OKRs—Objectives and Key Results—have become a popular goal-setting
framework in tech and beyond. They were designed to bridge the gap between
strategy and execution, promising focus, alignment, and accountability. But
too often, they’ve turned into something else entirely: a quarterly ritual
of checklists, dashboards, and performance metrics that smother the original
intent.
I’ve seen it happen in organizations big and small. Goals are written
down, but nothing really changes. Teams comply at best—or disengage
completely.
This article is my response. It’s about the teams that break that
pattern—the ones that use OKRs not as a management tool, but as a way to own
outcomes, align with strategy, and deliver real results in the messy,
wonderful reality of building products and serving customers.
Common Pitfalls of OKRs in Practice
OKRs are everywhere. From startups to large enterprises, they show up in
kickoff meetings, dashboards, and strategy documents.
But in many organizations I’ve worked with, OKRs rarely change how teams
actually work—or deliver.
Too often, goals are written down but fail to drive action. Why? Because
they’re imposed from above. Leadership defines objectives and key results,
hands them down, and expects teams to execute.
Sometimes these OKRs are nothing more than KPIs with new labels. Other
times, they’re vague slogans—disconnected from real work. Either way, the
result is the same: teams don’t own the goals. Without ownership, they comply
at best—or disengage entirely. True commitment is rare.
When OKRs are handed down instead of co-created, they lose their power.
Rather than driving focus and adaptation, they become static artifacts—another
checkbox in a quarterly ritual.
This isn’t the only way it can go. I’ve worked with teams that broke the
pattern. Not by waiting for someone to hand them better goals—but by stepping
up, defining their own, and owning the outcomes.
These teams didn’t treat OKRs like checklists or dashboards. They made them
part of how they think, plan, and deliver every day.
High performing teams own the outcome
At ThoughtWorks, I facilitated hundreds of Lean Inceptions with
cross-functional teams—developers, designers, product managers, and analysts.
Each session pulsed with energy as people collaborated, shared ideas, and
challenged assumptions.
In the highest-performing teams, however, something stood out. They didn’t
just talk about features or delivery dates; they could clearly answer four key
questions:
- What is the organization’s strategic goal?
- What part of this strategy is relevant to us?
- What can we really move this quarter?
- How will we know we’re making progress?
These answers weren’t vague. They were specific and grounded. As a result,
these teams connected their daily work to broader outcomes—and it showed.
Their decisions were sharper, their priorities clearer, and their code
delivered real results.
This shift—from executing tasks to pursuing purpose—changed everything.
That’s where Team OKRs live: in high-performing teams that connect their goals
to real outcomes. But a Team OKR is never a standalone exercise. It’s a
bridge—helping teams deliver on the organization’s strategy while staying
grounded in what they can influence and achieve together.
Bridging the Gap: Strategy and Team OKRs
Team autonomy doesn’t have to mean isolation, and strategic alignment
doesn’t require command and control. Yet in many organizations, these two
ideas often clash.
Leadership sets strategic priorities and expects teams to “align.” Teams,
meanwhile, define OKRs they believe matter—but these don’t always map to the
bigger picture. The result is misalignment, frustration, and wasted
energy.
Great teams and great leaders bridge that gap by meeting in the middle.
Strategy provides direction; Team OKRs create commitment.
This isn’t a cascade. It’s a conversation.
Figure 1: Top-down OKR & a common
pitfall: OKRs defined at the top, broken into parts, and pushed down.
In high-performing environments, leadership shares intent—the challenges to
solve, the opportunities to seize, the metrics to move. Teams listen, reflect,
and define what they will own. As one team might frame it:
“Based on what we know and can influence, here’s what we believe we can
achieve—and how we’ll measure progress.”
Here, ownership isn’t assigned; it’s assumed. Team OKRs enable not just
strategic compliance but strategic contribution.
Figure 2: Alignment Over Cascading: The shift from cascading goals to
collaborative alignment around strategic objectives.
What Makes Team OKRs Different
Team OKRs aren’t assigned, nor are they dropped into trackers by
leadership. They’re assumed—created by the team, for the team.
This shift matters. It marks the difference between executing someone
else’s priorities and committing to an outcome the team truly believes in.
With Team OKRs, the process looks different:
- The team defines the Objective, rooted in the strategic context. It’s not
just a fancy slogan—it’s a clear and meaningful statement of what the team wants
to achieve and why it matters. - The team identifies Key Results—clear signs of progress that show real,
measurable change. A Key Result often isn’t a KPI itself, but a movement in a
KPI. It’s about direction and impact, not just numbers. - The team commits to the outcome, not just doing tasks. They take real
ownership, stay flexible, and focus on what truly brings value.
Leaders still lead, but their role changes. Instead of dictating the how,
they clarify the why. They share direction, invite dialogue, and support teams
in building real ownership.
This isn’t chaos. It’s alignment through trust.
From Strategy to Team OKR
Team OKRs don’t exist in isolation. They emerge from context—shaped by
vision, guided by strategy, and grounded in reality.
Figure 3: How each layer nests into the next to form a clear chain from
vision to execution.
This layered model shows how intent flows into action:
- Vision sets the long-term direction.
- Strategy defines current priorities.
- Team OKRs clarify what each team will own.
- Backlog connects intent to concrete work.
Each layer supports the next. When vision is unclear, strategy struggles to
focus on what matters most next. Without a clear strategy, Team OKRs lose
alignment and purpose. And when Team OKRs are vague, backlogs fill with
scattered tasks rather than deliberate steps toward meaningful outcomes.
But when these layers align, teams can confidently translate high-level
intent into focused, meaningful action.
From Direction to Definition: Key Conversations
Figure 4: The flow of structured conversations that
transform strategy into work.
Alignment doesn’t happen in a single meeting; it evolves through a rhythm
of structured conversations. This timeline illustrates how strategy becomes
meaningful team action:
- Strategic Alignment Workshop: Leadership shares intent, not
deliverables. - Team OKR Planning Workshop: Teams reflect and define what they’ll
pursue. - From Goals to Work: OKRs flow into backlog items and initiatives.
This isn’t a rigid cascade. It’s a rhythm of dialogue and iteration,
building alignment without sacrificing autonomy.
A Real Example: From Strategy to Commitment
I’ve worked with many large organizations, and I get it: leadership needs
structure, a steady rhythm, and alignment across business units. Strategic
OKRs can be incredibly powerful when used the right way.
Here’s how one large Brazilian financial institution created a simple yet
effective way to connect strategy and execution.
Figure 5: From Strategy to Team OKRs: Yearly Planning
and Quarterly Execution
Leadership Defines Company Priorities
At the start of the year, leadership set three bold priorities: simplify
onboarding for new customers, expand into the small-business segment, and
improve resilience in critical systems.
This wasn’t a wish list. Leaders deliberately focused on a few
high-impact bets, creating space for business units and teams to take
meaningful ownership.
Business Units Build Their Plans
The Digital Services Business Unit—responsible for the online banking
platform—focused on priority #1: simplifying onboarding. They defined their
Strategic OKR:
Objective: Delight new customers by transforming the first-week
experience.
Key Results:
- Reduce first-week customer drop-off rate by 25%
- Increase overall first-week NPS from 20 to 35.
- Lower average support call time for new users by 15%.
This Strategic OKR became a north star for multiple teams, offering
direction without prescribing solutions.
Strategic OKRs Are Refined in Conversation
Strategic OKRs at both company and BU levels were refined through
dialogue, not decree. Leaders challenged assumptions, clarified metrics, and
aligned on where each BU could create the most impact.
Note that this Strategic OKR was later driven by several teams.
Higher-level leadership, though they had access to all team OKRs, chose not
to track them directly. Instead, they reviewed a monthly report focused on
the BU’s Strategic OKR—a pragmatic approach for large organizations where
top leaders can’t realistically follow every team’s goals.
Teams Define Their OKRs
When BU-level goals reached teams, they arrived as context, not orders.
BU leaders shared supporting data—user analytics, drop-off points, customer
complaints—then stepped back.
The Explore Team, responsible for mobile app onboarding in the Digital
Services BU, asked themselves: “What part of this can we own? What would
success look like from our perspective?”
Their Team OKR:
Objective: Make the first week seamless and confidence-boosting for
new users.
Key Results:
- Increase onboarding completion from 65% to 90%.
- Boost tutorial engagement from 15% to 50%.
- Reduce support tickets about account setup by 30%.
Over the quarter, the Explore Team redesigned onboarding flows, tested
tutorials, and improved contextual help. Weekly check-ins and mid-cycle
retrospectives kept them adaptive and accountable. By the end of the cycle,
they had delivered measurable improvements in customer outcomes, directly
supporting the BU’s Strategic OKR.
Note on Adaptation: This example draws from real patterns I’ve observed
in large organizations. To respect confidentiality, details have been
modified, but the essence of how Strategic OKRs and Team OKRs connect
remains intact.
Align Up. Align Across: Building Strategic Alignment Without Losing Team Autonomy
When I talk about alignment in large organizations, I don’t just mean
aligning up to leadership’s strategy. That’s only half the story. The other
half—and often the trickier one—is aligning across peer teams. Both dimensions
are essential for making Team OKRs work at scale.
This is what I call vertical and horizontal alignment.
- Vertical alignment connects a team’s OKRs to the organization’s strategic
goals (some people call this connecting tactical OKRs to strategic OKRs). It
answers a critical question: “How does our work contribute to the bigger
picture?” - Horizontal alignment ensures that teams working in the same business unit—or
across units—coordinate and collaborate effectively. It asks: How do we support
each other to reach shared outcomes?
Think of a large business unit like a fleet of ships. Each team (or “ship”)
has its own captain and crew, charting their course. But they’re not
navigating alone. They’re moving together toward the same North Star. That’s
the essence of horizontal alignment.
Each team chases its own Team OKR, tailored to its expertise and sphere of
influence. But their efforts are interconnected—like gears in a machine. The
magic happened in how they adjust to each other’s progress in real time,
keeping the larger objective in sight.
This is alignment without rigidity. Teams still owned their OKRs and have
autonomy over how they contribute. But they aren’t working in silos; they are
navigating together.
Figure 6: Multiple teams contributing to a shared strategic objective, each with their own Team OKRs complementing one another
So how do teams keep alignment alive—without losing autonomy? This is where
the Team OKR Cycle helps. It’s a simple rhythm that supports focus,
collaboration, and adaptability.
The Team OKR Cycle
To help teams put this into practice, I recommend a lightweight, repeatable
cycle. It keeps teams focused, aligned, and able to adapt as conditions
change.
The Team OKR Cycle revolves around three key moments:
- Team OKR Planning (typically quarterly): A moment for alignment. The
team connects with leadership, understands the strategic context, and defines
its OKRs—clarifying what they want to achieve and how they’ll measure
progress. - Team OKR Check-in (weekly): A lightweight sync led by the team. They
review key results, discuss progress, identify blockers, and adjust course as
needed—catching issues before they derail momentum. - Team OKR Retrospective (mid-cycle and end): A reflection point where the
team looks back not just at delivery, but at impact. These retrospectives help
refine both intent and execution for future cycles.
This rhythm transforms OKRs from a one-time planning exercise into a living
system—a continuous loop of alignment and adaptation.
Figure 7: A typical Team OKR cycle
Team OKR Planning Workshop
The Team OKR Planning Workshop happens at the start of each cycle. It’s
when the team comes together to define its Objective and Key Results, aligning
with their BU’s strategic direction.
This isn’t a top-down handoff; it’s a co-creation moment that sets
direction and fosters ownership.
One facilitation technique I often use is the Time Machine activity:
“Please enter the Time Machine. Imagine it’s the end of the quarter. You’re
proud of what the team has achieved. What happened?”
Each team member writes their imagined success story. These reflections
surface themes and insights, which are then translated into measurable
indicators of progress. Those indicators become the Key Results.
When teams run this activity, OKRs shift from static targets to expressions
of real intent and shared commitment.
Team OKR Check-ins
This is where many teams lose momentum—and where the best teams stand
out.
A Team OKR Check-in is a short, recurring moment (for example, Fridays at 2
p.m.) where the team reflects together. It’s not a status report; it’s a
conversation about progress and priorities.
Teams ask:
- Are we making meaningful progress?
- Are we measuring the right things?
- What’s working—and what’s getting in the way?
- Do we need to adjust course?
These questions transform OKRs from static artifacts into dynamic, living
conversations.
I call check-ins the heartbeat of the OKR cycle. They keep the team
aligned—not just on progress, but on confidence and energy.
Do Your Check-in with GRIP
To keep check-ins focused and actionable, I guide teams with a simple
framework:
GRIP
- Goal confidence: How confident are we in reaching the Objective?
- Results progress: What’s the current status of each Key Result?
- Issues: What’s getting in the way?
- Plan forward: What’s next?
A quick GRIP check-in turns OKRs into active conversations—not just a
review, but an opportunity to adjust course before issues escalate.
In many teams I’ve worked with, the GRIP check-in became a 15-minute weekly
anchor. It created a shared language—“What’s our confidence this week?”—and
helped teams see where they needed support or where to double down. Like a
pilot scanning instruments mid-flight, GRIP gave them clarity to navigate
forward.
Team OKR Retrospective
At the end of the cycle, the team doesn’t just score the OKR—they reflect
on the journey:
- Did we achieve what we set out to do?
- What did we learn?
- What surprised us?
- What will we do differently next time?
This is where learning happens. The best way to support it is with a
retrospective.
You’ll find dozens of effective formats at
FunRetrospectives.com and in the book
FunRetrospectives.
But don’t wait until the end to reflect. Mid-cycle retrospectives can be
just as powerful—especially when the team feels stuck, misaligned, or unsure
about progress. They offer a chance to regroup while there’s still time to
course-correct.
Mid-cycle retrospectives aren’t mandatory, but they’re incredibly valuable
when the team senses misalignment, stalled progress, or shifting priorities.
Some teams schedule them proactively at the midpoint of their OKR cycle;
others use them as a flexible tool when they feel momentum is slipping or
context changes unexpectedly.
One format I often use mid-cycle is Attractors and Detractors, a simple
yet powerful activity for unpacking the systemic forces influencing the OKR so
far. It highlights:
- Attractors: What pulled us toward the OKR?
- Detractors: What pushed us away from it?
This activity helps teams make sense of their work—clarifying what aligns
with their OKR and what doesn’t. It sharpens focus and prioritization,
especially for teams serious about achieving their goals.
In one team I worked with, a mid-cycle retrospective using this format
uncovered a new organizational initiative that was unintentionally diverting
effort away from the team’s OKR. That insight helped them realign and regain
focus, leading to meaningful impact by the end of the cycle.
What Sets Great Teams Apart
The difference isn’t in the process or the tool. It’s in the mindset.
Teams that own their OKRs don’t just align with strategy—they shape it.
They don’t just deliver outputs—they deliver outcomes.
That’s what makes them stand out. And that’s what makes Team OKRs work.
