OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results — a way of agreeing where the company is heading over a quarter or a year. The objective is what you want to achieve, in words; the key results are two to five numbers that will show whether you did. The point is the pairing: a goal without numbers cannot be measured, numbers without a goal cannot be understood.
How OKR differs from KPI
A KPI measures ongoing work: it is supposed to be met, because it is the standard. An OKR describes change — something that does not exist yet and has to be built during the period. A sales assistant with a sales target works to a KPI; a project to "open three stores and bring them up to revenue" is an OKR.
Hence the different attitude to missing them. A missed KPI is a problem; an OKR delivered at 70% counts as a normal result, because the goals are set to be ambitious. That is why OKRs are almost never tied directly to a bonus — do that and the goals immediately turn cautious.
How to phrase them
Most failures of the method are phrasing errors rather than implementation ones.
- An objective answers "why", not "what we are doing": "cut the time it takes to close a shift" rather than "implement a tracking system".
- Key results are results, not tasks. "Run the training" is a task; "80% of sales staff passed certification" is a result.
- Two to four objectives per unit with three to five key results each — more cannot be held in focus for a quarter.
- Transparency: units can see each other's OKRs, otherwise two departments set mutually exclusive goals and find out at quarter end.
How this works in Verifix
In Verifix Perform goals cascade down the org structure: a company objective breaks down into units and then into individuals, so it is visible whose result feeds whose contribution. Key result progress updates from the same data as KPIs.
Alongside it sits the KPI loop for routine work: bonuses are computed from that, while OKRs remain the instrument of change. The separation lives in the system rather than only in an agreement.
In short
OKRs are set on change, KPIs on routine work. Tying OKRs to a bonus almost always produces cautious goals and empties the method of its purpose.