How2 use OKRs in the Real World: Linking to Business Goals and Handling Unplanned Work
The Bridge from Vision to Reality
If you've been following along, you've created your first OKR but now the real questions begin. You might be wondering:
"How does my team's OKR fit into the company's grand strategy?"
and
"What about all the urgent, unplanned work that pops up every week, like bugs and customer requests?"
Firstly these aren't silly questions, in fact we think they are the most important ones. The true power of the OKR framework is its ability to bridge the gap between high-level vision and day to day reality. Let's explore how.
Part 1: The OKR Hierarchy – From Boardroom to Backlog
Think of your company's goals as a chain of command. OKRs provide a clear, cascading narrative that links the executive team to the individual contributor. This is a common practice, with one study showing that 100% of companies using OKRs use them to drive business strategy.
Level 1: The High-Level Business Goal
This is a broad, strategic statement from executive leadership. It's the "Why we exist" or "Where we're going."
Example: "Become a leader in the global streaming market by increasing our subscription base and improving user retention."
Level 2: The Company-Level OKR
This OKR translates the broad business goal into a specific, company-wide objective and measurable results.
Objective: "Deliver the most seamless and engaging user experience in the industry to drive growth."
Key Results:
KR1: Increase monthly active users from 5 million to 7.5 million.
KR2: Decrease customer churn from 5% to 3%.
Level 3: The Product Team OKR
This is where you connect a delivery team's work to the company's success. The product team leader looks at the company OKRs and asks, "How will our product contribute to this?"
Let's imagine you're the Product Manager for the "Onboarding & Discovery" team.
Objective: "Help new users find content they love, so they stick around and become loyal customers."
Key Results:
KR1: Increase the percentage of new users who complete the onboarding flow from 60% to 85%.
KR2: Increase the trial-to-subscription conversion rate for new users from 15% to 25%.
We call this “Cascading OKRS” so you can clearly link what you are doing to a company goal.
The Key Takeaway: Proving Value for Funding
This tiered approach is a game changer for securing resources. You're not just asking to build a feature; you're explaining how that feature will directly lead to a measurable business outcome that supports the company's top level goals and that means everyone wins.
Part 2: The Two Buckets – Balancing Strategic Work with Reality
OK … so that is the happy path right …. Lets get into the mud, what about the inevitable bugs, urgent requests, and promises you made last quarter? If your team only focuses on OKRs, the product will eventually break!
A common pitfall in OKR implementation is "isolated implementation," where teams focus solely on their OKRs and ignore other critical work. Or they try and make weird abstract OKRs to fit what they are doing …. Dont do that … Seriously, please dont …
To avoid this, we recommend a simple allocation model for your team's time.
The Strategic Bucket (~80% of resources): This is the time and energy dedicated to your OKRs. This is the proactive work that will move your business goals forward. It's about building new features and achieving the measurable Key Results you've defined. This is where you are actively building the future.
The Maintenance Bucket (~20% of resources): This is the dedicated time for the reactive but essential work. It's a buffer for things that are important but don't directly tie to your OKRs this quarter. This bucket handles:
Bugs: Fixing critical issues that impact the user experience.
Technical Debt: Making behind-the-scenes improvements to keep your product stable.
Urgent Stakeholder Requests: Small, high impact requests from customers or internal teams.
Past Promises: Delivering on commitments that were made before the current OKR cycle began.
This is ok, if anything it should be commended! It is more transparent and you can flex as your business needs, it allows you to be tactical but also move closer to your company goals and vision.
How to Make it Work: The key is to protect the strategic bucket. You can confidently tell a stakeholder, "That's a great suggestion. We'll add it to our backlog and address it during our next maintenance window, as this quarter's focus is on hitting our Objective to [insert your OKR here]."
By setting aside a small, consistent amount of time for this essential work, you can stay flexible and responsive without losing sight of the big-picture goals you've set for the quarter. It's about acknowledging reality while staying focused on your most important mission.
If you find yourself in a very abstract situation where the company has changed priorities and your product or focus feels no longer relevant to the company goals this needs a deeper conversation. Though companies do need to refocus or re-prioritise you are left with 2 choices:
Take a massive breath and stop. Now lay out what your product does, look at the companies goals, and see, even if it is quite a shift, how can your product be adapted to match the company’s new goals or focus? Then have a go at writing your own OKRs and validate it with leadership
If #1 doesnt work …. Then it may need to be brought up to the leadership teams. A business case showing value can really support. It may be that during deliberations your product got overlooked, or that the company goals need to be adapted. So raising it is never a bad thing, especially if you can prove value. Just be prepared that they may put your product under a spotlight, so come armed with data ;)
If you need support looking at your organisation, or even just your product we would love to have a conversation and see if we can support you.