The method

Rules that run, not a template.

Most OKR tools give you a form and a help article. OKRGoal gives you the method itself, as rules that run on your real OKRs while you work: a guided cycle, twenty-six quality checks on your drafts and your cycle, six publish gates, an alignment score, and an honest diagnosis at the close.

Start free Read METHOD.md
METHOD.md · Rule OBJ-1
OBJ-1Outcome, not output
WarnYour objective starts with a deliverable. If we do it and nothing changes, did we succeed?
PassThis reads as a change in state, not a to-do. Keep the deliverables in your key results.
Weak
Launch the new mobile app
Strong
Make mobile the way our customers prefer to reach us
In this workspace
One document

The whole method, in one public document.

Every rule, threshold, band, gate, session agenda and diagnostic OKRGoal enforces lives in one document, METHOD.md, published with the open source OpenOKR code. It compiles into a small library with no database, no network and no AI. The same rules run in your browser as you type, on the server before anything is saved, inside the agents, and in the importer.

A test compares the document and the code on every change. If they disagree, the build fails. So what the documentation says is what the product does.

METHOD.md
KR-3 Complete.Block when the target, the due date or the owner is missing.Warn when a metric key result has no baseline. "No baseline. If the number today is unknown, establishing it can be its own key result."
The eight phases

A cycle that knows where it is.

The product knows which phase you are in, what is missing, who owes what, and how many weeks are left before the publication date. Completion is computed from the work, not ticked by hand.

Q1 cycle · Phase 4 · Draft
Phase completion5 weeks to publication
Objectives drafted9 of 12
Key results passing the checks21 of 30
Champions named12 of 12

By default the phases guide. Anybody who can edit a space can write and change its OKRs at any time. Make them binding if you run a formal process, or hide them if you only want to track.

  1. Annual strategy

    Once a year. Mission, vision, two to five annual strategies, up to five annual objectives, and the year's not-doing list.

  2. Prepare

    A sponsor and a facilitator, and the seven-item input pack gathered and shared.

  3. Diagnose

    Score last cycle, read the KPI baselines, rank at least three strategic issues by impact.

  4. Set direction

    In the annual cycle, three to five priorities, each with what will be measurably different in twelve months, then the not-doing list. Each quarter checks that the annual frame still holds.

  5. Draft OKRs

    Objectives and key results, with the quality checks running on every line.

  6. Align and commit

    Map contribution, confirm dependencies, check capacity, clear the publish gates.

  7. Run the cadence

    Weekly check-ins, monthly reviews and a decision log, with every session booked for the whole cycle. A target can change at any time, with a written reason when it gets easier.

  8. Review and learn

    Score, retro, diagnose, and feed it all into the next cycle.

Twenty-six checks

Twenty-six checks, on every line and every cycle.

Each check returns pass, warn or fail, with a coaching prompt and the reason it matters. The commonest mistakes also show a weak and a strong version side by side. By default only structural defects block publishing: a missing key result, target, date or owner. Everything else coaches, and you decide what blocks.

5 checks

Objectives

  • OBJ-1Outcome, not output
  • OBJ-2Qualitative and memorable
  • OBJ-3Timebound
  • OBJ-4Owned by a champion
  • OBJ-5Not too many
7 checks

Key results

  • KR-1Two to five per objective
  • KR-2Verifiable
  • KR-3Complete: target, date, owner, baseline
  • KR-4Leading and lagging
  • KR-5Impact, not effort
  • KR-6Ambitious but honest
  • KR-7Direction set
6 checks

Alignment

  • AL-1Supports a bigger priority
  • AL-2One parent only
  • AL-3No level skipped
  • AL-4A company anchor
  • AL-5Dependencies declared
  • AL-6Not siloed
8 checks

The cycle

  • CY-1Input pack gathered before session one
  • CY-2Prior cycle scored
  • CY-3Strategic issues ranked
  • CY-4Three to five priorities
  • CY-5The not-doing list is written
  • CY-6Capacity checked
  • CY-7Dependencies confirmed
  • CY-8Every session booked

Some of what they catch

"Your objective starts with a deliverable. If we do it and nothing changes, did we succeed?" "This measures activity volume. Ask why: more calls, to what end?" "A target but no baseline. Without the from, you cannot prove movement." "Trim it. If your team cannot recite it from memory, it will not steer their daily decisions." "Which priority does this move forward? Align it to one, or say why it stands alone."

The checks are measured against real, published OKRs, and no check that matches words blocks by default. A person decides what blocks, not a word list.

Anatomy of a coaching card

Nothing is a mysterious red dot.

Key result · draft
Key result
Hold 12 customer interviews
1Warn 2KR-5Impact, not effort Read the rule

3This measures activity volume. Ask why: more calls, to what end? If you can measure that impact, make it the key result and keep the activity as a leading indicator.

4Why it matters
5
Weak
Hold 12 customer interviews
Strong
Weekly active mobile users from 1,200 to 5,000
Rewrite of your lineApplyDismiss
  1. 1
    The verdict.

    Pass, warn or fail.

  2. 2
    The rule.

    Its key and name, KR-5 Impact, not effort. Click it to read the rule in full.

  3. 3
    The prompt.

    The question that exposes the problem.

  4. 4
    The reason.

    Why this matters, in one sentence.

  5. 5
    The example.

    A weak version and a strong version, side by side. With an AI provider connected, a rewrite of your own line you can apply or dismiss.

Alignment that means something

Contribution, not copying.

A team objective that restates the company objective aligns nothing. In OKRGoal, vertical alignment means this goal moves that one. Horizontal alignment is a dependency both teams know about, which can be escalated when it stalls.

The product scores alignment health as the share of goals that are aligned or stand alone with a stated reason, and names every gap: no company objective anchoring the tree, an orphan goal, an objective with no key results and, if you turn those checks on, a skipped level or a department with no cross-team dependency anywhere in its branch.

With an AI provider connected, the Coach's nightly sweep adds what structure cannot see: two goals counting the same metric, a goal that would sit better under a different parent, a dependency between two teams who have not spoken.

Alignment · whole organisation
86%
Alignment healthWatch
Healthy90% and above
Watch80% to below 90%
GapBelow 80%
Gaps, named
AL-1Grow enterprise pipeline: Which priority does this move forward? Align it to one, or say why it stands alone.
Skipped levelOnboarding emailsLinks straight to the company objective
No cross-team dependencyFinanceAnywhere in its branch
Committed, aspirational, and four kinds of key result

Scored by what they are.

Two kinds of objective

Committed

1.0

Expected to land at 1.0. A miss asks for an explanation.

Aspirational

0.7

A real stretch. Landing at 0.7 is a good result.

Four kinds of key result

Metric

Move a number from a baseline to a target.

Maintain

Hold a number inside a band.

Milestone

Done by a date, or not.

Baseline

Measure something nobody has measured yet.

Every key result has an owner, a weight, a due date, a confidence and its full value history. Metrics get a trend forecast. Easing a target mid-cycle asks for a reason and keeps the original on record. "It got hard" is not a reason.

Defaults, not dogma

Your flavour of OKRs, without starting from a blank page.

Every rule is a recommended default, and every one can change. Twenty-five practice settings cover who may write and when, how binding the phases are, the kinds of objective and key result in use, which checks and gates block, warn or are off, how confidence is shown, score colours, how the quarterly review runs, and more. Five profiles set them all in one move.

Settings · Practice
ProfileRecommended
Phases how binding
KR-5 Impact, not effort
Gate 6 a publication date is set
Confidence shown asOut of ten

Recommended

Most organisations. The defaults in the method.

Lightweight

Teams that want to track OKRs without the planning workflow.

Governed

Organisations that run a formal planning process.

Every change is audited. A closed cycle keeps the rules it was graded under, so changing a threshold next year never rewrites last year's verdicts.

Profile names describe published OKR methods. No endorsement is implied.

Built on published sources

We did the reading. And the coaching.

OKRGoal and OpenOKR are built by OKR Institute, on what it has learned since 2017 coaching OKR rollouts and running its OKR platform, okri.io. Every rule also names the published source it rests on. Where the sources disagree, the document says so and picks a default you can change.

The method is written in our own words. No third party's copy, branding or course material appears in the product.

  1. John Doerr, Measure What Matters, and whatmatters.com
  2. Andy Grove, High Output Management
  3. Google's OKR playbook and Google re:Work, Set goals with OKRs
  4. Christina Wodtke, Radical Focus
  5. Felipe Castro, on OKR levels and alignment
  6. Ben Lamorte, The OKRs Field Book
  7. Marty Cagan, on product teams and OKRs
  8. Rick Klau, How Google sets goals
Argue with it

Think a rule is wrong? Tell us.

Every coaching message links to its rule. Every rule is public. If you run OKRs for a living and think a threshold, a check or a session agenda is wrong, open an issue with your reasoning and your source. If you are right, the rule changes for everyone, with your name on the change.

Read METHOD.md Challenge a rule on GitHub

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