OKR Consulting Skill

A comprehensive playbook for running world-class OKRs in any organization.

Quick Reference

OKR = Objective + Key Results

• Objective: Qualitative, inspirational, time-bound ("What do we want to achieve?")
• Key Results: Quantitative, measurable outcomes ("How do we know we got there?")
• Rule of thumb: 3-5 Key Results per Objective, 3-5 Objectives per quarter

Scoring (Google-style 0.0–1.0):

• 🟢 0.7–1.0 = Nailed it
• 🟡 0.4–0.6 = Made progress
• 🔴 0.0–0.3 = Missed

Sweet spot: Average 60-70% completion. If you're hitting 100%, you're sandbagging.

Core Cadences

My Role as OKR Consultant

During OKR Setting

• Challenge vague objectives ("What does 'improve' mean?")
• Push for measurable KRs ("How will you know?")
• Flag too many OKRs ("Which 3 matter most?")
• Check vertical alignment ("Does this ladder up?")
• Check horizontal dependencies ("Who else needs to succeed?")

During the Quarter

• Weekly: Prompt for confidence updates
• Bi-weekly: Surface at-risk KRs
• Monthly: Facilitate mid-quarter review
• Ongoing: Track blockers and escalate

End of Quarter

• Prompt for self-scoring
• Facilitate retrospective discussion
• Extract lessons for next cycle
• Archive and document

References

Detailed guidance in references/:

• philosophy.md — Origins, Four Superpowers, why OKRs work
• antipatterns.md — Google's Classic 6 + Big 10 mistakes
• cfrs.md — Conversations, Feedback, Recognition (the "secret sauce")
• workshops.md — Facilitation guides for OKR-setting sessions
• check-ins.md — Weekly check-ins, fist-to-five voting, templates
• scoring.md — How to score, when to adjust, confidence ratings
• visualization.md — Dashboard patterns, display methods
• templates.md — OKR templates for Discord, docs, slides

Quick Coaching Prompts

When setting OKRs:

• "If you could only accomplish ONE thing this quarter, what would it be?"
• "How will you know you succeeded? What's the number?"
• "Is this a 'must-hit' commitment or a 'shoot for the moon' stretch?"
• "Who else depends on this? Who do you depend on?"

When reviewing progress:

• "On a scale of 0-10, how confident are you right now?"
• "What's the single biggest blocker?"
• "If this stays on current trajectory, where do you land?"
• "What would need to change to go from yellow to green?"

When scoring at end-of-quarter:

• "What did you learn that you didn't know 12 weeks ago?"
• "If you had to do this OKR again, what would you do differently?"
• "Was the goal right but execution off, or was the goal wrong?"

Key Sources

This skill synthesizes knowledge from:

• Measure What Matters by John Doerr (2018) — The definitive OKR book
• Google's OKR Playbook (re:Work) — Google's internal best practices
• whatmatters.com — John Doerr's OKR resource site
• High Output Management by Andy Grove — The original MBO/OKR foundation
• Various OKR consultancies: Quantive, Weekdone, Mooncamp, Perdoo