A company's objectives and key results for the quarter, with progress, owners and status in one place.
OKRs fail quietly. They get set in a planning week, filed in a spreadsheet, and opened again on the last day of the quarter, when nothing can be changed. A mid-quarter check-in prevents that, and here is one: a made-up company's objectives and key results six weeks into a thirteen-week quarter, written for everyone who works there. It's a snapshot: someone has to put in new numbers each time, because the page doesn't refresh itself.
Who it's for
A leadership team, or whoever runs planning for it, writing to the whole company. Send it twice a quarter: once when the OKRs are set, and again in the middle, while there's still time to act on what it shows.
Teams that change their numbers weekly and want to discuss each one need a tracker they edit themselves. This page is for reading.
What a good one contains
- Objectives in plain words. "Carers can trust the phone app" means the same thing to an engineer and a salesperson.
- Key results that are numbers. Each has a start, a target and a value today: crash-free sessions from 98.1% toward 99.5%, now 99.2%. "Improve app quality" can't be scored.
- Progress counted from the start value. Going from 38 agencies to 44 against a target of 80 is 14% of the way, not 55%. The bar shows distance covered.
- A mark for time gone. Each bar carries a notch at 46%, because six of thirteen weeks have passed. Without it, 50% in week six looks like bad news.
- Status in words, with the rule stated. Ahead, on track, at risk and behind are each defined by how far the bar sits from the notch. Nobody has to wonder whether a status was chosen kindly.
- One owner per key result. A person, where most trackers name a team. Marram's page closes by asking readers to tell that person if a number looks wrong.
- For anything behind: why, what's changing, the new forecast. Three short lines under the row.
The key result that's behind
A check-in where everything is green teaches people to stop reading. If a key result is behind, say so in the opening paragraph and again beside its bar. Marram does both for payroll export: shipped three weeks late, six agencies in its first week, and a forecast cut from 80 to 62.
Lower the forecast and leave the target alone. Moving a target mid-quarter hides the miss, and people notice.
Before you send it, recompute each percentage from its start, target and current value. Then count the statuses in the rows and compare them with the summary at the top.
How to send it
To named people. It holds revenue and hiring numbers meant for staff. Open it to everyone at your company's domain and to nobody else.
Every page you publish gets one link that opens in any browser. You choose who can open it: anyone with the link, anyone with the password, or only the people and company domains you name, who sign in with Google or Microsoft. Change the page later and the link stays the same.
