OKR Examples by Team: 20 Objectives and Key Results

Most teams new to OKRs get stuck at the same point. The objective is easy to write ("grow revenue", "improve hiring"), but the key results come out as a to-do list or a copy of last quarter's KPIs with "increase" in front of them.

Examples help, as long as you understand why each one works. This guide gives 20 OKR examples across ten functions, from sales and engineering to HR and finance, and explains the reasoning behind each set of key results so you can adapt them rather than paste them.

A note on method: the definitions and scoring guidance below come from primary sources, mainly Google's re:Work guide, the What Matters site founded by John Doerr, and a UK government team's published account of using OKRs. We checked every source in November 2026. The examples themselves are our own illustrations. The targets in them are placeholders that show the shape of a good key result; they are not benchmarks, and you should set your own from your baseline data.

What is an OKR?

An OKR (objective and key results) is a goal made of two parts: an objective that says what you want to achieve, and two to five key results that measure whether you achieved it. The objective is qualitative and directional. The key results are numeric and can be checked at the end of the period.

What Matters, the OKR site founded by John Doerr, defines an objective as "simply what is to be achieved, no more and no less" and says effective key results are "specific, time-bound, and aggressive yet realistic". It offers a one-line template that is still the quickest test of a draft:

I will (Objective) as measured by (Key Results).

The UK Department for Work and Pensions' digital team put it even more simply in a 2018 post about setting community OKRs: "The objective is the high-level ambition or aspiration. The key result is how we measure that objective."

If you are deciding between OKRs and other goal formats, our comparison of OKRs and SMART goals covers when each fits. For rolling OKRs out across a company, from pilot to quarterly rhythm, see the OKR implementation guide.

What makes a good OKR example?

Before the examples, four rules that the primary sources agree on. Each example below is written to follow them.

Keep the numbers small

Google's re:Work guide advises teams to "pick just three to five objectives" and to set "around three key results per objective". What Matters suggests three to five key results per objective. The DWP team used three objectives and said they "didn't want to have more than 5". Fewer OKRs means each one gets real attention.

Measure outcomes, not activity

A key result should describe a change in the world, not a task you will complete. "Run six webinars" is an activity. "Generate 150 sales-qualified leads from webinars" is an outcome. Some activity-based key results are acceptable when you are doing something for the first time and have no baseline, but they should be the exception.

Make the targets ambitious, then score honestly

Google grades OKRs from 0 to 1.0. Its re:Work guide says the "sweet spot" is 60% to 70%, and that the expectation is "an average of 0.6 to 0.7 across all OKRs". What Matters' guide to grading OKRs distinguishes two kinds:

• Committed OKRs are things that must happen. "Your Committed OKRs should hit a score of 1.0, or 100 percent."
• Aspirational OKRs are stretch goals, judged by the average across all of them. Consistently scoring 100% is a sign of sandbagging.

Label each OKR as committed or aspirational when you write it. It changes how people read the score.

Keep OKRs out of individual ratings

Google's guide states that "OKRs are not synonymous with employee evaluations" and are not "a comprehensive means to evaluate an individual". If people expect their rating or bonus to depend on hitting 1.0, they will set safe targets and the system stops working. Use OKRs as one input to a performance review, alongside the quality of the work and how someone worked with others, not as the score itself.

Sales OKR examples

A sales OKR should focus on what needs to change to hit quota, not restate the quota.

Example 1: Grow revenue from mid-market accounts (aspirational)

• Increase new mid-market annual contract value from $X to $Y this quarter.
• Raise the win rate on mid-market opportunities from X% to Y%.
• Cut the average sales cycle for mid-market deals from X to Y days.

Why it works: the first key result is the outcome; the second and third are the levers that produce it. If revenue grows but win rate does not, you learn that the gain came from more pipeline, not better selling.

Example 2: Build a predictable pipeline (committed)

• Every account executive enters the quarter with pipeline worth at least 3x their quota.
• Forecast accuracy at week 6 is within 10% of the final result.
• 100% of opportunities over $X have a documented next step and close date in the CRM.

Why it works: it is committed because a forecast you cannot rely on is a problem, not a missed stretch.

Marketing OKR examples

Example 3: Become the first choice for [audience] researching [category] (aspirational)

• Increase organic sessions to product and comparison pages from X to Y per month.
• Grow the share of demo requests that come from organic search from X% to Y%.
• Publish and get indexed eight pages that answer the top buyer questions from sales call notes.

Why it works: it ties content work to pipeline instead of traffic alone. The third key result is activity-based, which is acceptable here because the first two measure whether it worked.

Example 4: Give sales better leads, not more leads (committed)

• Raise the marketing-qualified to sales-qualified conversion rate from X% to Y%.
• Agree a written lead definition with sales leadership by week 3.
• Reduce median lead response time from X hours to under Y hours.

Why it works: it is a shared outcome with sales. When two teams own the same key result, write it in both teams' OKRs so neither can declare success alone.

Engineering OKR examples

Engineering teams often struggle to find outcome measures beyond "ship feature X". The DORA research program publishes five software delivery metrics: change lead time, deployment frequency, failed deployment recovery time, change fail rate and deployment rework rate. They make useful key results because they measure the delivery system, not individual output.

Example 5: Ship changes faster without breaking more (aspirational)

• Reduce change lead time from X days to Y days.
• Increase deployment frequency from weekly to daily for the three core services.
• Keep change fail rate at or below its current X%.

Why it works: the third key result is a guardrail. Without it, the team could hit the first two by cutting testing, and the OKR would reward that.

Example 6: Make the platform reliable enough that customers stop noticing it (committed)

• Meet the 99.9% availability target for the checkout API every month of the quarter.
• Cut failed deployment recovery time from X hours to under Y minutes.
• Close all priority-1 items from the last three incident reviews.

Why it works: scoring 0.7 on availability is not a success, so this is labelled committed.

Product OKR examples

Example 7: Help new users reach first value faster (aspirational)

• Raise the share of new accounts that complete the core action in their first 7 days from X% to Y%.
• Cut median time from sign-up to first completed action from X days to Y days.
• Raise 30-day retention for new accounts from X% to Y%.

Why it works: the first two are leading indicators the team can move within a quarter. The third is the lagging result they are meant to drive.

Example 8: Learn whether [segment] will pay for [feature] (aspirational)

• Interview 15 customers in the segment and document their current workaround.
• Ship a prototype to 50 accounts and measure weekly use.
• Reach a clear go/no-go decision, signed off by the head of product, by week 10.

Why it works: discovery work does not fit revenue key results, so this OKR measures learning and forces a decision.

Customer support OKR examples

Example 9: Resolve customer problems on first contact (aspirational)

• Raise the first-contact resolution rate from X% to Y%.
• Cut repeat contacts about the same issue within 7 days from X% to Y%.
• Keep customer satisfaction (CSAT) at or above X%.

Why it works: first-contact resolution is a better outcome measure than ticket volume or handle time, both of which can be gamed. CSAT acts as the guardrail.

Example 10: Stop the top three causes of tickets (committed)

• Identify the top three ticket drivers from last quarter's data and publish them by week 2.
• Agree a fix with the owning product team for each one by week 4.
• Reduce tickets from those three causes by 30% by quarter end.

Why it works: support teams see problems before anyone else. This OKR turns that knowledge into product changes instead of leaving support to absorb the volume.

HR and people team OKR examples

Much HR work is ongoing service, so pick the one or two things the business most needs from HR this quarter and write OKRs only for those.

Gallup's research gives HR teams a useful anchor: employees whose manager involved them in setting goals were nearly four times more likely to be engaged than other employees. That makes "goals set with, not for, employees" a reasonable thing for a people team to measure.

Example 11: Make goal-setting a real conversation (aspirational)

• 90% of employees have goals agreed with their manager in the first three weeks of the quarter.
• 80% of employees say in the pulse survey that they helped set their own goals.
• 85% of managers hold at least one goal check-in per direct report mid-quarter.

Why it works: the second key result checks, from the employee's side, that the conversation actually happened.

Example 12: Cut early attrition among new hires (aspirational)

• Reduce 90-day voluntary attrition from X% to Y%.
• 95% of new hires have a 30-day check-in with their manager.
• Raise new-hire onboarding survey scores from X to Y out of 5.

Why it works: early leavers are expensive to replace and often leave for fixable reasons. Gallup reports that 42% of employees who voluntarily left said their manager or organization could have done something to prevent it.

Example 13: Run a review cycle managers do not dread (committed)

• 100% of reviews completed by the deadline.
• Average manager time per review falls from X to Y hours.
• 70% of employees say their review reflected their work fairly, up from X%.

Why it works: completion is committed; fairness is the real outcome. If you are redesigning the process, our guide to the performance management cycle covers each stage.

Operations OKR examples

Example 14: Ship orders on time, every time (committed)

• On-time shipment rate of 98% or higher every week of the quarter.
• Reduce order errors from X per 1,000 to Y per 1,000.
• Zero weeks with a backlog older than 48 hours.

Why it works: customers do not care that you hit 70% of your shipping target.

Example 15: Lower cost to serve without hurting service (aspirational)

• Cut fulfillment cost per order from $X to $Y.
• Automate two manual steps in the returns process.
• Keep the on-time shipment rate at or above 98%.

Finance OKR examples

Example 16: Close the books faster (aspirational)

• Reduce month-end close from X business days to Y.
• Cut manual journal entries by 40%.
• Zero material audit adjustments in the quarter.

Example 17: Give budget holders numbers they can act on (committed)

• Deliver budget-vs-actual reports to every department head by day 5 of each month.
• 100% of department heads review their report in a monthly 30-minute meeting.
• Variance explanations recorded for every line over 10%.

Why it works: both finance examples measure what finance gives the rest of the business, which is how finance teams earn influence.

Company-level OKR example

Example 18: Become profitable on a monthly basis (committed)

• Reach positive operating cash flow in at least two of the three months.
• Grow gross margin from X% to Y%.
• Hold headcount growth to the approved plan.

Why it works: company OKRs should be few, and each one should be broad enough that several teams can write OKRs that ladder up to it.

The City of Syracuse, New York, published an OKR on What Matters with the objective "achieve fiscal sustainability", with key results including reducing its general fund budget variance from 11% to 5% and spending 95% of authorized capital project dollars by fiscal year-end. It is a good public-sector example of a broad objective made concrete.

Manager and personal OKR examples

Example 19: Build a team that can run without me for two weeks (aspirational)

• Each direct report has a written development goal agreed in a one-on-one by week 2.
• Two team members can run the weekly planning meeting without help.
• Hold a one-on-one every two weeks with every direct report, with no more than one skipped per person.

Why it works: manager OKRs should be about the team's capability, not the manager's own output. Our one-on-one meeting guide has agendas that fit this kind of goal.

Example 20: Learn a new skill that the job will need next year (aspirational)

The DWP team's personal example is a good model: objective "Increase my understanding of user centered design", with key results including attending "at least 2 hours of user research every month" and completing a course. A version for an HR generalist might be:

• Complete a recognized people analytics course by week 10.
• Build one dashboard the leadership team uses in its monthly meeting.
• Present one finding from that dashboard that changes a decision.

Common mistakes in OKR examples (and how to fix them)

1. The task list. "Launch the new careers page. Run three webinars. Hire a recruiter." These are projects. Ask "so that what happens?" and write that down as the key result.
2. The KPI in disguise. If a metric is healthy and you only want to keep it there, it is a KPI to monitor, not an OKR. Use OKRs for the things you want to change.
3. Too many OKRs. Five objectives with five key results each is 25 things to track.
4. No baseline. "Improve CSAT to 90%" means nothing if you do not know whether you are at 89% or 60%. Every key result should have a starting point.
5. No guardrail. If a key result can be hit by doing something harmful, add a second key result that protects against it, as in examples 5, 9 and 15.
6. Nobody checks in. For quarterly OKRs, a short check-in every two to four weeks keeps them alive.
7. OKRs used as the rating. Keep them as an input to reviews, not the verdict.

How to turn these examples into your own OKRs

1. Start from company priorities. Pick the one or two company objectives your team most affects.
2. Draft the objective in plain words. If someone outside the team cannot understand it, rewrite it.
3. Write three key results, each with a baseline and a target. Use the "as measured by" test from What Matters.
4. Add a guardrail where needed.
5. Label each OKR committed or aspirational.
6. Make it visible. Google's guide says "OKRs are public so that everyone in the organization can see what others are working on."
7. Check in on a fixed rhythm and score honestly at the end.

Our free OKR template has columns for baseline, target, owner, type and check-in notes, so you can drop any of the examples above straight into it. If you also need individual goals that sit outside the OKR system, the goal-setting guide covers SMART goals and when to use them. And if you outgrow a spreadsheet, our roundup of the best OKR software compares tools that handle alignment and check-ins.

Frequently asked questions

How many key results should an OKR have?

Usually three. Google's re:Work guide recommends "around three key results per objective" and What Matters suggests three to five. More than five usually means the objective is too broad.

What is a good OKR score?

For aspirational OKRs, Google treats an average of 0.6 to 0.7 as the target. For committed OKRs, What Matters says the score should be 1.0. Consistently scoring 1.0 on aspirational OKRs means they are not ambitious enough.

What is the difference between an OKR and a KPI?

A KPI is a metric you monitor all the time to check the health of the business. An OKR is a time-bound goal to change something. A KPI can become a key result when you set out to move it, then go back to being a KPI once it is where you want it.

Should OKRs be linked to bonuses?

Google's guidance says OKRs "are not synonymous with employee evaluations". Tying pay directly to scores encourages safe targets. Most teams use OKR progress as one input to a review rather than a formula for pay.