Planet RoadmapOKRs—Objectives and Key Results—are one of the most popular goal-setting frameworks in product management, yet many teams struggle to write them well. A poorly written OKR reads like a to-do list. A good OKR focuses the team on outcomes that matter and provides a clear way to measure progress. The difference comes down to craft.
Anatomy of a Strong Objective
An objective should be qualitative, aspirational, and time-bound. It describes the destination, not the route. "Become the go-to tool for product teams managing public roadmaps" is a strong objective because it paints a picture of success without prescribing specific features.
Avoid objectives that are really tasks in disguise. "Launch the new dashboard" is a project milestone, not an objective. Reframe it as the outcome the dashboard is meant to achieve: "Give customers instant clarity on project health."
Writing Measurable Key Results
Key results are the quantitative evidence that you are achieving your objective. Each key result should have a specific metric, a starting value, and a target value. "Increase weekly active users from 1,200 to 2,000" is measurable. "Improve user engagement" is not.
- Limit each objective to 3-5 key results.
- Make key results outcome-based, not output-based.
- Set targets that are ambitious but not impossible—aim for 70% achievement.
- Ensure each key result is independently measurable with existing data.
Product Team OKR Examples
Objective: Make onboarding so smooth that new users reach value in their first session. Key results: reduce median time-to-first-roadmap from 12 minutes to 5 minutes; increase day-7 retention from 35% to 50%; achieve an onboarding NPS of 45 or higher.
Objective: Build a feedback loop that customers love. Key results: grow monthly active feedback portal users by 40%; increase the percentage of shipped features tied to customer requests from 30% to 60%; reduce average response time to feature requests from 5 days to 2 days.
Connecting OKRs to Daily Work
OKRs are useless if the team forgets about them after the planning meeting. Review progress weekly in a 15-minute check-in. Use your roadmap tool to link initiatives directly to the key results they support. Planet Roadmap lets teams tag roadmap items with their associated OKRs so every feature on the board has a clear connection to a measurable goal.
When a new request or idea comes in, ask "which key result does this move?" If the answer is none, it either belongs in the backlog for a future cycle or it signals that your OKRs need refinement.