6 OKR examples for System Performance

What are System Performance 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 System Performance 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 System Performance 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

The #1 role of OKRs is to help you and your team focus on what really matters. Business-as-usual activities will still be happening, but you do not need to track your entire roadmap in the 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

Don't fall into the set-and-forget trap. It is important to adopt a weekly check-in process to get the full value of your OKRs and make your strategy agile – otherwise this is nothing more than a reporting exercise.

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 System Performance 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 System Performance OKRs

Your quarterly OKRs should be tracked weekly in order to get all the benefits of the OKRs 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

Spreadsheets are enough to get started. Then, once you need to scale you can use a proper OKR platform to make things easier.

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.

System Performance 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!

We've added many examples of System Performance Objectives and Key Results, but we did not stop there. Understanding the difference between OKRs and projects is important, so we also added examples of strategic initiatives that relate to the OKRs.

Hope you'll find this helpful!