Writing your first set of OKRs is a meaningful step. The team has gathered, discussed priorities, and landed on a set of objectives with key results that feel right. It is tempting to call it done and move on to execution.
But there is one more step that is often overlooked, especially by teams new to OKRs: reviewing what you have written before you commit to it for the quarter. A short quality check at this stage can be the difference between a first cycle that builds momentum and one that fizzles out after a few weeks.
This article provides a simple checklist of seven questions to ask before you finalise your OKRs. The questions are designed for teams writing OKRs for the first time, though they are equally useful as a recurring sanity check in later cycles.
The mental model behind the checklist
The best way to evaluate an OKR before you commit to it is to imagine your first check-in, roughly one month into the quarter. Picture the team sitting down together and walking through each key result. Ask yourself: will we be able to have a fruitful discussion that leads to action?
If the answer is yes, the key result is probably in good shape. If the answer is that the team will stare at a number that has not moved, or that nobody will have anything meaningful to say, then something needs to change before you start.
Every question in this checklist connects back to that mental exercise.
The value of OKRs comes from the ongoing conversation they create, not from the goal-setting moment itself.
Niklas Olsson, OKRnest
The seven questions
1. Can we measure it?
This is the most fundamental check. If there is no clear way to track progress on a key result, there is no basis for a check-in conversation. The team will end up guessing whether things are going well, and guessing is not a reliable way to run a quarter.
Measurable does not always mean a precise number. It can be a percentage, a clearly defined milestone, or even a yes/no outcome, as long as the team can point to something concrete and say “here is where we are.” The important thing is that progress is observable, not just felt.
2. Is it relevant to what matters this quarter?
It is common for teams to write key results that sound reasonable in isolation but do not connect to the organisation’s actual priorities for the quarter. A key result should reflect something that genuinely matters for the next 90 days, not a business-as-usual metric dressed up as an OKR.
One way to test this: if you removed the key result entirely, would the team lose focus on something important? If the answer is no, it is probably not earning its place.
3. Will it influence our weekly priorities?
A strong key result should show up in planning conversations and daily decisions. When the team sits down to plan the coming week, the OKRs should naturally come up as a reference point for what to prioritise.
If a key result is something the team checks once a quarter but never references in between, it is unlikely to drive the kind of focus that makes OKRs worthwhile. The value of OKRs comes from the ongoing conversation they create, not from the goal-setting moment itself.
4. Is it within our team’s scope to influence?
Teams sometimes adopt key results tied to metrics they cannot directly move through their own work. This is usually where things go wrong. A marketing team tracking a company-wide sales metric, for instance, will find themselves watching a number drift without any clear lever to pull.
A common example is following NPS on a weekly basis. NPS is a valuable metric, but it tends to move slowly. Tracking it week by week in a check-in often produces the same number repeatedly, which leads to flat discussions with nothing actionable to talk about.
A better approach is to choose a key result that is closer to the team’s own output. Instead of “Improve company NPS from 45 to 55,” a team running customer events might track “Deliver a post-event NPS score of 8.5 or higher across all Q3 events.” The team directly controls event quality and can take specific actions between events to improve the score. That kind of key result produces meaningful check-in discussions.
5. Is the goal realistic?
For a first OKR cycle, it is usually better to lean toward realistic and achievable targets. You can calibrate ambition in future quarters once the team has a feel for how the process works and what kind of progress is typical.
The risk with overly ambitious targets in a first cycle is that the team dismisses OKRs as an exercise in setting impossible goals. A key result that nobody believes is achievable will often be ignored from the start. On the other hand, a target that requires no extra effort will not push the team to do anything differently. The balance point is a goal the team genuinely believes is achievable with focused effort.
6. Will it show gradual progress between check-ins?
This is one of the most overlooked questions, and it has a large impact on the check-in experience. If a key result is binary, meaning it is either done or not done for most of the quarter, the check-in conversation tends to sound the same each time: “Not done yet. Still working on it.”
Key results with dates are common culprits. “Launch the new onboarding flow by March 31” will have the same status for ten weeks (not done), and then in week eleven it is done. There is no meaningful discussion along the way.
The fix is often simple: track percentage completion leading up to the target date rather than treating it as a binary milestone. With a percentage-based key result, the team can discuss at each check-in what has been finished, what is blocked, and what comes next. The conversation has substance.
The key results that tend to work best are ones with material movement between check-ins, things like number of leads generated, tickets completed, or experiments run. These naturally trigger discussion about next steps and activities, which is where the real value of check-ins lies.
7. Can we have a meaningful check-in about this?
This is the overarching question that ties the others together. Imagine you are one month into the quarter. The team pulls up this key result. Consider whether someone can report a concrete update, whether that update will spark a conversation about what to do next, and whether that conversation will lead to specific actions for the coming weeks.
If all of that feels natural, the key result is ready. If not, walk through the previous six questions to identify what is missing.
Expect to adjust your first OKRs
One pattern that is common in first-time OKR teams is that they write their OKRs, run the first check-in, and realise that some key results do not work as expected. Perhaps one is not measurable in practice. Perhaps another does not move between check-ins. Perhaps a third turned out to be less relevant once real work started.
This is normal, and it is not a sign that something went wrong. The concept of OKRs is easy to grasp, but getting the key results right takes practice and a few iterations.
The mistake teams usually make is not that their first OKRs were imperfect. It is that they refuse to adjust them. They treat the OKRs as set in stone for the entire quarter, and when the check-ins become stale, they conclude that OKRs do not work for their team.
The better approach is to expect to revisit and refine your OKRs after the first check-in or two. Your first draft is a starting point, not a contract. Use the early check-ins as feedback loops.
Ownership with openness
The team should own their OKRs. They should write them, debate them, and commit to them. That ownership is what makes OKRs different from top-down targets handed to a team.
At the same time, ownership does not mean working in isolation. Before you finalise, it is worth sharing your OKRs with a manager, an OKR coach, or someone acting as an internal OKR ambassador. A fresh pair of eyes will often catch things the team is too close to see. The checklist in this article can serve as that feedback structure, something to walk through together before the quarter begins.
How OKRnest can help
If you are using OKRnest, the platform includes a review and feedback feature that walks through this kind of quality check for you. It evaluates your OKRs against common issues and provides specific guidance on what to adjust, so you do not have to rely on memory or a printed checklist to spot problems before they affect your quarter.
Takeaway
Before you finalise your OKRs, try one thing: imagine your first check-in. Walk through each key result and ask whether it will lead to a useful conversation with clear next steps. If it will not, adjust it now. The seven questions in this checklist are designed to make that mental exercise concrete and repeatable, so that your first OKR cycle builds confidence in the process rather than scepticism.