Ok let’s get two things out of the way. Firstly, stealing is wrong (generally speaking). Secondly, when it comes to OKRs, stealing the ideas and inspiration behind them should be your main focus. Every company and business is unique and operates differently. OKR examples and templates should serve to guide you rather than simply being “copied and pasted”.
Below we have eight functions (or departments) and OKR examples you can steal reference when using the framework.
Once again, every company or business is different, so certain OKRs may not apply directly to yours. See how they fit into your business unit and tweak if necessary.
When setting and planning OKRs, remember not to make these common OKR mistakes:
- Making your OKRs too easy (create stretch goals)
- Owning too many OKRs per quarter (less is more)
- Creating OKRs that aren’t aligned to the larger goals of the company
Finally, remember to meet regularly to review progress
Let’s begin!
Functions/Departments:
- Company / Management
- Marketing
- Sales / Business Development
- Engineering
- Product / Design
- Customer Support / Service
- HR (Human Resources) / People Ops
- Finance
Company/Management
You’re either the CEO or part of the management team (C-level / VPs / Directors / Heads), and already know how OKRs can benefit your company. You think big, and help define the overall vision of your company as well as the larger goals of the business.
Your role is extremely crucial for OKR success, because the top-level objectives you set will serve as a guidepost to the rest of the teams when creating their OKRs. Without your direction, everyone else’s OKRs will be siloed and misaligned.
If that’s kinda you, here are some Company OKR / Management OKR examples. See how they fit into your business and tweak if necessary.
OKR Examples:
Objective: Take our company to the next level
- Key Result 1: Raise $5 million in VC investment
- Key Result 2: Triple our total headcount across all functions
- Key Result 3: Launch 3 new game changing products
|
Objective: Become a globally competitive business
- Key Result 1: Launch offices in 6 new countries across USA, Europe and Asia
- Key Result 2: Hit 10,000 paying customers
- Key Result 3: Cross $5,000,000 in monthly recurring revenue
|
Objective: Become a truly profitable business
- Key Result 1: Increase monthly revenue by 35%
- Key Result 2: Cut company operational expenses by 15%
- Key Result 3: Reduce customer churn by 15%
|
Objective: Be seen and known as an industry leader
- Key Result 1: Secure 10 speaking engagements
- Key Result 2: Garner 3 awards and accolades
- Key Result 3: Get featured in 3 tier 1 publications
|
Objective: Build loyal and happy customers
- Key Result 1: Receive 500 more positive reviews from customers
- Key Result 2: Achieve Net Promoter Score of 50 or better
- Key Result 3: Boost customer retention to over 90%
|
Objective: Raise $5,000,000 in Series B funding
- Key Result 1: Shortlist 20 VCs to pitch to
- Key Result 2: Secure 8 initial meetings
- Key Result 3: Secure 3 term sheets
|
Objective: Become a great company for top talent to work in
- Key Result 1: Offer salaries and benefits above market rates (70th percentile)
- Key Result 2: Create 5 employee Learning & Development programs
- Key Result 3: Maintain a weekly employee satisfaction score of at least 80%
|
Objective: Become an environmentally conscious and sustainable business
- Key Result 1: Reduce carbon footprint by 15%
- Key Result 2: Get 70% of employees to participate in Green CSR programs
- Key Result 3: Reduce electric consumption by 20%
|
Objective: Pivot the business successfully
- Key Result 1: Restructure all roles and retain at least 80% of talent
- Key Result 2: Move the new product from Beta to Generally Available (GA)
- Key Result 3: Launch a PR campaign and get covered in 8 publications
|
See other functions ↑
Marketing
You’re part of the team that showcases your company’s products or services to the world. You are creative, analytical, and have a love-hate relationship with the Sales team.
You help define the brand of your company as well as how its positioned in the minds of your target audience. Capturing their attention and getting them through the door is your top priority. Getting more with less is what ultimately determines marketing success.
If that’s kinda you, here are some Marketing OKR examples. See how they fit into your business and tweak if necessary.
OKR Examples:
Content Marketing
Objective: Build an engaging blog with high quality content
- Key Result 1: Increase blog traffic by 20%
- Key Result 2: Increase dwell time by 30%
- Key Result 3: Reduce bounce rate by 15%
|
Advertising / Demand Generation
Objective: Increase effectiveness of our Google Ads
- Key Result 1: Create 12 more ad variations across all campaign to A/B test
- Key Result 2: Increase average click-through-rate by 15%
- Key Result 3: Lower the cost per conversion rate by 10%
Objective: Create a high-performing marketing funnel
- Key Result 1: Increase the number of monthly website visitors by 20%
- Key Result 2: Increase click-through-rates by 15%
- Key Result 3: Convert 25% of website visitors into trial customers
|
Field Marketing / Events
Objective: Organize a successful industry conference
- Key Result 1: Achieve 90% attendance rate
- Key Result 2: Create a hashtag campaign that gets over 100 social mentions
- Key Result 3: Generate a minimum of 80 MQLs
|
Social Media
Objective: Increase social media engagement
- Key Result 1: Get 25% more likes, comments, and shares across all social channels
- Key Result 2: Increase the number of followers across each platform by 20%
- Key Result 3: Get 100 visitors to our website via our new series of Instagram Stories
|
SEO
Objective: Improve our Google search rankings
- Key Result 1: Get 10 new backlinks from relevant websites with domain authority scores over 70%
- Key Result 2: Conduct on-page optimization for our 10 most visited webpages
- Key Result 3: Increase our website loading speed and get over 80% on Google’s PageSpeed Insights
|
Product Marketing
Objective: Create pre-launch buzz for our new product
- Key Result 1: Increase engagement on all social media channels by 15%
- Key Result 2: Achieve product mentions by 10 high-quality influencers
- Key Result 3: Create a viral social media campaign that gets at least 50 shares
Objective: Launch new product successfully
- Key Result 1: Publish 5 success stories from pre-launch beta users
- Key Result 2: Get 100 signups within the first week of launch
- Key Result 3: Get press coverage on 3 major publications
|
See other functions ↑
Sales/Business Development
You’re the lifeblood of the business. You help put food on the table. Marketing is your best friend (or worst enemy depending on how you look at it).
You hustle and weave your way into the right conversations that ultimately turn into sales and revenue for the organization. You live and die by numbers, and will do anything to grow the business (and the size of your pocket).
If that’s kinda you, here are some Sales OKR / Business Development OKR examples. See how they fit into your business and tweak if necessary.
OKR Examples:
Objective: Grow sales in APAC
- Key Result 1: Increase the sales pipeline for Singapore, Hong Kong, and Vietnam by 15%
- Key Result 2: Hire 5 more sales reps (based in Singapore)
- Key Result 3: Secure strategic partnerships with 3 resellers
|
Objective: Streamline sales analytics reporting for better insight generation
- Key Result 1: Test and shortlist 5 sales analytics software
- Key Result 2: Migrate all sales data to the software of choice (with CEO’s approval)
- Key Result 3: Train 100% of the sales team over 3 hands-on sessions
|
Objective: Achieve record revenues in Q4
- Key Result 1: Convert 20% of existing customers to a higher tier plan
- Key Result 2: Convert 100 SQLs into paying customers
- Key Result 3: Hit quarterly revenue of $100,000 within the first 60 days
|
Objective: Break into the UK market
- Key Result 1: Hire 3 UK-based sales reps with enterprise sales experience
- Key Result 2: Secure strategic partnerships with 5 UK resellers
- Key Result 3: Set up preliminary meetings with 30 named accounts
|
Objective: Increase our sales pipeline
- Key Result 1: Identify 500 potential leads via LinkedIn
- Key Result 2: Get on calls with 100 qualified leads
- Key Result 3: Set up 30 sales meetings for the Sales Managers
|
Objective: Improve the quality and readiness of the sales team
- Key Result 1: All 10 sales reps to have attended the sales training course
- Key Result 2: 7 sales reps to have scored 80% and above on the product demo test
- Key Result 3: 7 sales reps to have built up their own target list of 100 leads
|
See other functions ↑
Engineering
You’re the true builder in the organization. You think in code and have “dark mode” on your desktop screen permanently enabled. Product is your best friend (sorta) and the word “security” makes you break out in cold sweat.
You help bring concepts to life. Being extremely optimized when building is key to constantly pushing out cool new s*** on time. Without you, everyone else in the company will be out of a job.
If that’s kinda you, here are some Engineering OKR examples. See how they fit into your business and tweak if necessary.
OKR Examples:
Objective: Build a world-class engineering team
- Key Result 1: Hire 5 more engineers each with a min of 10 years experience
- Key Result 2: Get 70% of engineers retrained and certified
- Key Result 3: Send 50% of engineers to the Google developer conference
|
Objective: Make our data security bulletproof
- Key Result 1: Reduce data breaches to zero
- Key Result 2: Increase data recovery rate to 100%
- Key Result 3: Decrease data migration and backup time by 50%
|
Objective: Improve the quality of product updates
- Key Result 1: Reduce bugs found during development process by 20%
- Key Result 2: Increase sprint capacity from 45% to 65%
- Key Result 3: Improve unit testing coverage from 60% to 70%
|
Objective: Updating legacy solutions
- Key Result 1: Trial and identify one software to replace legacy systems
- Key Result 2: Train all engineers to be adept at the new software
- Key Result 3: Improve operational efficiency of the team by 15%
|
See other functions ↑
Product/Design
You’re the hipster that straddles between being technical and creative. You help determine what the product should look like, and chart its future.
You love saying “put yourself in the customer’s shoes” and draining most of your budget on colourful post-it notes and markers. Being customer-focused and loving to talk to them is crucial to helping you understand what the product should really look like.
If that’s kinda you, here are some Product OKR / Design OKR examples. See how they fit into your business and tweak if necessary.
OKR Examples:
Objective: Improve the user onboarding experience
- Key Result 1: Reduce drop-off within the first 3 steps by 50%
- Key Result 2: Increase users who completed the entire onboarding by 30%
- Key Result 3: Increase active users within the first week by 20%
|
Objective: Improve product development efficiency
- Key Result 1: Increase sprint team velocity from 42 to 60 points
- Key Result 2: Increase unit-test coverage from 35% to 45%
- Key Result 3: Reduce bugs found post-release by 35%
|
Objective: Validate new product feature
- Key Result 1: Launch MVP (working prototype)
- Key Result 2: Interview 20 existing customers and showcase feature
- Key Result 3: Get 15 existing customers committed to use the feature
|
Objective: Launch new product successfully
- Key Result 1: Activate 80% of pre-launch subscribers
- Key Result 2: Get 5 customer success stories published on the blog
- Key Result 3: Get featured on Product Hunt
|
Objective: Redesign landing page to drive conversions
- Key Result 1: Produce 5 design variations
- Key Result 2: Test designs on 20 users and decide on final version
- Key Result 3: Publish new landing page and increase conversions by 10%
|
See other functions ↑
Customer Support/Service
You’re part of the team that takes care of the most important group of people – your customers. You communicate better, and resolve issues more effectively than most people could.
You’re likely an ENFJ and grew up wanting to be either a fire fighter or hostage negotiator. Your spouse/partner is sick you mumbling “let me see how I can help you” in your sleep.
If that’s kinda you, here are some Customer Support OKR / Customer Service OKR examples. See how they fit into your business and tweak if necessary.
OKR Examples:
Objective: Deliver world-class customer support experiences
- Key Result 1: Achieve a CSAT of 90% for all tier-1 tickets
- Key Result 2: Troubleshoot 80% of tier-1 issues within one hour
- Key Result 3: All support reps to have a personal CSAT score of at least 80%
|
Objective: Expand support coverage across the region
- Key Result 1: Launch support in 3 more languages: German, French, and Spanish
- Key Result 2: Increase overall capacity by hiring 50 new agents across Europe
- Key Result 3: Deploy a multilingual chatbot that can support at least 70% of queries
|
Objective: Improve support with new existing customers
- Key Result 1: Install an in-app chatbot that is manned 24/7
- Key Result 2: Reduce average response time to customers by 70%
- Key Result 3: Reduce Time to Resolution by 35%
|
See other functions ↑
HR (Human Resources)/People Ops
You’re part of the team responsible for finding the right people and setting the right culture for the company. Reading and understanding people is your superpower and you’ve never fallen prey to catfishes on Tinder.
People go to you when they have problems and you’re everyone’s best friend when they first get hired. You’re also privy to every little employee secret (dirty or not) and sometimes just want to scream it all out (but alas, can’t).
If that’s kinda you, here are some HR OKR / People Ops OKR examples. See how they fit into your business and tweak if necessary.
OKR Examples:
Objective: Develop the best employee onboarding experience
- Key Result 1: Improving employee onboarding satisfaction rate by 15%
- Key Result 2: Reduce new hire 90-days failure rate by 30%
- Key Result 3: Improve retention rate per department/manager by 10%
|
Objective: Offer competitive compensation and benefits
- Key Result 1: Increase salary competitiveness ratio from 1.0 to 1.2
- Key Result 2: Increase healthcare expense per employee by 20%
- Key Result 3: Introduce an employee stock option scheme (ESOP)
|
Objective: Create a diverse and inclusive work environment
- Key Result 1: 100% completion rate of diversity and inclusion training for new hires
- Key Result 2: Increase diversity index for leadership levels from 0.25 to 0.5
- Key Result 3: Increase employee inclusion index to 70% or more
|
Objective: Create a highly-skilled and talented workforce
- Key Result 1: Introduce 5 new training programmes based on company strategy
- Key Result 2: Increase the % of employees taking self-development programs by 25%
- Key Result 3: Launch weekly Lunch and Learn sessions for 12 weeks straight
|
Objective: Make our company the place-to-be for employees
- Key Result 1: Increase employee satisfaction index from 60 to 80
- Key Result 2: Improve employee engagement score and employe satisfaction by 20%
- Key Result 3: Be featured as one of the top 50 startups to work for in Startup World
|
See other functions ↑
Finance
You’re part of the team responsible for ensuring that everything with a “$” is accurate. You love numbers, manage budgets and are the gatekeeper to company funds – which makes you one of the most powerful (or dangerous) people in the company.
Determining the true health of the business and where it is headed is your team’s true north. You also sometimes wonder if you have more spreadsheet tabs open than friends.
If that’s kinda you, here are some Finance OKR examples. See how they fit into your business and tweak if necessary.
OKR Examples:
Objective: Improve financial reporting efficiency
- Key Result 1: Reduce late reports incidents by 50%
- Key Result 2: Minimize bookkeeping errors by 30%
- Key Result 3: Reduce time-to-close of monthly books by 20%
|
Objective: Raise capital for growth needs
- Key Result 1: Reach out to 30 VCs and get at least 15 initial meetings
- Key Result 2: Get at least 8 second contact meetings
- Key Result 3: Secure 3 term sheets for $2 million in funding
|
Objective: Improve tax compliance
- Key Result 1: Reduce audit adjustments by 3%
- Key Result 2: Reduce the number of tax-related complaints from 4 to 2 per month
- Key Result 3: Reduce the number of accounts payable by 7%
|
Objective: Make reimbursements and operational finance solutions more accessible
- Key Result 1: Digitalise 90% of expense claims from staff
- Key Result 2: Ensure 80% of expense claims are submitted on time
- Key Result 3: Automate 100% of invoicing and follow-ups
|
See other functions ↑
SugarOKR is a beautifully simple and easy-to-use free OKR management tool that helps teams unlock the full potential of OKRs, while staying focused and motivated. To find out how your company can win with OKRs, visit us at sugarokr.com.