OKRs in business – how to run strategic goals in monday.com or Jira

OKRs were born at Intel and grew up at Google. The idea is simple: instead of running a long task list, the organisation defines a few clear goals per quarter, defines measurable key results for each goal, and regularly checks whether things are on track.

What OKRs really change is fundamental. First, they force choice. A team cannot have 20 priorities – it has to pick 3–5. A hard conversation, but clarity afterwards. Second, they create a shared language. Leadership, sales, marketing, IT start using the same words about goals. Third, they connect strategy with daily work. Everyone sees how their work feeds into the company goal.

What OKRs do not change. They do not change organisational culture. They do not replace the conversation about priorities – they just organise it. They do not fix weak management. They do not magically increase productivity. Organisations expecting a miracle from OKRs are always disappointed.

OKRs make sense for organisations where strategic choices really exist and leadership is ready for the hard conversation. Without that OKRs become a document that lives on the intranet and no one reads.

An Objective is a description of what we want to achieve. Short, ambitious, qualitative. The best objectives are inspiring, not afraid of ambition. Not six tenths more sales, but become the undisputed leader of segment B in Europe.

Key Results are measurable indicators that the objective has been achieved. Every KR is a hard number with a clear deadline. Not improve customer service quality, but lift customer NPS from 35 to 55 by end of Q3.

A good OKR set has 3–5 objectives at company level, with 2–4 key results per objective. That is 6–20 KRs in total to track through the quarter. Less means the focus is too narrow, more means the organisation will be blind to half of them.

Stretch goals or concrete targets? Google's OKRs use stretch goals where 70% achievement is success. That works in cultures that tolerate ambition. In other cultures stretch goals demotivate, because people fear publicly declaring ambitious targets. A conscious OKR rollout often starts with concrete goals (goal = 100% achievement) and only adds stretch goals after a year of experience.

The most common mistake: confusing OKRs with a KPI list. KPIs are metrics we always track (revenue, costs, utilisation). OKRs are change goals we want to achieve this quarter. Those two things complement each other, but they are not the same.

Company-level OKRs are only the beginning. The real value of OKRs appears when every department and team has its own OKRs that genuinely support company goals.

The classic approach (Google) assumes cascading across three levels. The company defines its 3–5 objectives. Each department (sales, marketing, operations, IT, HR, finance) defines its 3–5 objectives showing how that department supports company goals. Each team in the department defines OKRs showing how it supports the department's goals.

In practice the cascade is not mechanical. Team goals are rarely an exact subset of department goals. A good OKR rollout allows 70% of team OKRs to come from the cascade and 30% to be team-specific (e.g. internal improvements no one captures at a higher level).

Practical decision: who writes the OKRs. The best results come when OKRs are written bottom-up and top-down at the same time. Leadership proposes company goals. Departments propose supporting OKRs. Teams propose OKRs supporting the department. Then everything is negotiated at one quarterly workshop. After 2–3 weeks of conversations everyone has clarity.

The first time in the organisation this process takes 4–6 weeks. In subsequent quarters 2–3 weeks. In year three with OKRs the organisation cascades goals in a week.

OKRs work not because they are well written, but because they are regularly refreshed. Each rhythm level has its function.

Quarterly rhythm: OKR definition (first 2 weeks of the quarter), OKR retrospective (last week of the quarter). The quarterly definition is a 1–2 day workshop with leadership and heads of departments. Output: published company, department, team OKRs. Retrospective: each department shows what it achieved with last quarter's OKRs, what not, why.

Monthly rhythm: progress check-in (one 90-minute meeting, head of department with teams). Every KR has a current status: progress as %, on track or not, what risks. Corrective decisions made now, not at quarter end.

Weekly rhythm: monday morning check-in in the team (15–30 min). What was done last week toward OKRs, what is planned this week, what blockers. Short, concrete, no unnecessary repetition.

Annual rhythm: definition of strategic goals for the year (2–3 day leadership workshop in November). From this 4 quarters of OKRs follow. The year also has its retrospective: what we achieved over 4 quarters of OKRs, what surprised us, what to adjust.

Without the rhythm OKRs are a document. With the rhythm they become a way of managing the organisation.

The OKR tool does not have to be specialised. Many organisations run OKRs in Excel or Confluence. But for companies already running monday.com or Jira it is natural to embed OKRs in the same ecosystem.

monday.com Strategic Portfolio Management is a dedicated module for running OKRs and the project portfolio. Lets you cascade company → department → team goals, track KR progress, link every KR with specific projects in monday.com. Greatest strength: users see one place where both their projects and strategic goals live. Price: an add-on to the monday.com Enterprise plan.

Jira Align (formerly AgileCraft) is Atlassian's dedicated tool for SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) and OKRs in organisations with many development teams. Greatest strength: deep linking of OKRs with the concrete work of development teams (epics, features, stories) in Jira. Price: significant, hundreds of dollars per user per year. Makes sense for organisations with 200+ developers.

Alternatively: dedicated OKR tools. Lattice, 15Five, Workboard, Mooncamp – all designed exclusively for OKRs. Strong rhythm support (automatic check-ins, retrospectives), strong reporting. Price: USD 5–15/user/month. Makes sense for organisations where OKRs are really the central management theme.

Practical recommendation for most organisations: if you already run monday.com – Strategic Portfolio Management. If Jira with a large developer base – Jira Align. If neither, a dedicated OKR tool (Lattice / Mooncamp) is cheaper than deploying a whole new PM tool.

Experience from many OKR rollouts in European organisations points to five mistakes that lead to OKR failure in the first year.

Mistake 1: too many OKRs. The company defines 12 objectives. Each department has 8. Each team 5. Total 50+ OKRs. Nobody remembers all of them, no focus. Correction: maximum 5 objectives per level, in total 15–25 for the whole organisation.

Mistake 2: OKRs as a copy of KPIs. The finance team has an OKR keep margin at 18%. That is not an OKR, that is a KPI. An OKR should talk about change, not about maintenance. Correction: OKR is a change goal this quarter.

Mistake 3: no rhythm. The company defines OKRs at the start of the quarter and never refreshes them. After six months no one remembers they exist. Correction: monthly check-in, quarterly retrospective.

Mistake 4: OKRs tied to bonuses and compensation. Often with good intentions: if I hit my OKRs, I get a bonus. Result: people write conservative OKRs to hit them easily. OKR stops being a strategic tool, becomes a compensation table. Correction: OKRs and compensation separated. Compensation based on overall evaluation, not on specific OKR achievement percentage.

Mistake 5: top-down only. Leadership defines company OKRs and demands departments deliver them. No negotiation, no adoption. Correction: top-down + bottom-up at the same time, negotiated at a workshop.

Does a small organisation (30–50 people) need OKRs? Yes, in a simplified form. 3–5 company-level OKRs without cascading, quarterly refresh, monthly check-ins are enough. Full cascade (company + department + team) makes sense from 100+ people.

How much does an OKR rollout cost? EUR 7–18k in consultant work for a 50–250 person organisation (rollout workshops, leadership and head-of-department mentoring through the first 2 quarters, OKR tool). It can be done without external advisory, but requires the head of strategy to invest time (2–3 days a month).

Does AI help in running OKRs? Yes. OKR tools (Mooncamp, Lattice) have AI assistants for generating first OKR drafts, summarising check-ins, identifying achievement risk. Microsoft Copilot helps preparing OKR workshops. A fuller picture in our article on AI in project management.

How long until OKRs really start working? 2–3 quarters. The first quarter is learning, the second the first real impact, the third maturity. Organisations giving up after one quarter rarely see OKR value.

Do OKRs work in non-tech organisations? Yes. OKRs were born at Intel (semiconductors), Google grew them up, but in 2026 they are also used by banks, consulting firms, manufacturing, retail. Adaptation only requires language change and cascade pace.

What if OKRs do not pan out (we achieve 30–40%)? Usually a good signal. Stretch goals assume 70% as success. 30–40% means either OKRs were unrealistic or the team needs support. The retrospective answers: do we calibrate OKRs or change the team. The first is more common.

OKRs work not because they are a clever methodology. They work because they force the organisation into a regular conversation about what really matters. Without that conversation OKRs are just a document.

Good OKRs have 3–5 objectives per level, cascade company → department → team (70% from cascade, 30% specific), a quarterly + monthly + weekly rhythm and grounding in a tool (monday.com Strategic Portfolio, Jira Align, dedicated OKR like Lattice or Mooncamp).

Rolling out OKRs in a 50–250 person organisation costs EUR 7–18k in consultant work and takes 2–3 quarters to maturity. Real impact: better strategic decisions, higher team adoption of company goals, priority clarity.

A fuller picture of PMO's role in running OKRs is in our article on PMO – how to build a Project Management Office. A fuller picture of tool choice is in our article on monday.com vs Jira.