How To Write Effective OKRs (With 60+ OKR Examples)
Udn Webber
Writer
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 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!
Let’s do this!
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 .
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
🏆 Optimize every blog post’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
🏆 Improve blog process documentation
Creative Operations OKR Examples
🏆 Implement company-wide creative requests process
🏆 Create a Creative Learning Wiki as a single source of truth for all creative team members
🏆 Maximize creative team productivity
Customer Success OKR Examples
🏆 Enhance the capabilities and training of the Customer Sucess team members
🏆 Assist our customers as an inside voice to guarantee that their input drives company outcomes
🏆 Provide the team with the support needed to succeed and achieve company-wide goals
Customer Support OKR Examples
🏆 Create a set standard for training to promote career development and growth
🏆 Efficient monitoring of Support consistency with performance measures
🏆 Maximize the efficiency of the support team to respond to customers with urgency and optimism 24/7/365
Engineering OKR Examples
🏆 Reduce the number of Customer-Reported bug tasks after major launches
🏆 Implement Agile management across the engineering team
🏆 Improve the response rate for critical bugs in testing
Events OKR Examples
🏆 Host a successful in-person industry conference in [year]
🏆 Create a high-performing events team
🏆 Drive record ROI from marketing event
Executive Office Operations OKR Examples
🏆 Grow and align the entire organization through monthly company meetings
🏆 Improve information management procedures by the end of [quarter and year]
🏆 Launch a successful and exciting company swag program for office and remote employees
Facilities OKR Examples
🏆 Maintain a world-class office
🏆 Implement a successful online conference room reservation system by [quarter and year]
🏆 Streamline all departmental operation requests into ticketing system for management and tracking
Finance OKR Examples
🏆 Boost individual career growth
🏆 Implement a purchasing management process
🏆 Maintain accurate record-keeping at all times
Human Resources OKR Examples
🏆 Interview quality candidates
🏆 Strengthen the communication for employee policy updates
🏆 Offer development programs to help all team members reach their career goals
Information Technology OKR Examples
🏆 Become a mobile-first workplace
🏆 Optimize software costs
🏆 Reduce communications technology stack
Legal OKR Examples
🏆 Align internal department communications
🏆Deliver on strategic initiatives and activities
🏆 Implement a review intake process
Marketing OKR Examples
🏆 Launch rebrand on [date]
🏆 Successfully launch podcast campaign in [year and quarter]
🏆 Improve customer retention and customer lifetime value (CLV)
For more tips on marketing OKRs, read our in-depth guide .
Onboarding OKR Examples
🏆 Offer a positive onboarding experience for remote employees
🏆 Scale the onboarding team
🏆 Design onboarding program
Product OKR Examples
🏆 Implement detailed product testing for every major launch
🏆 Build and lead a world-class product team
🏆 Increase product learning across the organization
Bonus: Learn more about product OKRs .
Public Relations and Communications OKR Examples
🏆 Create an Awards promotion preparation strategy
🏆 Improve partnership pitches
🏆 Improve affiliate program upgrades
Quality Assurance OKR Examples
🏆 Define clear policies for task completion
🏆 Improve cross-functional meetings and processes
🏆 Establish a bug-assigning process
Sales OKR Examples
🏆 Increase Inbound Demo Success
🏆 Increase hiring and training activities
🏆 Increase Customer Engagement
Find more sales OKR examples in our guide.
Social Media OKR Examples
🏆 Improve Linkedin content and engagement
🏆 Boost brand awareness and engagement
🏆 Improve social media content strategy
Talent & Development OKR Examples
🏆 Create manager development programs
🏆 Boost employee engagement
🏆 Build a strong employer brand
Video Production OKR Examples
🏆 Maintain a world-class studio
🏆 Scale video production team
🏆 Execute a new ideation and writing process for all video materials
The OKR Process 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:
Now we know the distinction between an objective, key result, and task, let’s dive into the writing tips!
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.
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:
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 UDN Task Manager .
UDN Task Manager takes goal-setting management a step further with a dedicated Goals in UDN Task Manager feature—high-level containers that break down your objectives into small, measurable Targets.
Access and track your OKRs from a central source of truth with UDN Task Manager Goals
UDN Task Manager 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.
Click on the Goal name within a UDN Task Manager task to jump to the Goals page
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 UDN Task Manager for free today !
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