Are your teams struggling to stay focused and meet their goals, despite setting clear objectives? Many businesses face this challenge when trying to align their teams and keep them on track. The issue often lies in determining OKR: how many goals should you set to drive measurable success?
So, how many OKRs per team are ideal? Set too many OKRs, and teams get overwhelmed. Set too few, and you risk missing out on key opportunities. Finding the right number of OKRs is critical to maintaining focus, ensuring alignment, and driving progress.
This blog will help you understand how to strike the right balance for your teams, helping them achieve the results you need.
Focus on a few high-impact objectives at the company level, typically 3-5, to avoid dilution of efforts and ensure clarity.
For teams, align 2-4 OKRs with company goals to maintain focus and drive progress across departments.
At the individual level, limit to 1-3 OKRs per quarter to keep goals achievable and impactful without swamping employees.
Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) is a goal-setting framework that helps organisations align their teams and track progress toward strategic goals. OKRs break down big, ambitious goals into clear and measurable steps, enabling businesses to track both long-term objectives and short-term results.
OKRs consist of two main components:
Objective: This is the broad, inspiring goal that defines what you want to achieve. It gives your team a sense of purpose and direction.
Key Results: These are the measurable outcomes that track your progress toward each objective. Key results provide tangible steps that lead toward achieving the objective.
The purpose of OKRs is to align all members of the organisation towards common goals, provide clarity, and ensure focused efforts on high-impact tasks. OKRs are typically set quarterly, encouraging transparency, accountability, and measurable outcomes.
Factors Affecting OKRs
The effectiveness of OKRs depends on various internal and external factors. Understanding these factors helps ensure that the OKRs set is achievable and aligned with your business goals.
Company Size and Growth Stage: Smaller companies benefit from fewer OKRs that focus on growth, while larger organisations need more OKRs across different departments to ensure alignment.
Industry and Business Complexity: Industries like tech may have more innovative OKRs, whereas industries like manufacturing focus on operational efficiency. The complexity of the business determines how many OKRs are needed.
Available Resources: Limited resources mean fewer, more impactful OKRs, while more resources allow for additional OKRs, but care must be taken not to overextend.
Strategic Priorities: The business’s long-term goals influence the number of OKRs. Companies should prioritise their OKRs based on the most critical strategic objectives.
Employee Capacity and Engagement: The number of OKRs should also consider team capacity and engagement levels. Too many objectives can confuse employees, affecting their focus and productivity.
Setting the ideal number of OKRs ensures that everyone stays aligned, with clear goals and measurable outcomes, driving progress and focus.
Finding the right balance between too many and too few OKRs is crucial. Here’s the ideal number of OKRs you should aim for at each level:
1. Company Level (3-5 OKRs)
At the company level, it’s essential to keep the focus clear and narrow. Limiting OKRs to 3-5 allows the leadership team to prioritise the most important objectives that align with the overall business vision. Too many OKRs at this level can cause a lack of focus and dilute the impact on the company's success.
Focusing on a few key objectives ensures that resources are aligned, and everyone in the organisation is working toward common, strategic goals. By setting a clear OKR goal quantity, the company can drive significant progress.
2. Team Level (2-4 OKRs)
For teams, 2-4 OKRs are ideal. These OKRs should be directly aligned with the company's broader goals, ensuring each team contributes meaningfully to organisational success. A limited number of OKRs helps teams maintain clarity, fosters accountability, and ensures focused execution.
According to Measure What Matters by John Doerr, setting 2-4 OKRs per team ensures alignment and focus while maintaining clarity and accountability.
Setting too many OKRs at the team level can lead to scattered efforts, with teams trying to tackle too many objectives at once. Keeping the number of OKRs manageable allows teams to focus on high-impact results that drive real progress.
3. Individual Level (1-3 OKRs)
Individual contributors should have 1-3 OKRs per quarter. This limited number helps employees stay focused on meaningful, achievable goals. It ensures that their contributions are aligned with both their team’s and the company's objectives.
By keeping personal OKRs clear and specific, employees can track their progress easily and make adjustments as needed. This approach allows for better clarity and ensures that each individual is working toward objectives that truly matter.
Read More: Best OKR Software for Goal-Setting in 2025
Let’s look at how different teams and industries can apply OKRs effectively. In each scenario, companies need to ask themselves, OKR, how many objectives are realistic and achievable for their teams, while staying aligned with overarching business goals.
Example 1: Finance Team in a Growing SaaS Company
A SaaS company looking to streamline financial operations might have the following OKRs:
Objective: Improve financial accuracy and simplify processes.
Key Result 1: Achieve 99% accuracy in monthly financial reports.
Key Result 2: Reduce time spent on monthly reconciliations by 30%.
Key Result 3: Implement an automated tax compliance system.
In this case, the finance team focuses on accuracy and efficiency, with measurable results directly tied to business objectives, ensuring the team stays aligned with the company's financial goals.
Example 2: HR Team in a Mid-Sized E-Commerce Company
An e-commerce business in India looking to improve employee engagement and streamline HR functions might have this OKR goal quantity:
Objective: Enhance employee engagement and streamline HR processes.
Key Result 1: Achieve 85% employee satisfaction in the annual survey.
Key Result 2: Reduce employee onboarding time by 20%.
Key Result 3: Automate 80% of the payroll and benefits processes.
For the HR team, the focus is on improving efficiency, compliance, and employee experience, which aligns with the growing HR infrastructure needs of an expanding e-commerce company.
Example 3: IT Team in a Large Finance Company
A finance company struggling with IT asset management and data security could have the following OKRs:
Objective: Strengthen IT infrastructure and improve security protocols.
Key Result 1: Conduct quarterly security audits with zero critical vulnerabilities.
Key Result 2: Complete the transition of all payroll systems to cloud-based security by the end of the quarter.
Key Result 3: Decrease system downtime by 15% through proactive maintenance.
This IT team focuses on infrastructure improvements, data security, and reducing technical issues, directly supporting the organisation’s broader goals of maintaining operational continuity and security.
Example 4: CEO of a Start-Up
A start-up in its early growth phase might have the following OKRs at the CEO level to drive company-wide strategic priorities:
Objective: Accelerate company growth and secure market position.
Key Result 1: Achieve a 25% increase in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) by the end of the quarter.
Key Result 2: Close three strategic partnerships to expand market reach.
Key Result 3: Reduce customer churn rate by 15% through improved product and service strategies.
For the CEO, the focus is on high-level strategic decisions that drive growth, strengthen market position, and ensure overall company performance, rather than executing operational tasks like HR software implementation.
Example 5: CTO in a Growing IT Company
For an IT company focused on technology growth and innovation, a CTO might set the following OKRs:
Objective: Strengthen technology infrastructure and drive innovation.
Key Result 1: Migrate 80% of core systems to a scalable cloud architecture by the end of the quarter.
Key Result 2: Reduce system downtime by 20% through improved monitoring and proactive maintenance.
Key Result 3: Launch 2 new internal tools or features that enhance operational efficiency or customer experience.
These OKRs ensure the CTO focuses on high-level technology strategy, system scalability, and innovation, directly supporting the company’s growth and long-term objectives.
These examples highlight the key results per OKR across different teams and sectors, showing how they can drive measurable improvements in alignment with strategic goals.
Craze’s Goals & OKR software is designed to simplify the process of setting and tracking your objectives while keeping your team aligned with the broader company goals.
Setting OKRs Your Way
Craze’s advanced OKR software allows you to set and manage OKRs effortlessly. Whether you are a growing startup or an established enterprise, Craze’s software helps you create specific, measurable objectives aligned with your business goals. You can:
Customise OKRs to fit your business structure and priorities.
Track progress automatically with real-time updates on key results.
Set goal cycles for any time period, from quarterly to annually.
With Craze, you can set ambitious goals without the burden of manual tracking, ensuring your business objectives remain in focus.
Aligning Efforts Across Teams
Setting the right number of OKRs isn’t just about balancing objectives. It’s also about ensuring alignment across teams. Craze’s software helps you:
Align individual and team efforts with company-wide objectives, breaking down larger strategic goals into smaller, actionable sub-goals.
Cascading goals allow for smooth coordination between departments, ensuring everyone works towards the same company vision.
By linking OKRs across teams, Craze ensures that the entire workforce is moving in the same direction, maximising impact without spreading resources too thin.
Streamlining Goal Tracking
Craze takes the guesswork out of goal tracking. With automated updates and real-time insights, you can:
Monitor progress with key results that are binary, numeric, or percentage-based.
Track milestones and mark completed objectives without manual input.
Receive automated alerts and reminders about upcoming deadlines and key achievements, keeping everyone on track.
This streamlined process allows businesses to focus on performance rather than administrative tasks, making it easier to achieve objectives in a timely manner.
Flexible and Scalable for Your Needs
As your business grows, Craze adapts to your changing needs. With Craze’s flexible OKR management:
You can adjust settings for different goals, permissions, and workflows to suit your evolving organisational structure.
Goal completion tracking is simplified, enabling employees to mark progress and finish tasks without confusion.
Set the right OKRs with Craze and drive your business forward. Try the Craze OKR software now!
Setting the correct number of OKRs ensures your teams stay focused on what matters most. By maintaining the right balance, you can drive meaningful progress without disengaging your team or losing sight of critical objectives.
Q1. What is the best way to track OKRs for remote teams?
A1. Remote teams require a reliable system for tracking OKRs in real-time. Using digital goal-tracking tools helps ensure transparency, allowing all team members to stay aligned and updated on progress, even from different locations. Regular check-ins and feedback sessions also play a key role in maintaining momentum.
Q2. How can I adapt OKRs to suit the needs of a growing startup?
A2. Startups should begin with a few focused OKRs that address the most critical business priorities. As the startup grows, OKRs can expand to cover team-specific goals. This ensures that the focus remains on achieving key milestones while adapting to the evolving needs of the business.
Q3. Can OKRs be used for short-term projects, or are they only for long-term goals?
A3. OKRs are versatile and can be used for both short-term and long-term goals. For short-term projects, it's essential to set specific, time-bound key results that can be easily tracked. This helps teams maintain focus and achieve quick wins while aligning with broader business objectives.
Q4. How do I handle conflicting OKRs across departments?
A4. Conflicting OKRs can be managed by ensuring that all objectives are aligned with the company's overarching goals. Cross-functional communication and collaboration are essential. Regular reviews and alignment meetings help resolve conflicts and ensure that departmental OKRs contribute to the overall strategy.
Q5. How do OKRs affect employee productivity?
A5. OKRs provide employees with clear, measurable goals that help them focus on what truly matters. With defined key results, employees know their priorities and can track their progress regularly. This clarity increases accountability, enhances engagement, and boosts overall productivity.
