRs, you’re limiting your focus to specific objectives and key results. 

For example, your company can set two annual OKRs — each with four key results.

This way, all the team has to focus on is tackling those 8 key results throughout the year!

And when you’re able to focus on the objective, you can fully commit to it. 

3. The bi-directional approach helps you align goals better 

In most companies, top-level management decides what the goals are and everyone else has to follow.

This is a cascading approach to goal setting.

When your goals only contain top-level management insights, you fail to align them to your employee’s own goals, reducing employee engagement.

But when you’re setting OKRs, it’s another story.

Instead of a cascading approach, the process is bi-directional — the OKR setting process includes everyone in the company! Here, the top management and everyone else relate their objectives and key results together to make a cohesive plan. 

You can also create company wide OKRs — where the whole organization commits to the same goals, like the company’s mission.

Committed vs. Aspirational OKRs

There are two types of goals in the OKR methodology you should know: committed and aspirational.

🤝 Committed OKRs

Committed OKRs are the agreed-upon goals prioritized to reach company success. People, resources, and schedules are rearranged to ensure they get done. Companies want to achieve 100% of their committed OKRs.

🌔 Aspirational OKRs

Aspirational OKRs (moonshots) are ambitious and more challenging to accomplish, but they push us to think outside the box and innovate. Unlike committed OKRs, they don’t have a clear path for completion or actual knowledge of how to get there. So if you’ve completed at least 70% of your aspirational OKRs, consider it a success!

To learn more about the fundamentals of OKRs, check out our detailed post on OKRs.

OKR Writing Tips

Regardless of what industry or market you’re in, competitors are consistently grabbing opportunities to address the pain points of your shared target audience. If you plan to stay ahead of the competition, your team must have the most straightforward direction, resources, and metrics.

This is why writing effective OKRs is important to understand how their daily work and performance impact the bigger picture. No one wants to spend time on projects that shouldn’t have been started in the first place. Or waste hours of their day digging for information to get their tasks completed.

Before we dive into how to create OKRs, let’s walk through the difference between objectives, key results, and tasks.

Wait—aren’t key results the same as tasks? 😳

Key results are outcomes, not tasks. (Hint: this is where you’ll convert good OKRs to effective OKRs!)

You’ve most likely seen this OKR formula: ⬇️

I will __________ (objective), as measured by __________ (key result).

A trick to help differentiate a key result and task is to remember:

• Key result = goal post 🥅
• Task = the tactics/activities to get there 🤾‍♀️

Now we know the distinction between an objective, key result, and task, let’s dive into the writing tips!

🏆 Tip #1: Choose between 3-5 objectives

• An objective answers the question: What’s the immediate problem, change, or desired outcome we want?
• Aim for quarterly instead of annual objectives to manage targets easier
• Encourage your teams to send you their prioritized list of problems and issues
• Does the written objective leave no room for interpretation? (If everyone answers differently, this means the objective is not aligning)

🎯 Tip #2: Choose between 3-5 key results per objective

• A key result answers the question: How will we know if we met our objective?
• Each key result is time-bound, specific, and includes a number
• The teams should design and write the key results—not senior leadership. Teams are the subject-matter experts and owners of the work
• Assign a Key Results champion to monitor and lead weekly/monthly OKR check-in meetings

📘 Tip #3: Use distinct and basic terminology

Objectives and key results should be easy for others to understand. Unfortunately, company jargon excludes people that don’t have the resources to decode, and it’s not productive (or fair!) to rely on employees to ask what it means.

💬 Tip #4: Communicate to foster a great corporate culture

Companies should use an employee communication platform available on both mobile and desktop to meet the needs of a hybrid workforce. This is also an opportunity for employees to learn about big and small wins from different departments too. Here are a few places to mention OKRs:

• Project management tool
• Townhall/ all-hands meetings
• Weekly/ monthly department meetings
• Individual performance plans
• Desktop backgrounds
• Internal newsletters

⚙️ Tip #5: Use a project management tool

A project management tool is a valuable asset to merge alignment, accountability, and engagement in one place. If you’re trying to help your team focus on the most important work, automate progress reporting, and get to the goal faster, check out ClickUp.

ClickUp takes goal-setting management a step further with a dedicated Goals in ClickUp feature—high-level containers that break down your objectives into small, measurable Targets.

• Your objectives = ClickUp Goals 🏆
• Your key results = ClickUp Targets 🎯
• Your activities = ClickUp tasks 📋

ClickUp Goals (made public or private) can be used to track any measurable achievement. When viewing a task, you’ll know if it’s been attached to a Target.

Remember, your employees deal with loads of information every day. A project management tool encourages teams to own their progress to achieve the shared objectives.

Find a Place to Start

Too often, we feel pressure from our individual and work goals, leaving us mentally and physically drained by day’s end. So we say “yes” to every request and tell ourselves it’s just part of the job.

OKRs help establish boundaries and encourage us to say “no” when asked to pursue the wrong things. We hope these examples and tips gave you clarity and structure to optimize your writing process. ✍️💡

If you need a distraction-free space to organize your thoughts as you write your OKRs and tasks, try ClickUp for free today!