3 OKR examples for Saas Development

What are Saas Development OKRs?

The Objective and Key Results (OKR) framework is a simple goal-setting methodology that was introduced at Intel by Andy Grove in the 70s. It became popular after John Doerr introduced it to Google in the 90s, and it's now used by teams of all sizes to set and track ambitious goals at scale.

How you write your OKRs can make a huge difference on the impact that your team will have at the end of the quarter. But, it's not always easy to write a quarterly plan that focuses on outcomes instead of projects.

That's why we have created a list of OKRs examples for Saas Development to help. You can use any of the templates below as a starting point to write your own goals.

If you want to learn more about the framework, you can read more about the OKR meaning online.

Best practices for managing your Saas Development OKRs

Generally speaking, your objectives should be ambitious yet achievable, and your key results should be measurable and time-bound (using the SMART framework can be helpful). It is also recommended to list strategic initiatives under your key results, as it'll help you avoid the common mistake of listing projects in your KRs.

Here are a couple of best practices extracted from our OKR implementation guide 👇

Tip #1: Limit the number of key results

Focus can only be achieve by limiting the number of competing priorities. It is crucial that you take the time to identify where you need to move the needle, and avoid adding business-as-usual activities to your OKRs.

We recommend having 3-4 objectives, and 3-4 key results per objective. A platform like Tability can run audits on your data to help you identify the plans that have too many goals.

Tability's audit dashboard will highlight opportunities to improve OKRs

Tip #2: Commit to the weekly check-ins

Having good goals is only half the effort. You'll get significant more value from your OKRs if you commit to a weekly check-in process.

Being able to see trends for your key results will also keep yourself honest.

Tability's check-ins will save you hours and increase transparency

Tip #3: No more than 2 yellow statuses in a row

Yes, this is another tip for goal-tracking instead of goal-setting (but you'll get plenty of OKR examples below). But, once you have your goals defined, it will be your ability to keep the right sense of urgency that will make the difference.

As a rule of thumb, it's best to avoid having more than 2 yellow/at risk statuses in a row.

Make a call on the 3rd update. You should be either back on track, or off track. This sounds harsh but it's the best way to signal risks early enough to fix things.

Building your own Saas Development OKRs with AI

While we have some examples below, it's likely that you'll have specific scenarios that aren't covered here. There are 2 options available to you.

• Use our free OKRs generator
• Use Tability, a complete platform to set and track OKRs and initiatives
• including a GPT-4 powered goal generator

Best way to track your Saas Development OKRs

OKRs without regular progress updates are just KPIs. You'll need to update progress on your OKRs every week to get the full benefits from the framework. Reviewing progress periodically has several advantages:

• It brings the goals back to the top of the mind
• It will highlight poorly set OKRs
• It will surface execution risks
• It improves transparency and accountability

We recommend using a spreadsheet for your first OKRs cycle. You'll need to get familiar with the scoring and tracking first. Then, you can scale your OKRs process by using a proper OKR-tracking tool for it.

Tability's Strategy Map makes it easy to see all your org's OKRs

If you're not yet set on a tool, you can check out the 5 best OKR tracking templates guide to find the best way to monitor progress during the quarter.

Saas Development OKRs templates

We've covered most of the things that you need to know about setting good OKRs and tracking them effectively. It's now time to give you a series of templates that you can use for inspiration!

You'll find below a list of Objectives and Key Results templates for Saas Development. We also included strategic projects for each template to make it easier to understand the difference between key results and projects.

Hope you'll find this helpful!

More Saas Development OKR templates

We have more templates to help you draft your team goals and OKRs.

• OKRs to increase code quality
  developersengineers
• OKRs to enhance Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) conversion rates
  conversion-ratesseo-strategiesseo-specialistmarketing-campaign-managerseo-teammarketing-team
• OKRs to boost overall community engagement on the platform
  community-engagementcontent-sharingcommunity-managercontent-strategistsocial-media-teamcontent-development-team
• OKRs to streamline and optimize our HR data process
  hr-data-managementemployee-traininghr-managerdata-processing-managerhr-teamdata-management-team
• OKRs to implement fraud reporting applications for customers
  fraud-reportingapplication-adoptionapplication-developermarketing-managerdevelopment-teammarketing-team
• OKRs to complete Windows 10 update on all DC PCs
  windows-10-updatedesktop-computersit-supporttraining-leaderit-teamtraining-team

OKRs resources

Here are a list of resources to help you adopt the Objectives and Key Results framework.

• To learn: Complete 2024 OKR cheat sheet
• Blog posts: ODT Blog
• Success metrics: KPIs examples