What are OKRs?

OKRs are meant to set strategy and goals over a specified amount of time for an organization and teams. OKR has two components, the Objective and the Key Results where:

• Objectives are memorable qualitative descriptions of what you want to achieve.

It should be short, inspirational to motivate and challenge the team.

• Key Results are a set of metrics that measure your progress towards the Objective. All Key Results have to be quantitative and measurable.

The typical structure of a Value-based Key Result is:

Increase/Reduce ABC-metric from X to Y.

Where X is the baseline (where we begin) and Y is the target (what we want to achieve).

When to use OKRs

At the end of a work period, your OKRs provide a reference to evaluate how well you did in executing your objectives. OKRs follows these cadences:

• Strategic cadence with high level company-wide OKRs: Annual strategic OKRs for the company (and perhaps also for large BU)
• Tactical cadence with shorter term OKRs for the team: Per Quarter/Trimester OKRs for the teams with a mid-quarter review
• A follow-through cadence with regular check-ins for tracking results along the way: (bi)-weekly check-ins to tracks results.

In Holaspirit, you can review OKRs during Tactical Meeting during the OKRs round. That's how many of our customers are currently reviewing their OKRs. However, we plan to add a specific round directly to the agenda and will soon release the possibility to add meeting templates. Reviewing OKRs is up to members of the organization and update progress regularly in Holaspirit.

Deployment

Usually, OKRs are set through these following steps:

• Lead Link of General Circle defines sets of the company-wide OKRs while collecting feedback from members of the organization.
• Lead Link of subcircle develop OKRs for their team.
• Lead Links should ensure alignment with other teams and initiatives.
• Have weekly (bi-weekly) check-ins to track results and initiatives and access against baseline.
• Review the OKRs halfway down the quarter during a midterm OKR review.
• At the end of the cycle, share experience and lessons learned and start over.

A few tips to start with OKRs

• Keep up the cadence! Defining OKRs and evaluate OKRs takes time. Start early and anticipate next quarter objectives. You should take the time to plan OKRs and adequately assess them after each time period.
• Use OKRs as a communication tool to set direction such that every member of the organization understands how they can contribute to the mission. Effective OKRs are widely shared and meant to be understood by teams and individuals. To that end, Holaspirit enables you to easily share and communicate about OKR to all members of the organization.

• Grade the OKR’s biweekly. It’s important to keep track of goals.
• Stay flexible. It’s ok to change OKRs along the path.
• Know your baseline! Find the relevant data and find the baseline measurement to move away from or towards.
• Don’t be too ambitious! When starting with OKRs, you want them to be achievable. It’s preferable to have only one OKR per circle at the beginning to set clear focus and prioritize.
• Train newbies.
• Evaluate and Learn.

Updated on: 13/08/2025