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Execution · Plan, Review

OKR design

Expresses strategy as a small number of objectives with measurable key results. Works when the strategy is clear, and measures activity beautifully when it is not.

The printable canvas and the handoff into Claude Code are part of a paid plan. See what a plan includes. It needs the Claude desktop app on this machine, and your team and the prompt library already installed in that project — we cannot see your disk, so open it there.

Stage
04 Plan, 05 Review
Works at
All levels
Maturity
Early startup → Large organisation
Time
Half a day per cycle

What it is

Objectives and Key Results: a goal-setting method pairing a qualitative destination with a small number of quantitative measures of progress toward it. Simple in structure and consistently misapplied, usually by measuring activity instead of outcomes.

Objective
Where you are going. Qualitative, ambitious, memorable, and about a changed state rather than a completed task.
Key results
Two to four measures that would demonstrate the objective has been achieved. Numeric, outcome-based, and uncomfortable to commit to.
Outcome versus activity
The distinction that determines whether the method works. If a key result can be achieved by working hard rather than by something changing, it is a task list.
Ambition level
Targets should carry genuine risk of being missed. Certainty means you have written a forecast.
Cadence
Set, reviewed and scored on a rhythm — typically quarterly, reviewed more often. Unreviewed OKRs are decoration.
Separation from compensation
Tying them to reward converts them into negotiated forecasts and destroys the ambition that makes them useful.
The mistake people makeOKRs amplify whatever clarity exists. Applied to an unclear strategy they produce precisely measured movement in an undecided direction, which is worse than no measurement because it feels like progress.
What it’s forYou need the strategy expressed as measurable outcomes people can work toward.
What it’s not forThe strategy is unclear. OKRs then measure activity and reward the wrong things beautifully.

How you run it

  1. Write the objective as a destinationQualitative, memorable, and about what will be different. "Become the obvious choice for trade buyers who research online" beats "improve digital marketing".
  2. Make key results outcomes, not activities"Ship the new site" is a task. "Trade buyers arriving from search convert at 4 per cent" is a result. If you could achieve it by being busy, it is a task.
  3. Limit to three objectivesMore than three and the organisation has no priorities, which is the condition OKRs exist to fix.
  4. Set targets that are genuinely uncertainIf you are confident of hitting it, it is a forecast. Aim for something you would give yourself a real chance of missing.
  5. Separate them from performance reviewOKRs tied to bonuses become sandbagged forecasts within one cycle, and you lose the tool permanently.

The prompt

Two ways to run it

Run this tool in your own Claude

The short prompt starts your partner against the library on your disk. The long one carries everything with it and needs nothing installed.

🔒 Prompt locked

Everything above is free — what this tool is, what it is for, what it is not for, and how to run it as a workshop. Three tool prompts a month are free with an account; beyond three, and for the printable canvas, it is the paid part.

See plans — from £19 a month

Your playbook

It lands in the earliest stage this tool suits. Move it on the Playbook page.

You’ll need

  • A clear strategy — this amplifies clarity and confusion equally
  • Agreement on what the quarter is actually for
  • Willingness to set targets that might not be hit

You’ll end up with

  • Three objectives at most, with three key results each
  • Outcome measures, not activity counts
  • An explicit view on what is not being pursued

Runs well with

After action reviewAI risk classification and governanceAlliance and partnership designAssumption log