Sample OKRs by Function

In this article:

Introduction

Dwight D. Eisenhower famously said, "Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."   There is no shortcut to great goal-setting.  The magic is in the planning.

However, if you're looking for some inspiration to get you started, below we've included some example OKRs by job function.

To learn more about OKRs and SMART goals, see this article on OKRs and how to write them. 

Sample Organizational OKRs

  • [Insert your Mission Statement Here]
    • Achieve >$X Million in product revenue
    • International sales of >$Y Million
    • Customer churn rate under Z%

Sample Sales & Business Development OKRs

  • Rip our bookings target to shreds
    • Secure $X Million in bookings
    • Evenly distributed bookings (>$2.5 per sales manager)
    • Deliver >40% of bookings via upsell and cross-sell
    • Exhibit at 4+ industry events this quarter
  • Create a more effective sales machine
    • Hire 3 new sales managers
    • Prototype and test 2 competing client segmentation models
    • Roll out the winning client segmentation model across the sales team
  • Accelerate recurring revenue growth this quarter
    • Deliver $2M in subscription revenues
    • Increase monthly revenue per subscriber to $65
    • Hire 3 new inside salespeople

Sample Marketing OKRs

  • Blow up our social media engagement
    • Identify & engage 30 Instagram influencers in our industry
    • Increase the number of followers on Facebook & Twitter by 50%
  • Explore our effectiveness as an Inbound Marketing machine
    • X email blasts this quarter
    • Y new blog posts this quarter
    • Z new white paper/ebook pieces published this quarter
    • Roll out a new "Resources" section of the public website

Sample Product OKRs

  • Improve the reporting experience for HappyTax
    • Build MVPs of two new competing reporting experiences
    • Get 4 "pro" users to beta-test new tax-prep experience
    • Create a network of 200 tax pros to pilot new reporting experience in offseason
  • Prepare HappyTax line for an Epic tax season
    • Proof of concept published for new tax workflow (alpha demo ready)
    • Complete 12 field studies with the latest prototypes
    • Ship beta version to production
  • Ship a 100% self-service version of Model X
    • Drive decision around approach to Trial/Freemium/Free-trial
    • Map out a roadmap for self-service MVP of Model X
    • Launch self-service MVP of Model X
  • Launch an MVP of Model X that Wows users
    • 40% of users come back 2x within the first week
    • Net Promoter score of 30+
    • 12% trial-to-pay conversion rate
  • Build a deep understanding of customer needs and behavior through direct contact
    • Complete 36 'field studies' without a salesperson
    • Facilitate 6 internal 'product briefings' based on findings

Sample Technology & IT OKRs

  • Get Model X performance at launch equivalent to our scariest competitors
    • 99.85% avg monthly uptime
    • <1 second response time on all screens/queries
    • Instantaneous perceived load time (based on survey, 90% of users say page loaded "immediately")

Sample Customer Success OKRs

  • Create Wow! moments for our clients
    • Client retention above 90%
    • Net Promoter Score of 50 or better
    • Curate a list of 20+ "Wow!" customer stories
  • Roll out a fully revamped Customer Experience Journey
    • Research and document the top 5 customer journey maps/personas
    • Design 5 post-implementation touchpoint-campaigns (one campaign per persona)
    • Implement new customer experience software to automate post-implementation touchpoints

Sample Operations OKRs

  • Make Operations run smooth as butter
    • Drive Client Deliverable on-time-delivery to >80%
    • Operations hits 100% quality (zero unfixable data errors)
    • Operations hits 100% of deadlines (zero missed deadlines)

Sample Support & Customer Care OKRs

  • Create and enable an industry-leading support team
    • Achieve SLA fulfillment greater than 95%
    • Reduce escalations by 15%
    • Increase NPS score from 40 to 50
    • Promote 2 customer support representatives to new customer support manager positions by the end of Q1
  • Grow mind-blowing support team expertise in order to WOW! users
    • Implement Zendesk Embeddables within the product’s existing help center
    • Ship revamped Acme University training curriculum
    • Institute weekly peer-to-peer training hours (12 hours delivered in Q1)

Sample Finance & Accounting OKRs

  • Drive accounting efficiency across the organization
    • Drive past-due receivables down to 10% (note: 92% receipt rate = 8% past-due)
    • Reduce days to close to <5 days (currently at 10 days)