Okr Goal Setting 101 Achieve More Goals Than Ever! Faster!: Your Workbook

OKR GOAL SETTING 101
Achieve more goals than ever! Faster!
Your workbook to make you a master of OKRs
by Axel Rittershaus
Your workbook
with templates, checklists, and summaries
TARGETTER
Workbook for online course OKR Goal Setting 101 TARGETTER
Introduction
This workbook contains all the checklists, examples, exercises, and worksheets from the entire
course, and it’s supposed to be your companion throughout the course. And beyond.
You will find:

• All worksheets and templates available for download
• The key statements on essential topics
• Summaries
Important: This workbook is not a ‘book to read’. It’s a book that will guide you during the course
to get the most out of it - by working on the tasks, taking notes, reflecting on your behavior, and
doing exercises, you will accelerate your progress.
Some elements of the book are only fully understandable in connection with the accompanying
video - so please watch the videos J
This workbook also serves as a guide and future reference, as you will find many of the essential
topics from the training here.
We have consistently included space for your notes so that you can capture important thoughts
and insights.
I hope you like this workbook, and if you have any suggestions for improvement, please contact
us. Your feedback is the best way for us to improve!
And if you like the course and this workbook, we would be thrilled if you leave a review and
recommend us to other people who will benefit from your recommendation.
Thank you very much
Axel Rittershaus
© TARGETTER (Workbook for online course “OKR Goal Setting 101“) V0.9.1 2/38
Content
Goal setting – Warm-up Exercise............................................................................................................. 4
Ten biggest mistakes when defining goals (in general) ...................................................................... 6
OKR 101 – The Fundamentals .................................................................................................................. 8
What are Objectives? .............................................................................................................................. 8
What are Key Results? .......................................................................................................................... 11
Essential Rules when Defining OKRs ................................................................................................ 14
Difference Between OKRs & SMART Goals ..................................................................................... 14
OKR Follow-Ups & Reviews ................................................................................................................. 15
My Notes and Learnings ...................................................................................................................... 20
OKRs in Practice ......................................................................................................................................... 21
OKR Lessons Learned .......................................................................................................................... 21
Committed vs. Aspirational Objectives – The Idea ........................................................................ 24
Committed vs. Aspirational Objectives – The Reality .................................................................... 26
OKR Checklist ......................................................................................................................................... 28
OKR Tools & Template ......................................................................................................................... 30
My Notes and Learnings ...................................................................................................................... 31
OKR Examples ............................................................................................................................................ 32
Selected OKR Examples from the Course ....................................................................................... 32
Typical Questions Regarding the Examples .................................................................................... 34
My Notes & Learnings .......................................................................................................................... 35
OKRs – Conclusion & Next Steps ........................................................................................................... 36
Goal setting – Warm-up Exercise
My five most important (work-related) goals:
Goal My goal Due date Last time I

since worked on it
My situation:
I have too many goals

I have goals, but they are not specific
I have goals, but they change constantly
I don’t have clear goals
I don’t have any goals
I might have goals, but I am not aware of them
Nobody cares about my goals
What would be the best outcome for you after taking this course
The best outcome for me personally would be:
It would have the following impact on me / my team / my organization / my personal life:
Me
My team
My organization
My personal life
Ten biggest mistakes when defining goals (in general)

The first step in becoming better at setting goals, no matter if you use OKRs or not, is avoiding
the most common mistakes when defining goals.
The ten most common mistakes are:
1. You have goals – but no specific plan, how to get there.
2. You define goals, keep them in your mind for a couple of days until the daily grind
eliminates them – and nothing gets done.
3. There are sooo many goals, and you can‘t decide which to prioritize and eventually don‘t
pick any.
4. The goals seem to be too ambitious, and you don‘t know where to start.
Therefore, you don‘t start at all.
5. The progress you made on your path to your goal is not measured at all or very rarely
(once per year).
6. After a few months, you think that you are not making any progress. You get frustrated
and give up – instead of looking for another path.
7. The goals are written in stone, even if the circumstances change massively.
There is no review if the goals are still achievable, and there is no learning from the past.
8. Achieving a goal is seen as a matter of course and gets neither noticed nor celebrated as a
success.
9. The goals are meaningless to you because you got instructed to achieve them, or you
chose them to please or impress others.
10. You don‘t set any goals at all.
In case you make one or more of these mistakes, write down
a. which mistake you make and

b. what impact it has on your success, effectiveness, and (very important) your motivation.
It’s not a problem to make mistakes. It only becomes a problem if we continue to make the
same mistakes and expect different results!
During this course, you will gain multiple ideas and insights on how to avoid mistakes and
achieve your goals!
I/we make The impact on success, effectiveness, motivation, …

mistake #
OKR 101 – The Fundamentals

What are Objectives?
The Objective is the goal you want to achieve. That’s it.
An Objective is the answer to the question:
Where do I need/want to go?
Everyone working towards an Objective needs to understand:
1. what the Objective really means,

2. and how they can determine if they have achieved the goal.
An Objective does not define HOW we get to the goal.
The standard duration (OKR cycle) is 3 months. This means you define objectives you can
achieve within 3 months. There are exceptions for long-term, strategic goals, but the
fundamental rule is: An Objective should be completed within 3 months.
To avoid the ‘goal overload’ of many people and organizations, the maximum number at any
time for any person is 5 Objectives. A team might have 5 team OKRs, and each team member
himself has 5 individual OKRs, which assist achieving these 5 team OKRs.
But nobody must have more than 5 OKRs at any given moment. Otherwise focusing will be
impossible!
A typical mistake when defining Objectives for the first time is the one-word-objective. The person
writing down the Objective might have an idea of what it means, but nobody else would
understand it.
Defining a one-word-objective usually means:
‘I really don’t know what my Objective is,

but I know this is an area I need to do something.’
A few examples:
Problematic Objective Good Objective

Increase competitiveness Reduce delivery time from 4 days to 1 day
Project-Management Every project is managed by a certified
project manager
Better employer branding 25% of all graduates at MIT know the name
of our company
Live healthier Reduce eating sweets from 7 days/week to 3
days, and drink alcohol max 2 times/week
Improve finances Reduce debts by 35%
Remark:
The ‘good objective’ is one example in contrast to the ‘problematic Objective’.
You might come up with 10 other ideas for a good objective in that case – and that is the point:
If an Objective is so vague that you can define multiple other objectives that are also ‘correct’, you need
to make it more specific.
Ambiguity of goal definitions (= Objectives)

is the killer of effectiveness and alignment!
Pro Tip:
Give the definition of your Objective to someone else without giving further
explanations.
Ask that person to describe to you what she believes your goal is:
• If it’s (more or less) what you had in mind: Perfect.
• If it’s something different: Change your definition. Even if the Objective is just
for you! Because your mind will benefit from more clarity when figuring out
ways to get there!
Looking at how I/we define goals so far, I/we need to change the following:
Write down your thoughts regarding Objectives and things you don’t want to forget:
What are Key Results?
Key Results (KR) are the measurable steps as to how to get to your Objective.
The simplest way to describe Key Results and their relation to Objectives:
If you achieve the Key Results, you achieve your Objective.
Each Objective should have between 3 and 5 Key Results. Not more, not less.
Remark: The following explanations cover OKRs within organizations and teams. If you define OKRs
‘just’ for yourself, the ‘person responsible for the OKR’ is you J.
Key rules for Key Results:
1. Every Key Result has one (1) person in charge of the Key Result (yes, there can be 10
people working towards it, but one person is in charge)
2. Every Key Result has one specific metric to measure and track the progress of all actions
taken to complete and achieve this Key Result.
Usually, KRs are measured in % of completion, on a scale of 0 to 1, or sometimes yes/no.
But some KRs could also be measured by a specific number, for instance, the number of
customers per day, the revenue per month, or the rating for a course.
The crucial part is: If it’s not measurable, it’s not a Key Result.
3. The person responsible for the KR needs to be able to measure the progress on his own
(=not rely on someone else)
4. The person responsible for the KR needs to have the power, authority, skills,
resources, … to achieve/implement the Key Result (again, the KR might require the work
or support of other people, the responsible person needs to collaborate with)
5. It must be realistic to achieve the KR within 3 months. It might be a stretch, but you must
not define KRs you will need 12 months to complete
6. Each Objective should have 3 – 5 Key Results. If it’s more, the KRs are either too small
(and rather tasks than results), or you try to pack too many things into one OKR.
If you feel the need to define more KRs for one Objective, you rather split the Objective
into 2 parts and define the relevant KRs
Typical mistakes when defining Key Results for the first time:
Issue What it means and what you should do

Defining only 1 Key Result for 1 Objective This is an indicator that the Objective is
either not clearly defined or it’s too small.
Revisit the Objective and check if it is too
small or if you need to establish more clarity
first until you can define 3-5 Key Results
Defining 6 or more Key Results for 1 The Objective is either too big and should
Objective rather be split into multiple parts.
Or the Key Results are too small (rather tasks
than Results of multiple actions) and should
be combined into a few more meaningful KRs
Key Result is a task If a Key Result can be completed by doing

one (1) thing (like making one call, speaking
to one person, etc.), it’s not a Key Result and
should be part of a combined KR
Key Result is one word This is a mistake I see very often, and people
tell me ‘But I know what it means’ – until they
explain it to me and realize that this word
has 10 different meanings.
A Key Result can NEVER be just one word.
Key Result is not specific One of the Top 3 mistakes: The Key Results is
not specific, and it’s not clear how anyone
can determine if the KR has been achieved or
not
Pro Tip:
Show the definition of your Key Result to someone else without giving further
explanations. Ask that person to describe to you how she would determine if the
KR has been achieved:
• If she can: Perfect
• If she can, but it’s not what you meant to achieve: Rephrase it
• If she can’t: Rephrase it
If you used to use SMART goal setting in the past, this is where you can reuse your skills.
The only difference between SMART and OKRs: You can define ambitious OKRs that are not realistic in
terms of SMART. We’ll get to that a bit later. Otherwise, SMART will help you make your Key Results
specific and measurable – and that is great.
If you have never used SMART – don’t worry. Just stick to the OKR rules mentioned J
Final remark:
When you check the examples I provide you throughout the course, you might sometimes think
that these KRs are tasks. They are not. All KRs require multiple steps, sometimes just a few small
steps, occasionally many big steps.
What did I/we do so far, that will assist us in defining and using Key Results:
How will I/we benefit from using Key Results in the future:
Write down your thoughts regarding Key Results and things you don’t want to forget:
Essential Rules when Defining OKRs
There are very few rules when defining OKRs. They are simple but not always easy to follow J.
• At any time, your maximum number of Objectives is 5

• The Objective can be achieved/completed within 3 months
• The maximum number of Key Results per Objective is 5
• Each Key Result must have one person responsible for the Key Result
• The person responsible for a Key Result must have the resources, decision power, time,
skill, etc. to achieve it
• Each Key Result must be measurable
Difference Between OKRs & SMART Goals
SMART goals are
• Specific
• Measurable
• Attractive
• Realistic
• Time-bound
All of that is great.
But after defining a SMART goal, you are left alone.
OKRs assist you not only in defining the goals but also in working towards achieving them.
OKRs have a framework of following up, measuring progress, and learning from successes and
setbacks.
It’s great if you define your Key Results with the SMART method in mind!
OKR Follow-Ups & Reviews
OKRs are only going to work for you if you do the regular follow-ups and quarterly reviews.
At least every other week, you need to:
1. Look at all your OKRs, evaluate their status, and update the progress. No matter if you
made progress or not, you must update it.
2. Always update the ‘status’ of an Objective and all Key Results. The ‘status’ can be:
a. Ok
b. Requires attention
c. At risk
3. After such a follow-up, you should decide what you can and need to do until the next
follow-up to enable you to (continue) making progress.
4. For committed OKRs, you must identify if you are on track or not. In both cases, look at
the 1-2 weeks ahead and decide if you have allocated sufficient time/resources to work
towards this OKR or not.
If not, and you believe you will eventually still achieve the Objective, it’s ok.
If not, and this will threaten the Objective, develop a plan how you will compensate for
these lost weeks. Set the status of this Objective and/or Key Result to ‘requires attention’.
If not, set the status of this Objective and/or Key Result to ‘at risk’. You might need to
reassess your plans, discuss this with your superior, or ask others to help you.
Once per month, you should take a bit more time to:
1. Look at your OKRs, look at the progress you made within the last month, and define
specific tasks you need to do as to be able to achieve your Objectives by the end of the
cycle
2. Recall what you did within the last 4 weeks and draw some conclusions from it – either of
what you should continue doing (because it’s working), what you need to start doing, or
what you might need to stop doing – as to enable you to achieve your Objectives
3. For committed OKRs, do the same as during your weekly follow-up. If you are not on
track and your OKR is ‘at risk’, you need to take action and make a plan to achieve the
Objective. Ask for help, get additional resources, postpone other tasks that are not that
urgent.
It’s important to inform other people, departments, business partners, clients, or
whoever relies on or benefits from the Objective about the status.
At the end of each OKR cycle (after 3 months):
1. You evaluate what you achieved
2. You close the Objectives you achieved and ask yourself what went well and what you
need to learn from it
3. Objectives you did not complete to 100%, but to 95% or 98%, and only a few minor tasks
remain open – which you will complete in due course – you can also close.
Ask yourself what you need to learn from it
4. Objectives with a substantial number of incomplete tasks (like a 70 – 90% completion

rate), evaluate what this means for you, your team, business, or (in case of personal
OKRs) your life. This is particularly important for committed Objectives!
You need to assess if the Objective was too ambitious or if you chose the wrong Key
Results. You might have set the wrong priorities or lacked the discipline to do the
(sometimes painful or unattractive) tasks required to get something to completion.
This assessment and learning is crucial to becoming a master of OKRs and being able to
use them in the future. If you skip this, if you are not dedicating time to identify the
underlying issues, your OKRs will fail sooner or later!
5. Incomplete Objectives might get moved into the next OKR cycle (quarter), but only if you
amend them and take the lessons into account
In other cases, incomplete Objectives will be closed because it’s too late or it does not
make sense to work on them anymore
6. Define new Objectives for the next cycle and take all the lessons from the last cycle into
account
Tip: The Lessons Learned structure I provide to you separately will assist you in finding what you
should keep on doing and where you need to change.
Time requirements for quarterly review & planning session

For individuals, the quarterly review & planning session might take between 1 and 2 hours.
For teams with experienced OKR users, the quarterly review and planning session might take
between 2 and 3 hours.
For teams with little experience in OKRs, the quarterly review and planning session might take
between 2 and 5 hours. It might even make sense to split the review and the planning into two
sessions, both between 2 and 3 hours long.
Tip: Having an experienced OKR user moderate those sessions is recommended.
For long-term Objectives on department or company scale, such review and planning sessions
can take between 4 hours and 2 days!
Insights from my work as an OKR advisor:

One of the biggest mistakes new OKR users make is skipping follow-up sessions or doing them
only occasionally.
In the beginning, OKRs might feel like a painful reminder of your goals, making you aware of the
tasks you meant to do but did not do.
Many people give up at this point because they believe that OKRs don’t work.
This is not the case.
OKRs are there to help you focus and realize that you might need to change the way you work,
or you won’t be able to achieve what you want (or need to) achieve.
Define OKR
Implement
“...reached up to xx%“
Every 1-2 Time: Ø Update progress of
5 min
or
weeks your Key Results “...done/not done“
Time: Ø Update progress of Ø Remove Key Result from

Monthly Key Result
10 min KRs and OKRs list
done
Ø Check OKRs Ø Define new KR or OKR
Ø Check OKRs
Objective Ø Celebrate Success
Ø Replace and
done Ø Define new OKR
define new OKRs
Objective not reached Ø Check KRs and adjust if
1x per Time: Ø Objective (still) neccessary
Quarter 15-30 min achieveable? Yes Ø Adjust Objective if Continue
Ø Objective still relevant? neccessary
No Ø Learn lesson
Ø Withdraw OKR
TA R G E T T E R Ø Learn lesson
SKILLS FOR SUCCESS. NOW. © TARGETTER GmbH
Pro Tip:
Integrate your follow-up session into an already existing meeting structure.
• If you have a weekly team meeting, integrate it here
• If you use the SCRUM method, integrate it into one of the SCRUM reviews
• If you don’t have any regular meetings of your team, start with your OKR
follow-up and add some further content like sharing of insights, company
updates, or even team building
• If you use OKRs just on your own, establish a ‘weekly review’ to look back at
your workweek and integrate your OKR follow-up into it
We could combine OKR follow-ups and reviews with the following existing structures/meetings:
What we already do in terms of follow-up, reviews, lessons learned, etc. and what we can learn
from them when doing OKR follow-ups and reviews:
We will have the following benefits from the structured approach of OKR follow-ups and reviews:
Write down your thoughts regarding follow-ups & reviews and things you don’t want to forget:
My Notes and Learnings
My most important learnings regarding the fundamentals of OKRs are:
Comparing OKRs to what I do so far or did in the past, I notice:
Other topics that came to my mind:
OKRs in Practice
OKR Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned for new OKR users

When you just started using OKRs, there will be many things that might go wrong.
Or let’s put it in a way I prefer:
When you just started using OKRs, there will be many things
you are learning.
But…
…we only learn from mistakes if we actively
1. look at what went wrong
2. analyze what we did and what we can change
3. make decisions for the future
4. act
5. analyze again
Of course, you should also learn from successes and what went well!
I highly recommend to you, as a new OKR user, to add a Lessons Learned session to your
quarterly review and planning meetings.
Meaning, when you schedule the quarterly review and planning session for the next quarter, you
should add more time for a structured Lessons Learned.
You should allow between 45 and 90 minutes for the Lessons Learned, depending on the size of
the group involved and the experience with Lessons Learned.
The most basic form of a Lessons Learned looks like this:
1. Everyone (!) shares his experiences with the OKR method. During this first round, you do
not discuss and do not look for solutions! You are gathering information and insights!
I recommend preparing a list of questions everyone answers, like:
a. What I liked about OKRs and what went well
b. What I did not like about OKRs as a method and what went wrong for me
personally
c. What I did not like about how we used OKRs
2. After finishing this first round of sharing, everyone works together on answering the
following three questions.
Important: The answers/topics mentioned could be OKR related; it could also be referring to
other topics not directly related to OKRs but having an impact on working with OKRs
a. What should we stop doing?
b. What should we start doing?

c. What should we continue doing/do more of?
3. Decide together what and how you will implement these learnings. In some cases, they
might even become an OKR J
You should run these Lessons Learned for at least 9 months (= for 3 consecutive quarterly
meetings) because that’s usually the time it takes until we adapt and integrate OKRs into our
daily structures and collaboration.
Lessons Learned for long-term OKR users

If you are an experienced OKR user, you can still learn and improve.
I recommend one of these options:
1. If the team is very stable and not many changes have happened, you should run such a
Lessons Learned session once per year. It might be a good idea to do it right in the middle
of the year to avoid packing too much into a session where you might look at annual
Objectives.
2. If most members of the team are experienced in OKRs, but there was a significant
amount of change within or outside the team, you should run such a Lessons Learned
session every 6 months.
The structure to run these meetings it is the same as in the previous situation of less
experienced OKR users.
If you know other Lessons Learned methods like an AAR or the SCRUM method, feel free to use
those methods instead.
But you should always find out what you are doing great and where you can improve.
And we can always improve…
How I/we can benefit from Lessons Learned:
Other thoughts and insights regarding Lessons Learned:
Committed vs. Aspirational Objectives – The Idea
There are two kinds of OKRs:

• Committed OKRs
• Aspirational OKRs
The idea of committed OKRs

A committed OKRs is an Objective we must achieve and complete, no matter what.
It might be a revenue goal of a retail store, the number of new clients of a sales organization, or
the number of surgeries in a hospital.
In an organization or business, you define a committed Objective if not achieving the Objective
creates big trouble or even threatens the company.
Individuals define a committed Objective, whenever not achieving the Objective will have
negative consequences you might or might not be able to mitigate later.
Sure, a committed Objective can also focus on ‘rewards’, like ‘winning the Champions League’ or
‘becoming the airline with the most passengers’.
The point is: A committed Objective means we do everything we can to bring this Objective to
completion.
The aspirational OKR
The idea of an aspirational Objective is to take us out of our comfort zone, to make us stretch
beyond our current limitations, and force us to rethink what we are doing.
Elon Musks' aspiration to ‘colonize Mars’ is an aspirational Objective. Ok, maybe not for him, but
for most people, it is. They would never even think about such an Objective since they can’t even
fathom getting on a plane to fly to another country.
We know we are defining an aspirational Objective if we raise our eyebrows during the definition
and if we know that we can be over the moon to get to 60% or 70%. And that’s the idea.
Example:
In Measure What Matters John Doerr describes the example of YouTube: They had the ambitious
goal of ‘one billion hours of people watching YouTube every day’. When this goal was defined,
YouTube hat 100 million hours of watch time per day. It was a 10x Objective. Very ambitious.
And it took them 4 years. But that’s the idea of an aspirational Objective.
An aspirational Objective can, of course, be defined on a regular quarterly basis. It simply ‘forces
you to rethink how you work and change it drastically instead of marginally’.
Achieving 70% of an aspirational Objective is a success!
If individuals or teams declare aspirational Objectives, but they almost always achieve 90-100%,
these Objectives are not aspirational enough.
To make it clear: An aspirational Objective can be defined for long-term goals as well as for the
regular cycle of 3 months.
Examples:
• If your team so far published 2 blog posts per month, the Objective ‘Publish 2 blog posts
per week/8 posts per month’ might be very aspirational. And if they manage to publish 6
posts per month, they are very successful!
This is a stretch goal but would be highly motivational if achieved, and even getting to 70% is a
big positive change.
• Personal, aspirational Objective: If you have not been exercising at all for the last 2 years,
the Objective of ‘Exercise for 30 minutes twice per week’ can be exceptionally
aspirational! If you manage to exercise 5 times next month for 20 minutes each, this is a
huge success!
Such an aspirational Objective is much more motivating and inspiring than saying ‘I want to
exercise once per month’. It will be a huge stretch, but it is possible.
Defining ‘Exercise 7 days a week for one hour per day’ in contrast would be a recipe for
disaster and failure.
Committed vs. Aspirational Objectives – The Reality
The idea of committed and aspirational Objectives is great.

Unfortunately, many organizations that used goal setting tied to compensation established a
mindset making it very hard to implement aspirational Objectives!
That’s the reason why most teams and companies struggle to define aspirational Objectives.
Even organizations without any prior goal-setting experience have a hard time. In this case, due
to psychology:
Most people only feel good about a goal if they believe they can achieve it. If they are worried
that they might not achieve it, they fear losing their face, get negative feedback, or are seen as
‘losers’.
Only very few people have the mental strength and self-confidence to handle the ‘failure’ (even if
it is NOT a failure) of not achieving a goal.
Many people might look at an aspirational goal and immediately say, ‘but this is not realistic, we
won’t be able to make it’, and shut down mentally. They might work towards the Objective, but in
reality, they have (at least internally and mentally) already set their goal to a lower target. And
this jeopardizes the idea of acting outside the box, doing things differently, and finding new ways
of working.
Therefore, in reality, aspirational goals often fail for the mentioned reasons.
Experienced and smart people sometimes define goals they declare as aspirational and stretch
goals; they tell you stories about all the things that could go wrong and why this is a very difficult
goal. But in reality, they know quite well how to achieve 100% of that goal.
That’s also not the idea of an aspirational goal.
The recommendation
Many OKR-masters and OKR-coaches will hate me for saying it, but I recommend you focus on
committed OKRs in the beginning and add a little bit of spice in making the Objective or some
Key Results slightly more difficult than in the past.
By doing so, you avoid the mental blocking of Objectives. At a later stage, once OKRs are
established and working with goals is ‘normal’, you can start with aspirational OKRs in some
areas of your business or life.
If you or your organization has a goal-getter mentality, if you are working in a startup, or a sports
team, you can use aspirational OKRs right from the start.
WARNING
In most cases pushing OKRs into an organization by immediately going all-in with aspirational
OKRs will destroy the idea of OKRs and burn this method. It might lead to a situation where you
can’t speak of OKRs anymore for the next two years, because it got such a bad reputation!
How I/we can benefit from aspirational Objectives:
Other thoughts and insights regarding aspirational Objectives:
OKR Checklist
Use this checklist whenever you define OKRs. If you are a manager or support others in defining
OKRs, give them this checklist:
Have I defined not more than 5 Objectives in total?
Have I defined 3-4 (maximum 5) Key Results per Objective?
Can all Key Results be measured in %, on a scale of 0-1, with yes/no, or with a specific
number that needs to be reached?
Do I have the resources, skills, and possibilities to achieve my Key Results?
Do I run a weekly (every 2 weeks at least) progress update and progress documentation
for myself (e.g., calendar entry)?
Have I scheduled an appointment (in my calendar) at the end of each quarter to check,
amend, and define the OKRs for the next OKR cycle?
Can my OKRs be achieved within 3 months?
Are strategic/long-term OKRs broken down into regular OKRs, which can be achieved
within 3 months?
Are at least some of my Key Results challenging and force me to leave my comfort zone?
Practical Tip
Unexperienced OKRusers often define too many Objectives or Key Results or are
overly optimistic when defining them. This is normal and part of the learning
curve when getting to know OKRs.
Write down what you need to take care of or change for the next OKR-cycle when you define
your next OKRs:
What have you done correctly, and how does this help you achieve your goals (= Objectives):
OKR Tools & Template
When using OKRs within an organization and as soon as 8 or more people are actively working
on their own OKRs, I recommend you look at some of the professional OKR tools available, like
Betterworks, Weekdone, Perdoo, etc.
For smaller groups and for individuals getting to know OKRs, you can use MS Excel or Google
Sheets to keep track of OKRs.
You can even build your own document.
No matter how you do it, please take care of these topics:
1. Each KR must have one responsible person
2. Each KR must have a status which is ‘ok’, ‘requires attention’, or ‘at risk’, which must be
updated (bi-)weekly
3. Each KR should have a field for comments
4. For each KR, you must see how it’s measured and what the target is
5. There should be a column for each week as to be able to see the changes in progress
6. When the document is updated, the respective field has to be updated for each KR, no
matter if progress was made or not
7. Everyone should always update the document with the thought in mind ‘if someone else
reads my OKRs, will she be able to understand it and know if I am on track with my OKRs
or where the current problems are’
Even if you use OKRs just for yourself,

update your progress in a way that other people can understand them.
By doing so, it will be easier for your mind to understand it J
I prepared a simple OKR template for you.
You can download the Google Sheet template here: https://www.targetter.de/OKRE-template
You can download an Excel version of this template in the ‘materials’ section of the lecture:
OKR tools (Link to the lecture: https://www.udemy.com/course/okr-101-set-and-achieve-your-
goal/learn/lecture/9632276/)
My Notes and Learnings
My most important learnings regarding OKRs are:
What I need to pay attention to regarding goals, OKRs, follow-ups:
Other topics that came to my mind:
OKR Examples
Selected OKR Examples from the Course
Recruiting
Objective: We only recruit staff who fit the company culture
Key Result 1: I interview all employees who joined within the past 12 months and let them
describe our company culture, what they like about it, what they don’t like, and
ask for specific examples.
The Result of this KR: A document describing the company culture from the
employee’s perspective, including its pros and cons.
Key Result 2: In collaboration with other, more experienced colleagues, I will draft a description
of our culture, which I will use for further job advertisements and interviews.
The Result of this KR: All job advertisements will contain a section regarding the
company culture.
Key Result 3: I will spend at least 30% of the time during the job interview to identify if the
candidates fit our company culture or not.
The Result of this KR: During job interviews, a significant part of the time focuses
on culture
Sales
Objective: Double the sales volume with all my existing clients where we only
receive 5% or less of the total budget the client has available for services like ours
Key Result 1: Identify all clients matching the criteria and schedule a 1-on-1 meeting with key
contacts within the next 4 weeks with each of those clients
The Result of this KR: The relevant customers have been identified and contacted
Key Result 2: Offer additional services to all of these clients with a volume of US$ 1 Million in
total.
The Result of this KR: All clients meeting specific criteria have proactively received
an individual quote/proposal
Key Result 3: Close at least 3 up-selling deals within the next 3 months and use them as
references for other clients.
The Result of this KR: The first 3 sales have been completed
Remark: This Objective might take longer than just one quarter. In that case, the next KRs would not
require any research (like in our example KR1) and could focus on improving the proposals and
closing more deals.
Engineering team
Objective: Be the quality leader in our industry*
Key Result 1: Eliminate the 5 most common quality problems in our production.
The Result of this KR: The 5 most common issues have been identified and
resolved
Key Result 2: Identify 10 areas where competitors’ quality is superior to ours and define action
steps for ourselves.
The Result of this KR: Competitors have been researched, and actions have been
defined (the implementation of these actions might become OKRs for the next
quarter).
Key Result 3: Identify 5 quality issues of our competitors and develop solutions to be the role
model in those areas.
The Result of this KR: These issues have been identified, and solutions have been
developed (the implementation of these solutions might either be standard or
require new OKR(s) in the upcoming cycle)
*the way how this is measured needs to be clear for the engineers; it might be an annual study
performed by an industry association
People development in a technical department
Objective: Be the most attractive engineering department in the industry*
Key Result 1: Increase ‘ready to be promoted’ rate for engineers from 3% to 25%
The Result of this KR: This KR is based on the idea that offering attractive career
paths for engineers will attract new talents; to achieve the KR, the training for
engineers needs to focus on more than just technical expertise.
Key Result 2: Secure funding from VP of Innovation for individual coaching sessions for 10 best
engineers
The Result of this KR: This KR is based on the idea of ‘excellence’ and supporting
top talents to become even better would be both attractive for current employees
and their own careers and attract new talents; the 10 top engineers receive
coaching to improve even further.
Key Result 3: Increase the employee engagement rate from 25% to 70%
The Result of this KR: Apparently, the engagement rate is very low; this KR
requires to identify the reasons for a lack of engagement and tackle them.
Key Result 4: Establish an attractive ‘expert career’ path in addition to a traditional leadership
path
The Result of this KR: This KR is based on the belief that engineers not always
want to have a ‘classic’ career of becoming a manager and rather want to become
experts; the result will establish this option and create another reason for
external talents to join the company
*the way how this is measured needs to be stated, like the results of the study of a university
Typical Questions Regarding the Examples
Two of the most common questions I receive regarding the examples in the course is:
1. ‘Axel, this KR looks like a task and not like a Key Result’
2. ‘Axel, this KR looks like a hypothesis that might lead to achieving the Objective. But it’s not
guaranteed.’
My answers:
1. These examples are examples. They are just a snippet where we lack tons of information
about the company, previous actions, etc. But all of the KRs mentioned are, in fact, KRs
for one simple reason:
They can’t be completed with one single action (like making a phone call). They always
require multiple tasks to be completed.
Depending on the skill, experience, resources, etc., of the person responsible for the KR,
what looks like one task to you, could be a big and challenging journey for someone else.
2. In almost all cases achieving an Objective is not like following a recipe to make banana
bread. Very often, we make assumptions that taking several specific actions will lead to
the desired outcome – but only if we act we will know, if they do or not.
(By the way: Even if you have a recipe for banana bread, you can mess it up. At least I
personally can 🙈 )
Further examples
These are just a few of many examples from different industries you find throughout the course.
Please have a look at them and use the ones most applicable to you.
My Notes & Learnings
Please write down your remarks or insights you gained due to these examples.
OKRs – Conclusion & Next Steps

I recommend that at the end of the course, you sit down for 15 - 20 minutes on your own and in
an environment where you can focus best to
• gather the insights you have gained
• and define concrete measures you will implement
My top three insights on how I can benefit from goal setting with OKRs:
My most important insights from this course in general:
The biggest benefits of using OKRs for my team/my organization:
The biggest challenges for me using OKRs and how I can solve them:
Challenge Solutions
The biggest challenges for my team/organization using OKRs and how we/I can solve
them:
Challenge Solutions
Things I will do now, no matter what:
Other notes:
The following individuals would benefit from this course, and I will bring it to their
attention:
You can share this link with them:
https://www.targetter.de/OKR101-recommendation

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OKR GOAL SETTING 101

Achieve more goals than ever! Faster!

Your workbook to make you a master of OKRs

You will find:

Thank you very much

Goal setting – Warm-up Exercise

My five most important (work-related) goals:

Goal My goal Due date Last time I

I have too many goals

The best outcome for me personally would be:

It would have the following impact on me / my team / my organization / my personal life:

Ten biggest mistakes when defining goals (in general)

The ten most common mistakes are:

1. You have goals – but no specific plan, how to get there.

10. You don‘t set any goals at all.

In case you make one or more of these mistakes, write down

a. which mistake you make and

I/we make The impact on success, effectiveness, motivation, …

OKR 101 – The Fundamentals

The Objective is the goal you want to achieve. That’s it.

An Objective is the answer to the question:

Where do I need/want to go?

Everyone working towards an Objective needs to understand:

1. what the Objective really means,

An Objective does not define HOW we get to the goal.

Defining a one-word-objective usually means:

‘I really don’t know what my Objective is,

Problematic Objective Good Objective

Ambiguity of goal definitions (= Objectives)

• If it’s (more or less) what you had in mind: Perfect.

What are Key Results?

If you achieve the Key Results, you achieve your Objective.

Key rules for Key Results:

Issue What it means and what you should do

Key Result is a task If a Key Result can be completed by doing

• If she can’t: Rephrase it

Essential Rules when Defining OKRs

• At any time, your maximum number of Objectives is 5

Difference Between OKRs & SMART Goals

SMART goals are

All of that is great.

But after defining a SMART goal, you are left alone.

OKR Follow-Ups & Reviews

At least every other week, you need to:

At the end of each OKR cycle (after 3 months):

1. You evaluate what you achieved

4. Objectives with a substantial number of incomplete tasks (like a 70 – 90% completion

Time requirements for quarterly review & planning session

Tip: Having an experienced OKR user moderate those sessions is recommended.

Insights from my work as an OKR advisor:

Time: Ø Update progress of Ø Remove Key Result from

My Notes and Learnings

My most important learnings regarding the fundamentals of OKRs are:

Comparing OKRs to what I do so far or did in the past, I notice:

Other topics that came to my mind:

OKR Lessons Learned

Lessons Learned for new OKR users

Or let’s put it in a way I prefer:

you are learning.