An operations OKR holds up when it takes cost, time or error out of a process the whole company feels.
Operations work is a stream of requests, fixes and maintenance, which is precisely why it benefits from OKRs: without a stated outcome, the urgent eats the quarter. The strongest operations OKRs pick one process the whole company feels and take cost, time or error out of it, with baselines straight from the systems.
The trap to avoid is the task list with percentages: automating steps and migrating tools are the how. The key results should say what gets faster, cheaper or more reliable because of them.
Objective: Give the team its Tuesdays back
Coach’s score ★★★★★
Measurable ★★★★★
Outcome-based ★★★★★
Focused ★★★★★
Niklas Olsson · OKR coach
It names a process outcome the rest of the company can feel: cycle time, first-time-right rate, cost per transaction, internal satisfaction. If nobody outside operations would notice the key result moving, it is probably internal housekeeping.
Write the outcome first and let the tasks compete for it. 'Cut manual hours from 120 to 40 per month' leaves room to automate, eliminate or redesign; 'implement the automation tool' commits the quarter to one answer before the evidence is in.
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A good OKR that tries to tackle a big scope. The objective is really strong: inspiring, relevant, and it bears real meaning for the team, which is great.
They may run into issues with key result two after a couple of weeks. Even if they have identified the top five recurring workflows, what does it mean to automate end to end, and when are you done? Going from zero is a real challenge here, because it looks like a new kind of work the team has not done before. An improvement would be to say: save X hours through automations by the end of the quarter. Note that is different from key result one, which can also be hit by changing how things are done or making them more efficient. Key result two would still be focused on introducing automations for the team.