OKR Generator

The Prompt

Generate OKRs for [TEAM/COMPANY] for [TIME PERIOD].

Context:
- Company stage: [startup/growth/enterprise]
- Top priority: [WHAT MATTERS MOST RIGHT NOW]
- Current challenges: [WHAT'S NOT WORKING]

For each Objective (create 3-5):

**Objective:** [Inspiring, qualitative, memorable — starts with a verb]
- Must be: ambitious but achievable, clear without measurement, motivating

**Key Results** (3-4 per objective):
- Must be: measurable (number), time-bound, outcome-based (not output)
- Include: starting value → target value
- Difficulty: stretch (70% confidence of hitting)

**Anti-patterns to avoid:**
- ❌ Tasks disguised as key results ("Launch feature X" — that's output, not outcome)
- ❌ Binary key results ("Ship or don't" — prefer continuous metrics)
- ❌ Vanity metrics (pageviews without conversion context)
- ❌ Sandbagging (100% confidence = not ambitious enough)

**Alignment check:**
- How does each objective ladder up to company strategy?
- Which objectives depend on other teams? (flag coordination needed)
- What will we explicitly NOT do this quarter to focus?

How To Use It

Provide your team context and current priorities. Review the output for gaming potential — if a team could hit the key result without actually achieving the objective’s spirit, the KR needs rewriting.

Why It Works

OKRs fail when they become task lists or when key results can be gamed. This prompt enforces outcome measurement (did the customer behavior change?) over output measurement (did we ship the thing?), which is the critical distinction between useful and performative goal-setting.

Variations

KR quality check:

Review these OKRs and flag: which key results are actually tasks, which could be gamed, and which don't actually indicate the objective was achieved. Suggest rewrites.

Cascade planning:

Given these company-level OKRs, create aligned team-level OKRs for [TEAM] that contribute without duplicating. Show the connection explicitly.

Retrospective:

We hit [X/Y] key results this quarter. Analyze: which misses were ambition failures (tried hard, fell short) vs execution failures (didn't do the work)? What should change next quarter?