setting-okrs-goals

Setting OKRs & Goals

Scope

Covers

• Turning strategy (or a North Star) into a small set of team/company OKRs
• Writing objectives that drive weekly execution (not just aspirational statements)
• Designing robust key results (prefer absolute counts; guard against gaming)
• Adding “default-on” systems/habits that make progress inevitable
• Defining review cadence + end-of-cycle grading to create a learning loop

When to use

• “Set our Q2 OKRs.”
• “Write objectives and key results for this team.”
• “We need quarterly goals that actually change behavior week-to-week.”
• “Our metrics are getting gamed / teams are optimizing the wrong thing.”
• “We need an OKR review + grading process.”

When NOT to use

• You don’t have an agreed strategy/North Star at all -> use writing-north-star-metrics or defining-product-vision first
• You need sprint planning or a delivery plan (tickets, estimates, timelines) -> use managing-timelines
• You’re using OKRs primarily for individual performance evaluation
• You only need a single experiment metric for one test
• You need an analytics/event tracking implementation plan from scratch
• You need to prioritize which initiatives to pursue before setting goals -> use prioritizing-roadmap
• You need a product vision or strategy document, not just quarterly goals -> use defining-product-vision

Inputs

Minimum required

• Planning cycle + horizon (e.g., Q2; annual; 6 weeks) and the team(s) in scope
• Strategy anchor: company goal, North Star, or “why now” narrative for the cycle
• Current baseline for key metrics (or best-available proxy) + where the numbers come from
• Constraints: capacity, must-do commitments, dependencies, risk tolerance
• Stakeholders: decider(s), contributors, approvers, review cadence participants

Missing-info strategy

• Ask up to 5 questions from references/INTAKE.md.
• If still missing, proceed with clearly labeled assumptions and provide 2–3 OKR set options (conservative/base/ambitious).