Overview
Key Results are quarterly outcomes by which success is measured for an objective. They provide clarity on where a team should focus their work, and tell us when we declare victory. Key results use the measurement From value - To Target which can be updated on a daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis.
Key Result Best Practices
- Key results shouldn’t be action items, or be subject to interpretation.
- There should be 4 - 6 key results for each objective.
- A team should define their key results keeping the best possible in mind.
- Best possible: What would be awesome to achieve this quarter? Best possible results likely won’t be hit 100%, as the main importance is discussing learnings for the quarter.
- Update Key Results consistently on a weekly basis (when applicable), to inform your team and others of your progress to achievement.
- Provide a narrative and additional context into why the number is the way it is when you update key results.
Questions to Shift Key Results From Outputs to Outcomes:
- How would we know we were successful?
- What would be really great this quarter?
- Is this both our best and possible result?
- What would we have more of if we were successful?
- What would we have less of if we were successful?
Example Key Results to Setup a Baseline for Subsequent Quarters
- Baseline measurement
- Instrument a process to measure
- Receive approval and funding for a project or initiative
- Be fully staffed for the initiative
- Present MVP demo to key stakeholders for a go/no-go decision
Anatomy of a Key Result
- Description (what is being measured?)
- Starting value
- Best possible target value
- Unit of measure ($, #, %)
- Measurement frequency (risk, focus, and change adjusted)
- Data source (person, system, workstream)
- Total or last progress (add each increment or report last)
Pick the type of result that best suits what you're measuring. This may be a basic count that one person will provide, collected data from several people, or a result calculated from workstreams or other apps.
Choose What to Measure
As you create key results in the OKR Wizard, the default is a basic count or percentage, but you can expand on these measurements.
Basic count or percentage from one person is the default key result type. For example:
- Sales revenue from Jorge
- Number of developers hired from Alice
- Completion of an IT infrastructure overhaul from Percy.
Learn how to set basic results here.
Marking a Key Result as 'Committed'
Enabled by default for all accounts, you can easily distinguish between best possible and committed targets with committed key results. Your RAG status will follow a more aggressive curve and at the end of the quarter will only be green if you achieve 100% of your target. This is helpful for financial targets, SLAs, or similar targets that you have a commitment to hit.
Note: Key results that support Committed Targets are Result from a Person, Key Result Roll-Ups, and Set Multiple Targets where the data being provided is by a person rather than a connected Datastream.
Key Result Details Page
The Key Result details page shows the characteristics of an individual Key Result on one page. This page is populated by selecting a Key Result from a list view (e.g. My Objectives). Alternately, you can click View Result Details from the Objective pop-out to navigate to this page.
In addition to the result progress chart shown on this page, you can also:
- Comment directly on the key result.
- Add emoji responses as team members comment or update the result.
- Add context to describe what’s being measured, or share the team's measurement method.
- See when the key result is updated by other KRs, workstreams, or external data sources, and where its dependencies are.
- Add Confidence Ratings to your Key Result.
- Add Related Work to your Key Result.
- Add documents and images to support a result. Upload from your computer or link to OneDrive, Box, Dropbox, or Google Drive.
- View key result clusters for similar key results.
Please note that the functionality above depends on the KR's ownership or the user's permission on the team.
Advanced Key Result Options
Learn more about key result options available when creating a key result.