---
name: okr-format
source: https://app.decimal.ai/s/okr-format@1/SKILL.md
source_sha256: 700fa7151965
---

# OKR format for team goals

## Contract

Enforces the Objective-and-Key-Results structure on every set of team or organization goals
you draft for a quarter or year. Apply whenever the task is to write, restructure, or clean up
a team's period goals; not for sprint task planning, project milestone schedules, or
individual performance reviews.

## Rules

1. **One Objective per goal set.** The Objective is a single qualitative, inspirational
   statement of where the team is going this period — memorable, motivating, and short.

2. **The Objective contains no numbers.** No percentages, counts, times, or currency amounts
   in the Objective line; every number lives in a Key Result. "Make every delivery something
   customers can count on" — not "Increase weekly deliveries 30%".

3. **3 to 5 Key Results per Objective.** Fewer than three under-specifies what success means;
   more than five means priorities have not been chosen.

4. **Every Key Result is an outcome: a metric moving from a baseline to a target.** Write the
   metric name, its current value, and the value to reach — a from→to pair, e.g.
   "Rebuffering ratio from 1.8% to 0.6%". If the ask supplies current figures, use them as
   the baselines; never leave a Key Result as a bare direction like "improve latency".

5. **Never a task, activity, or deliverable.** "Launch", "ship", "migrate", "hire", "write",
   "release" describe work, not results. The test: if the team did the activity and nothing
   changed in the metric, would you still call it success? Rewrite every task into the result
   the work is supposed to move:

   ```
   Launch the loyalty program        →  Repeat-purchase rate from 18% to 26%
   Migrate search to the new engine  →  Search-to-purchase rate from 9% to 14%
   Hire three field technicians      →  Median install wait from 12 days to 5 days
   ```

6. **State the scoring convention.** Each Key Result is graded 0.0–1.0 at period end by
   fractional progress toward its target. Landing around 0.7 on stretch targets counts as
   success; a routine 1.0 means the targets were sandbagged. Include a one-line scoring note
   with the goal set.

## Worked example

```
BEFORE (task list — the default)
  Goals for the quarter:
  - Migrate the player to the new CDN
  - Reduce rebuffering
  - Ship the offline mode beta
  - Fix the top crash

AFTER (conforming)
  Objective: Make playback feel instant and uninterrupted, every time.

  Key Results:
  1. Rebuffering ratio from 1.8% to 0.6%
  2. Median video start time from 2.4s to 1.2s
  3. Playback-failure sessions from 0.9% to 0.3%
  4. Crash-free viewing sessions from 99.2% to 99.8%

  Scoring: each Key Result is graded 0.0–1.0 at quarter end; landing around
  0.7 on these stretch targets counts as success.
```

What changed: the CDN migration and offline beta are work items, not results — they only
appear insofar as they move a listed metric; "reduce rebuffering" gained a baseline and a
target; the Objective became one qualitative, number-free line.

## Edge cases & exceptions

- **No baseline is known** → the ask usually supplies current figures; use them. If one truly
  is unknown, make instrumenting it the first Key Result with its own numeric target date
  coverage (e.g. "Metric X instrumented and reporting for 100% of traffic"), then target it
  next period.
- **A launch genuinely is the goal** → keep the launch as work, and write the Key Result as
  the adoption or quality outcome the launch must produce (users, conversion, error rate).
- **Multiple teams or themes in one ask** → one Objective each, with its own 3–5 Key Results;
  do not pool eight Key Results under one vague umbrella Objective.
- **Binary results** → acceptable only when truly binary and outcome-shaped; prefer a
  measured form so partial credit is gradable on the 0.0–1.0 scale.
- **Committed vs stretch** → if the set flags a Key Result as committed (contractual,
  compliance), note that it is expected at 1.0; the ~0.7 norm applies to the stretch ones.

## Do / Don't

- Do write exactly one qualitative Objective. Don't put a number in it.
- Do write 3–5 Key Results. Don't write one, two, or seven.
- Do give every Key Result a from→to metric pair. Don't write bare directions like "improve
  uptime".
- Do phrase Key Results as results. Don't use launch/ship/migrate/hire/write as a Key Result.
- Do add the 0.0–1.0 scoring note with ~0.7 as the success mark. Don't imply 100% or nothing.

## Common mistakes

- A flat bullet list of initiatives with no Objective/Key Result split — the default.
- Numbers in the Objective line; slogans in the Key Results.
- Key Results without baselines ("reach 99.9%" — from where?).
- Tasks dressed as Key Results ("Ship the redesign", "Complete the migration").
- Six or more Key Results under one Objective.
- No scoring convention, or success framed as all-or-nothing.

## Quick checklist

- One Objective: qualitative, inspirational, zero numbers.
- 3–5 Key Results, each: metric name + baseline → target.
- No Key Result is a task, activity, or deliverable.
- Scoring note present: 0.0–1.0 at period end, ~0.7 = success on stretch targets.