OKR Examples for Managers: 20+ Templates to Copy

The most useful OKR examples for managers pair one plain objective with about three measurable key results, each with a starting number, a target and a deadline. For example: “Objective: Make our pipeline predictable. Key results: raise qualified opportunities from 30 to 45 per month, get 90% of open deals to have a dated next step, and bring forecast accuracy within 10% of actual by 30 June.” Copy the templates below and change the numbers to fit your team.

Every example in this guide is a hypothetical template, not a real company’s OKR. Use them as starting points, then check each number against your own baseline.

What is an OKR?

The method was developed by Andy Grove at Intel and popularised by John Doerr, who brought it to Google’s founders in 1999 and wrote about it in Measure What Matters (2018). Doerr’s site offers a one-line formula: “I will (objective) as measured by (key results).”

OKRs are different from the KPIs you monitor all year. A KPI tracks the ongoing health of the business. An OKR drives a specific change. If you are not sure which one you need, read our comparison of OKR vs KPI first.

Why it matters for managers: in a Gallup survey of 8,287 US adults conducted in 2013, employees whose manager helps them set performance goals were 17 times as likely to be engaged as disengaged. That is a correlation, not proof of cause, but it suggests that goal-setting is one of the most valuable conversations a manager can have.

How do you write key results?

Most weak OKRs fail at the key results. The objective is easy to write. Turning it into numbers that prove progress is the real work.

Write a key result in four moves

1. 1Start from the objectiveAsk: what would be different if we achieved it?
2. 2Find the numberChoose a measure that would show that difference.
3. 3Set baseline and targetWrite it as from X to Y by a date.
4. 4Test itOutcome, not task? Can we track it weekly?

Move 1: Start from the objective

Ask the team: “If we achieved this objective, what would we see, hear or count that we cannot today?” Write down every answer. Good key results usually hide in that list.

Move 2: Choose a measure that shows the difference

Pick the measure that most directly proves the objective. “Delight our customers” might become satisfaction score, repeat purchase rate or number of complaints. Choose the one you can measure reliably and that the team can influence.

Move 3: Write it as “from X to Y by when”

A baseline tells everyone how far you need to go. “Increase repeat orders to 160” is weaker than “increase repeat orders from 120 to 160 per month by 30 June.” If you do not have a baseline, your first key result may be to establish one.

Move 4: Test it against the checklist

Is this a good key result?

• It describes an outcome, not an activity or a task.
• It has a number, a baseline and a deadline.
• The team can influence it within the quarter.
• It stretches the team: reaching about 70% would still feel like progress.
• Someone can update it weekly in a few minutes.
• If all key results are hit, the objective is clearly achieved.

Why stretch? Edwin Locke and Gary Latham’s 2002 review of goal-setting research found that specific, difficult goals consistently led to higher performance than urging people to do their best. Google’s re:Work guide turns this into a scoring rule: grade each key result from 0.0 to 1.0, and treat an average of 0.6 to 0.7 as the sweet spot. If your team scores 1.0 on everything, the targets were too safe.

OKR examples for managers by function

Each table below gives an objective, three key results and a weekly lead measure. The lead measure is the behaviour your team controls each week. It is not part of the classic OKR format, but adding it is what turns an OKR from a poster into a plan. Our pillar guide on lead and lag measures explains why.

Sales manager

Objective	Key results	Weekly lead measure
Make our pipeline predictable	1. Qualified opportunities from 30 to 45 per month. 2. 90% of open deals have a dated next step. 3. Forecast within 10% of actual revenue.	Discovery meetings held per rep
Win more of the deals we already have	1. Proposal win rate from 25% to 35%. 2. Average sales cycle from 60 to 45 days. 3. 100% of proposals reviewed by a peer before sending.	Proposals sent within 48 hours of discovery
Grow our best accounts	1. Revenue from top 20 clients up 15%. 2. Account plans in place for all top 20. 3. Two new contacts mapped in each top account.	Account check-in calls completed

Customer service manager

Objective	Key results	Weekly lead measure
Make support a reason customers stay	1. First response under 2 hours on 90% of tickets. 2. Satisfaction score from 82% to 90%. 3. Repeat contacts within 7 days down by a third.	Tickets closed with a confirmation question
Help customers solve problems themselves	1. Publish 25 help articles for the top questions. 2. Share of tickets resolved by self-service from 10% to 25%. 3. Help article rating of at least 4 out of 5.	Articles drafted and reviewed

Operations manager

Objective	Key results	Weekly lead measure
Deliver every order right the first time	1. Rework rate from 6% to 3%. 2. On-time delivery from 88% to 95%. 3. Zero orders shipped without a pre-dispatch check.	Pre-dispatch checks completed
Free up capacity without hiring	1. Average order processing time from 3 days to 2. 2. Three manual steps automated. 3. Overtime hours down 30%.	Process improvements tested

Marketing manager

Objective	Key results	Weekly lead measure
Become the go-to voice in our niche	1. Newsletter from 800 to 2,000 subscribers. 2. Three guest articles on industry sites. 3. 40 qualified leads from content.	Useful pieces published
Make every lead easier to convert	1. Lead-to-meeting rate from 15% to 25%. 2. Response time to inbound leads under 1 hour. 3. Sales rates 80% of leads as “good fit”.	Leads contacted within 1 hour

People and HR manager

Objective	Key results	Weekly lead measure
Make our first 90 days a great experience	1. 100% of new hires complete a 30-day plan. 2. 90-day retention of new hires at 95%. 3. New-hire survey score of at least 4.5 out of 5.	Week-one check-ins held
Hire faster without lowering the bar	1. Time to fill a role from 50 to 35 days. 2. Hiring manager feedback returned within 24 hours in 90% of cases. 3. 90% of hires pass probation.	Candidates screened within 2 days

Copy the row closest to your situation, replace the numbers with your own baseline and add a realistic stretch. For role-level measures that sit underneath these OKRs, see our list of KPI examples for employees.

OKR examples for teams led by new or growing managers

Some of the most valuable OKRs are about how the manager leads, not what the team produces. These are useful when a team is growing or a manager is new in the role.

Objective	Key results
Build a team that runs without me for a week	1. Three recurring decisions delegated with a written brief. 2. Every team member has a documented backup for their key tasks. 3. I take five consecutive days off with no more than one escalation.
Grow the people on my team	1. 100% of team members have a development goal agreed in writing. 2. Fortnightly one-to-ones held with 90% attendance. 3. Two team members lead a project they have not led before.
Make our weekly rhythm useful	1. Weekly meeting kept to 30 minutes or less in 10 of 12 weeks. 2. Team rates the meeting at least 4 out of 5. 3. 85% of weekly commitments completed.

These tie in closely with other skills. A good one-on-one meeting template makes the second objective easier, and a clear weekly team meeting agenda supports the third.

Worked example: from a vague goal to a usable OKR

Here is a hypothetical example of the method in action. Imagine the manager of a six-person customer service team in a software company. Her director asks her to “improve customer experience this quarter”. That is a wish, not a goal. She sits down with her team for 45 minutes and works through the four moves.

Draft 1 (what the director said): Improve customer experience.

Draft 2 (after asking what would be different): The team lists faster replies, fewer customers writing back about the same problem, better help articles and friendlier tone. They agree the biggest pain is customers having to chase them.

Draft 3 (the OKR):

• Objective: Customers never have to chase us.
• KR1: First response under 2 hours on 90% of tickets, up from 70%.
• KR2: Repeat contacts about the same issue within 7 days down from 15% to 10% of tickets.
• KR3: Satisfaction score from 82% to 88%.

Weekly lead measure: share of tickets closed with a confirmation question (“Did this fully solve it?”).

Notice what changed. The objective is now specific enough to guide daily choices. Each key result has a baseline and a target. And the lead measure gives every agent something to do on Monday morning. When she shares the draft with her director, the conversation moves from “are we doing enough?” to “are these the right numbers?”, which is a far better discussion.

Two weeks later the team finds that KR2 is hard to measure in their help desk software. Rather than drop it quietly, they agree a manual sample of 50 tickets a week. Adjusting how you measure is fine. Abandoning a key result without telling anyone is not.

Good vs bad key results

Rewrite weak key results into strong ones

	Weak key result	Strong key result
Task, not outcome	Launch a customer newsletter	Grow repeat purchases from 18% to 25% of customers
No baseline	Increase leads	Qualified leads from 30 to 45 per month
Not measurable	Improve team morale	Team pulse score from 3.6 to 4.2 out of 5
Outside team control	Market grows 10%	Our share of quotes won in the region from 20% to 28%
Too safe	Keep churn below 6%	Reduce churn from 6% to 4%

How many OKRs should a manager set?

Fewer than you think. Google’s re:Work guide suggests three to five objectives with about three key results each, and Google is a very large company. For a team in a small or mid-sized business, one or two objectives per quarter is usually enough. That leaves room for the normal daily work, which does not stop because you wrote an OKR.

The authors of The 4 Disciplines of Execution make a similar point with their idea of a single wildly important goal. If you find it hard to choose, our 4 Disciplines of Execution summary explains how to narrow your focus.

How do you track OKRs through the quarter?

An OKR written in January and checked in March is a wish. Build a simple rhythm:

1. Week 0: Draft the OKR with the team. Agree baselines and owners for each key result.
2. Every week: Spend ten minutes in the team meeting on the scoreboard. Each owner gives the current number, one thing that helped and one thing that blocked progress.
3. Mid-quarter: Ask whether any key result needs changing because the situation has changed. Change it openly rather than quietly ignoring it.
4. Quarter end: Score each key result from 0.0 to 1.0, discuss what you learned and decide what carries forward.

Keep OKR scores separate from pay. Doerr’s site describes OKRs as divorced from compensation, because linking them to bonuses encourages safe targets. When it is time to write a performance review, use the OKR conversation as evidence of effort and learning, alongside results.

What are the most common mistakes?

If one person keeps missing commitments, treat it as a coaching conversation rather than a scoring problem. Our guide to coaching employees to improve performance gives you questions to use.

Summary

Good OKRs for managers have one plain objective and about three key results written as “from X to Y by when”. Key results are outcomes, not tasks, and they should stretch enough that a score of 0.6 to 0.7 counts as success. Add a weekly lead measure to each key result, review it in your team meeting and score honestly at the end of the quarter. Start with one objective, copy a template above and fill in your own numbers.