OKR Template

Brief

Please note that the use of the free version for commercial/ corporate purposes violates our terms of use. This version of the tool is only intended for personal purposes. For corporate use of this tool, kindly refer to our commercial version.

Objective and Key Results (OKR) usage has picked up pace in the past decade, with major organizations such as Samsung, Google, Amazon, Slack and Salesforce being at the forefront. A well-structured OKR system often leads to clearer instructions, better organizational engagement, productivity growth, accountability and even insights on the business itself. Unfortunately, a good structure often means that thousands of dollars needs to be spent in process development, tools and labor that sometimes provides limited value to the organization and still fails to accomplish its goals. In this article, we will look at a cost saving option with a free OKR template on excel, a relatively simple solution that can help clients gain control of their OKRs.

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What is the GPetrium’s Excel Objective Key Results Management?

GPetrium’s Objective Key Results Management Template (OKR Template) is a free excel tool that facilitates OKR management. The tool is designed to track OKR progress to help drive individual, team and organizational success. It features a handy dashboard that helps visualize progress to ensure better tracking. Although it can be used at a single department or team, the tool value and transparency are enhanced when all parts of the organization work together to delineate a top-to-bottom view of OKRs. The material that comes out of the OKR management tool can also be used to support the performance review process (to learn more about Performance Review, refer to the following article).

The tool is divided into 6 key segments, the ‘Dashboard’, ‘Organization OKR’, ‘Department OKR’, ‘Team OKR’, ‘Individual OKR’ and ‘Config’. The ‘Dashboard’ segment provides visual insight on key variables impacting the overall OKR of each segment.

The ‘Organization OKR’, ‘Department OKR’, ‘Team OKR’, ‘Individual OKR’ segments keeps an itemized list of all OKRs at that level throughout a defined time period.
The ‘Config’ segment is a configurable set of drop-down lists for some of the columns in the other segments, it helps decrease time spent writing the data and the number of errors.

‘Dashboard’ tab

Progress Report [Graph]: Provides a quick overview of the progress of each Objective and its Key Results at the organization, department, team and individual level. Best practice is to have one period with 3 to 5 objectives and 3 key results.
Confidence Interval of OKR Completion within Schedule: Visual graph to determine the number of key results that have a high, medium or low change of completion within schedule.
Slicers: [Period], [Objective], [Task], [Progress], [Completion], [Available Resource], [Owners] and [Dependencies] these slicers can be used to dig into the visualizations to better understand what is happening throughout the OKR journey.

Ideas and Best Practices

Always use the slicers to filter down to the relevant period, otherwise the graph will not look neat.
It is important to note that, slicers can help shed light on what key results are less likely to succeed, helping to raise questions or concerns that will drive better results.
For example: in the last month of the 2^nd quarter, one may dig into more information by navigating through Period ->Q2 and under Objectives->Marketing. By adjusting the settings as such, it becomes clear that progress is either stalling or the owners are not updating the tool. It also tells us that at this time, 2 out of 3 key results are less likely to succeed and that the owners of the key results are Stephany and William. This information allows us to reach out to them for further inquiry.

‘Organization OKR’ tab

Three rows were created for the ‘Vision’, ‘Values’ and ‘Strategy’, the aim is to always have them in mind when determining the OKRs at the organizational level. There are currently 8 columns that can be populated into the ‘Organization OKR’ table. Although not every column is critical to the functioning of the tool, each one can help the individual and organization to keep a better track of their OKR, helping to improve cohesion, transparency and success. Below we will look at each column:

Period: Determines the time period in which the OKR must be completed. At the organizational level, it is best practice to set-up quarterly OKRs, although monthly and annual remains viable.
Objective: Description of what the organization intends to achieve. For visualization and clarity purposes, objectives should be short in length and there should be 3 to 5 objectives per period. In our example, we limited it to one word but some objectives may require a little more context when working in larger groups.
Key Results: A set of 2 to 5 key results that will determine the progression and accomplishment of the objective.
Progress: Measure progression of key results from 0% to 100%.
Completion Expectation: Subjective confidence level that the key result will fall under low, medium or high probability of completion within the expected timeline.
Available Resources: External link to supporting documentation to optimize chances of key result completion.
Owners: A department, team or individual responsible for the completion of a key result.
Dependencies: Items that are required in order to accomplish key results. At the organizational level, OKR success will often be dependent on the success of departmental OKRs.

‘Department OKR’ tab

There are currently 8 columns that can be populated into the ‘Department OKR’ table. Although not every column is critical to the functioning of the tool, each one can help the individual and organization to keep a better track of their OKR, helping to improve cohesion, transparency and success. Below we will look at each column:

Period: Determines the time period in which the OKR must be completed. At the department level, it is best practice to set-up quarterly OKRs, although monthly and annual remains viable.
Objective: Description of what the organization intends to achieve. For visualization and clarity purposes, objectives should be short in length and there should be 3 to 5 objectives per period. In our example, we limited it to one word but some objectives may require a little more context when working in larger groups.
Key Results: A set of 2 to 5 key results that will determine the progression and accomplishments of the objective.
Progress: Measure progression of key results from 0% to 100%.
Completion Expectation: Subjective confidence level that the key result will fall under low, medium or high probability of completion within the expected timeline.
Available Resources: External link to supporting documentation that can optimize chances of key result completion.
Owners: A team or individuals responsible for the completion of a key result.
Dependencies: Items that are required in order to accomplish key results. At the department level, OKR success will often be dependent on the success of team’s OKRs.

‘Team OKR’ tab

There are currently 8 columns that can be populated into the ‘Team OKR’ table. Although not every column is critical to the functioning of the tool, each one can help the individual and organization to keep a better track of their OKR, helping to improve cohesion, transparency and success. Below we will look at each column:

Period: Determines the time period in which the OKR must be completed. At the department level, it is best practice to set-up quarterly OKRs, although monthly and annual remains viable.
Objective: Description of what the organization intends to achieve. For visualization and clarity purposes, objectives should be short in length and there should be 3 to 5 objectives per period. In our example, we limited it to one word but some objectives may require a little more context when working in larger groups.
Key Results: A set of 2 to 5 key results that will determine the progression and accomplishment of the objective.
Progress: Measure progression of key results from 0% to 100%.
Completion Expectation: Confidence level that the key result will fall under low, medium or high probability of completion within the expected timeline.
Available Resources: External link to supporting documentation to optimize chances of key result completion.
Owners: A team or individual responsible for the completion of a key result.
Dependencies: Items that are required in order to accomplish key results. At the team level, OKR success will often be dependent on the success of an individual OKRs.

‘Individual OKR’ tab

There are currently 8 columns that can be populated into the ‘Individual OKR’ table. Although not every column is critical to the functioning of the tool, each one can help the individual and organization to keep a better track of their OKR, helping to improve cohesion, transparency and success. Below we will look at each column:

Period: Determines the time period in which the OKR must be completed. At the department level, it is best practice to set-up quarterly OKRs, although monthly and annual remains viable.
Objective: Description of what the organization intends to achieve. For visualization and clarity purposes, objectives should be short in length and there should be 3 to 5 objectives per period. In our example, we limited it to one word but some objectives may require a little more context when working in larger groups.
Key Results: A set of 2 to 5 key results that will determine the progression and accomplishment of the objective.
Progress: Measure progression of key results from 0% to 100%.
Completion Expectation: Subjective confidence level that the key result will fall under low, medium or high probability of completion within the expected timeline.
Available Resources: External link to supporting documentation to optimize chances of key result completion.
Owners: An individual responsible for the completion of a key result.
Dependencies: Items that are required in order to accomplish key results. At the individual level, OKR success will often be dependent on individual and team completion of relevant tasks.

‘Config’ Tab

This section helps to configure the drop-down list for [Progress] and [Completion Expectation]. If you would like to decrease or increase the number of options in the config tab, you will need to change the Data Validation for that column, please refer to the Q&A for more information on how to modify such columns.

Conclusion

A good OKR process and solution can be beneficial to the success of an organization, department, team and individual. The GPetrium Excel OKR tool provides a baseline for clients of all sizes to move in the right direction by automating segments of their OKR process, gain insight on OKR data all while using a single, widely available tool. There is plenty of space to improve the tool by automating e-mailing, providing error handling, keeping track of the number of times a client has been reached for payment and others.

FAQ

Q: I have updated the dataset, unfortunately the Dashboard did not update. What do I do?

A: To maximize cybersecurity, the team did not use VBA/macros for the solution. Therefore, in order to update the dashboard, you will need to go to ‘Data->Refresh All’.

Q: I tried to add a new drop-down item to the [Title] Config tab, unfortunately, it does not appear on the Sales Data.

A: The drop-down system is based on the ‘Data Validation’ excel feature, it restricts the entries based on a subset of cells that have been chosen. To recalibrate, you will need to choose all cells in that respective column then on the access toolbar go to ‘Data->Data Validation->Settings’ and change the Source to cover all the items you expect to have on the drop-down.

Q: My Objective and key results are not visually appealing and I think the culprit is the length of the sentence. What can I do?

A: OKRs are meant to be shorter in length, GPetrium encourages users to use the [Available Resources] column to provide further context or to create a new column called [Comment]. You may also have the option to right click the relevant graph and change the ‘Format Chart Area’ settings. Graphs may also be resized as needed to fit the narrative.

OKR Template

Brief

Are you ready to upgrade?

What is the GPetrium’s Excel Objective Key Results Management?

‘Dashboard’ tab

Ideas and Best Practices

‘Organization OKR’ tab

‘Department OKR’ tab

‘Team OKR’ tab

‘Individual OKR’ tab

‘Config’ Tab

Conclusion

FAQ

Authors

Brenda Gonzales

Guilherme Peterson

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