The Complete Guide to OKRs

How to make objectives and key results work for your company

Organizations rely on their employees to help them stay competitive and innovative, but the most successful organizations understand that structure and innovation go hand-in-hand. As companies grow, they’re faced with the challenge of keeping teams aligned on the same mission. Every group of employees has a unique set of priorities, and providing them with the support they need to drive business results isn’t always a straightforward process.

As a core component of any performance management plan, goal setting helps businesses overcome the challenges of scaling workforces. OKRs (or Objectives and Key Results) are a popular goal-setting framework that businesses use to define and measure progress across different levels within the organization.

While there have been a number of goal-setting frameworks throughout history, OKRs were first introduced at Intel by management scientist Andy Grove and later popularized by Google in the late 1990s. Today, OKRs power thousands of organizations from Spotify and Amazon to the United States Navy.

Interested in applying OKRs in your workplace? Read on to learn how managers and leaders can leverage OKRs to inspire teams and drive innovation within their organizations.