OKRs

Set objectives for a cycle, measure them with key results, and track progress, confidence and health.

OKRs (objectives and key results) let you say what you’re trying to achieve in a period and how you’ll know you got there. Each objective takes its progress from the key results underneath it, so the number on an objective comes from measurements, not from someone’s opinion.

Key concepts#

Cycle: The period your objectives are set for, such as a quarter, a half or a year. Every objective belongs to exactly one cycle. Cycles have their own planning and commit steps; see OKR cycles and committing.
Objective: What you’re trying to achieve, in words. Objectives can nest, so a team objective can sit under a company one.
Key result: A measurable result with a starting value, a target and a direction. Key results are how an objective’s progress is measured.
Progress: A percentage from 0 to 100. UnitX calculates it for a key result from its starting, current and target values, and for an objective from its key results. You never type it in.
Confidence: Your own judgement of whether a key result will land: High, Medium or Low. It isn’t derived from progress. A key result can be at 80% with low confidence if the last 20% is the hard part.
Health: Your own read on an objective: On track, At risk, Off track or No status. Like confidence, it’s set by hand and is separate from progress.
Weight: On a weighted objective, how much each key result counts, out of a total of 100.

OKRs and goals are different things

A goal aligns to a parent goal, and its progress moves only when someone records a check-in. An objective lives inside a cycle, and its progress is calculated from its key results. They don’t share data, and you can use either or both.

Who can use OKRs#

Permissions

goal.viewgoal.creategoal.edit

OKRs use the same permissions as goals. goal.view lets you open the OKRs page (listed in the sidebar as OKRs) and read cycles, objectives and key results. goal.create lets you create cycles, objectives and key results. goal.edit lets you update key result values, confidence and targets, change an objective’s status and health, and move a cycle through its stages.

The OKRs page#

Open OKRs from the sidebar. At the top is a cycle bar with:

A cycle picker. The page opens on the active cycle, or on the most recently created cycle if none is active.
The cycle’s status badge (Planning, Active or Completed) and its start and end dates.
The buttons for the cycle’s next step (Send for review, Commit, Activate or Complete), depending on where the cycle is.

Below the bar, the cycle’s objectives are listed as cards, with sub-objectives indented under their parent. Each card shows the objective’s status, its health, its progress bar and percentage, and “weighted” if it uses weighted progress. Select a card to open the objective.

If your organization has no cycles yet, the page says No OKR cycles yet. Create a cycle first with New cycle. The steps are in Create a cycle.

Create an objective#

Choose the cycle
On the OKRs page, pick the cycle in the cycle picker. The New objective button appears once a cycle is selected.
Select New objective
The Create an objective dialog opens. You become the objective’s owner.
Write the title and description
Title is required (up to 255 characters). Describe what you’re trying to achieve, not how far along you are. For example: “Reach a $150m first close on Fund III”. Description (optional) takes up to 2,000 characters.
Choose how progress is aggregated
Under How progress is aggregated, choose Average of its key results (every key result counts equally) or Weighted by each key result (each key result carries a weight out of 100).
Select Create objective
The objective appears in the cycle at 0% until you add key results.

Add a sub-objective#

Open the parent objective and select Add sub-objective in the Sub-objectives section. The sub-objective is created in the same cycle as its parent, and the parent’s page lists it with its progress and health. A sub-objective’s page shows a link back up to its parent.

Note

A parent objective’s progress comes only from its own key results. It doesn’t roll up progress from its sub-objectives.

Add key results#

Open the objective and select Add key result
The Add a key result dialog opens. You become the key result’s owner.
Name it
Name what is being measured, for example “Signed commitments” or “DDQ turnaround time”.
Choose Measured as
Pick Number, Currency, Percentage, Yes / no, Count, Duration or Ratio.
Choose the Direction
Increase — higher is better, Decrease — lower is better or Maintain — stay at the target. A Yes / no key result has no direction to set.
Set the Starting value, Target and Unit
For an increasing key result, the target must be above the starting value. For a decreasing one, it must be below. Unit (optional) is a label such as “days”, “$m” or “users” that’s shown next to the numbers.
A Yes / no key result has no scale. It counts as 0% until it’s marked done, then 100%.
Set a Weight (weighted objectives only)
On a weighted objective the dialog asks for a Weight from 1 to 100 and tells you how much of the 100 is still unallocated. The total across an objective’s key results can’t go past 100.
Select Add key result

How progress is calculated#

Each key result’s progress is recalculated whenever its value or target changes, then rounded to a whole percentage and kept between 0% and 100%.

Key result	Progress	Example
Increase	(current − start) ÷ (target − start)	Signed commitments: start 0, now 92, target 150 → 61%
Decrease	(start − current) ÷ (start − target)	DDQ turnaround: start 14 days, now 8, target 5 → 67%
Maintain	100% minus how far the current value is from the target, relative to where it started	Start 90, target 95, now 94 → 80%
Yes / no	0% until done, then 100%	Done → 100%

An objective’s progress is then worked out from its key results:

Average of its key results: the plain average. An objective with key results at 61%, 73% and 67% shows 67%.
Weighted by each key result: each key result’s progress multiplied by its weight, added up and divided by 100. Weights that only reach 80 cap the objective at 80%, so an objective can’t show 100% just because nothing else has been weighted yet. The objective page shows “n of 100 weight allocated”.
An objective with no key results sits at 0%.

Update a key result’s value#

Every key result card on the objective page has its own update form. You can’t change a value without giving a reason, and every change is kept.

Enter the New value
Type the latest figure. For a Yes / no key result, choose Done? → Done or Not done.
Say Why it changed
This is required. For example: “Two more LPs signed after the Zurich roadshow.”
Select Update value
The key result is re-scored and the objective’s progress updates straight away.

Select History on the card to see every recorded change, shown as old value → new value with the reason and how long ago it happened. Select Hide history to close it.

Set confidence#

Use the confidence menu on the key result card to choose High confidence, Medium confidence or Low confidence. It saves as soon as you pick a value and doesn’t change the key result’s progress.

Change a target#

Select Change target on a key result card to edit its starting value and target. Whether you need to give a reason depends on whether the cycle has been committed. See Changing a target after commit.

Set an objective’s status and health#

At the top of an objective’s page, use the Status and Health menus. Each saves as soon as you choose.

Status	Use it when
Draft	The objective is still being written.
Active	The team is working towards it.
Completed	It’s been achieved or the work on it has finished.
Cancelled	You’ve decided not to pursue it.
Archived	You want to keep it for the record but out of active use.

Health is On track, At risk, Off track or No status. An objective can be ahead on progress and still at risk, and the two are shown side by side for that reason.

Risks on an objective#

Each objective page has a Risks section for recording what could stop it, how likely it is and how much it would hurt. It works the same way as on goals and initiatives. See Strategic risks.

Tips and limitations#

Write objectives as outcomes and key results as measurements. “Launch the LP portal” is a task, but “Monthly active LPs on the portal” is a key result.
Three to five key results per objective is usually enough. Each one should move independently.
Key results are updated by hand. They can’t yet be connected to a live metric that updates them automatically.
Objectives don’t have a comment thread. Put the context in the reason you give when you update a key result, since that’s kept on the record.
In the web app, you set an objective’s title, description and progress method when you create it. There’s no screen for editing them afterwards.

FAQ#

Why can’t I type the objective’s percentage?

Because it would be a second opinion sitting next to the measurements, and the two would soon disagree. The objective shows what its key results add up to. To move it, update a key result.

My key result went up but the objective barely moved.

On a weighted objective each key result only contributes its own weight. On an averaging objective a single key result is one of several equal parts.

I get an error about weights when adding a key result.

The weights on a weighted objective can’t add up to more than 100. Lower the weight you’re entering, or check how much is left in the dialog’s hint.

Why is the New objective button missing?

It only appears once a cycle is selected. If your organization has no cycles yet, create one with New cycle first.

What happens to objectives when a cycle completes?

Nothing is deleted. The objectives, their key results and every recorded change stay readable in the completed cycle.

Still stuck? Search the docs with ⌘K, open Help inside UnitX, or contact support.