Creating OKRs

3. The Create objective screen displays. The creation dialog fetches and pre-sets as much relevant data as possible from the context. Add all information that would be valuable to the team, as this will make filtering and daily work on the OKRs easier.

   Open

   

4. Name – Give your objective a descriptive name. Properly defining your goal impacts how you work on it later. Here are some brief rules:
   Do: Write an ambitious, inspiring statement using clear and meaningful language.
   Don't: Write vague or overly generic goals.
   Example: "Become a European leader of fashion e-commerce" is better than "Be better in what we do so that we will become leaders of European online fashion stores this quarter."
   For more examples, check out our guide to writing good OKRs.

5. Description – Briefly describe the objective for company-wide understanding.

6. Period (Expected start, end) – Set one of the default periods or create your own. Expected start and end dates are prefilled based on the period’s dates.

7. Type – Select the objective's type. The readily available ones are Company, Team, and Personal, but you can create new ones according to your needs.

8. Owner – Select the owner. Start typing to search for the user you’re looking for.

9. Collaborators – If applicable, add collaborators such as people helping the Owner with the OKR.

10. Teams – Add teams that are linked to the objective.

11. Labels – Add labels to make finding the objective easier.

12. Restrictions – To configure restrictions, click the lock icon on the right-hand corner of the screen.

11. Click Create to create the objective.

You’ve successfully created an objective! You’ll be directed to the Tree view screen.

Tree view:

On this view, you can see all objectives, key results, and sub-objectives you’ve created in this session, making it easy to create multiple OKRs in one go. On the right, the info panel contains all the information you’ve filled in during creation. Although you can't edit them here (currently), clicking the issue key link next to the OKR name opens a new tab with an editable OKR page. The info on the Tree view page will be updated right after you make the changes, so you don’t have to close it.

By clicking the three-dot icon next to the objective, you can create KRs for the objectives you’ve just created, create sub-objectives, or create other top-level objectives (they’re top-level in this tree but can have any existing objective as a higher-level item).

The Tree view is also available from the Overview page, not only after creating a specific OKR.

Next, let’s add a KR to your objective.

Adding a Key Result to the Objective

Key results are numerical measures to measure Objective achievement. Best practices include ensuring they are quantifiable, not mere task lists, and limiting each objective to a maximum of five key results. There are multiple methods for creating key results, and all of them can be used to create sub-objectives as well.

1. Access the Define a Key Result screen:

   • From the Tree view screen, click the plus icon next to the objective name and click Add key result.

   • From the OKR Overview, hover over a top-level objective and click the 3-dot menu, then select Add key result.

   • Inside the Objective Details screen, you can use the Alignment feature to add new key results.

2. The Create key result screen displays. The creation dialog fetches and pre-sets as much relevant data as possible from the context.

3. Name – Give your key result a descriptive name.

4. Description – Briefly describe the key result for company-wide understanding.

5. Link issues – Depending on your use case, link any Jira issues to the key result. For more information on that, refer to this documentation.

6. Progress – Decide how you’ll track the progress of the KR. There are two options:
   Update manually – Adding progress updates (changing the current value) and status updates (choosing the current status) is your job.
   Linked issues – You need to connect Jira issues, and then we update the progress for you based on their statuses. With every issue moved to Done, your progress increases; with every new issue added, it decreases a bit. The status of auto KRs still needs to be updated manually, as it’s a very subjective matter.

7. Next, select how the key result will be measured. You can change this any time after the OKR is created.
   Measure as – You can choose from Numeric, Percentage, USD ($), EUR (€), GBP (£), BRL (R$), CHF (CHf), IDR (Rp), or INR (₹). Let us know via the in-app chat if you’d like us to add your currency.
   Current – The value with which you start at the beginning of the period. If you start a new project, it will most likely be a 0. For instance, if you plan to reduce the number of bugs in your system from X to Y, then X will be the start value.
   Target – The value you plan to achieve in the OKR period. If you have a binary goal (to do or to learn something), then the desired value would be either 1 or 100.

8. Period (Expected start, end) – Set one of the default periods or create your own. Expected start and end dates are prefilled based on the period’s dates.

9. Type – Select the key result’s type. The readily available ones are Company, Team, and Personal, but you can create new ones according to your needs.

10. Owner – Select the owner. Start typing to search for the user you’re looking for.

11. Collaborators – If applicable, add collaborators such as people helping the Owner with the OKR.

12. Teams – Add teams that are linked to the key result.

13. Labels – Add labels to make finding the key result easier.

14. Contribution – Select the key result’s weight, which is its contribution to its objective.

15. Restrictions – To configure restrictions, click the lock icon on the right-hand corner of the screen.

16. Click Create to create the key result.

Created KR will appear under its objective on the Tree view screen described above.