Set ambitious goals and measurable outcomes that cascade through your organisation, creating alignment and accountability for strategic priorities.
.webp)
Objectives and Key Results usually shortened to OKRs form a two-layer goal-setting method popularised by John Doerr in Measure What Matters. First you write an Objective: a short, inspiring statement of what you want to achieve. Then you list the Key Results that will prove you have achieved it. When every key result is met, the objective is considered done.
An objective answers “Where do we want to be?” It must be qualitative and motivational something a team can rally round. “Dominate the UK mid-market accounting niche” or “Become the most trusted data-privacy advisor for SaaS founders” work far better than “Increase revenue” because they paint a picture of success.
Key results translate that picture into numbers. They are specific, time-boxed, and binary: you either hit them or you do not. To support “Dominate the UK mid-market accounting niche”, a bookkeeping agency might track:
If any key result fails, the objective remains unfinished even if every other metric looks healthy.
OKRs matter because they translate vague strategic aspirations into concrete, measurable targets that distributed teams can execute against independently. Without OKRs or equivalent frameworks, organisations suffer from misalignment: marketing optimises campaigns that don't support sales priorities, product builds features nobody wanted, and executives wonder why effort doesn't translate to results. OKRs create vertical alignment (individual work connects clearly to company goals) and horizontal alignment (teams see each other's priorities and coordinate accordingly). The measurable key results eliminate the ambiguity that lets underperformance hide: you can't claim victory on "improve customer satisfaction" when your NPS increased 0.3 points. The quarterly cadence balances agility with stability long enough to make meaningful progress, short enough to adapt to market feedback. For scaling organisations especially, OKRs solve the coordination problem: as headcount grows beyond 30-50 people, informal alignment breaks down and you need systematic frameworks to keep everyone rowing in the same direction. The stretch-goal philosophy encourages ambitious thinking rather than sandbagging (setting easy targets to ensure bonuses), though this requires cultural acceptance that 70% achievement represents success. Research on OKR implementations shows mixed results success depends heavily on leadership commitment, regular review cadence, and willingness to adjust mid-quarter rather than rigidly pursuing outdated goals. Organisations that implement OKRs effectively report improved focus, faster decision-making, and better cross-functional collaboration, whilst poorly implemented OKRs become bureaucratic exercises that teams ignore in favour of "real work."
Pick a horizon of one quarter for operational teams or one year for strategic leadership. The objective must be qualitative and memorable no metrics yet.
B2B examples
Test the wording with the team; if people struggle to recall it, shorten or sharpen.
Key results should:
Agency illustration
Small B2B firms (under 30 staff) often thrive with a single company-level OKR. Larger organisations cascade: leadership sets one objective, and each department writes supporting OKRs. Example cascade for the law firm:
Company objective – “Fastest GDPR partner.”
Marketing key result – “Rank #1 in Google for ‘GDPR compliance service’ by December.”
Delivery key result – “Cut average first-draft turnaround from 12 days to 6.”
Sales key result – “Close 90 % of tenders within 45 days.”
Link each departmental key result to the overarching objective to avoid silo drift.
Create a simple 0–1 scoring: where 0 = no progress and 1 = fully hit. If halfway through the quarter the bookkeeping agency’s “40 new clients” metric sits at 0.45 (18 wins), they know they must average seven per fortnight rather than five to catch up. Use colour codes on dashboards green (0.7-1), amber (0.4-0.7), red (below 0.4) to convey status at a glance.
At quarter-end run a retrospective:
If the law firm achieves 88 % of tenders won but retention lags, next quarter’s OKR may pivot to client-experience improvements rather than pure speed. Carry forward unfinished objectives only if they remain the highest-impact levers; otherwise archive and reset focus.
OKRs turn lofty ambition into measurable execution. By framing a single, inspiring objective and tying it to a handful of binary key results, agencies, consultancies, law firms, and bookkeeping firms gain laser focus, faster decisions, and transparent accountability exactly the working-smarter discipline that unlocks sustainable growth.
The cockpit that sits above your four growth engines. Individual teams can excel at their own metrics, but without orchestration they're musicians playing different songs. This is where everything comes together and where improvements in one engine amplify gains in another.
The wrong tools create friction. The right ones multiply your output without adding complexity. These are the tools I recommend for growth teams that move fast.
Small improvements multiply. A 10% gain across twelve metrics doesn't add up to 120% - it compounds to 3x growth. This is the mathematical engine behind systematic growth.
%2520(1).webp)
Four decisions that shape everything else. When growth feels harder than it should, the problem is usually here. Get these right and execution becomes much easier.
Without rhythm, effort becomes scattered and progress invisible. A consistent operating cadence keeps your team aligned and your growth system continuously improving.
John Doerr
Rating
Rating
Rating
Rating
Rating
A clear guide to OKRs for growth teams. Write good objectives, choose key results and run cadences that stick.
Verne Harnish
Rating
Rating
Rating
Rating
Rating
Practical tools for scaling a company. Use rhythms, scorecards and priorities to keep a growing team aligned.
Quarterly targets hit or missed are just the starting point. Learn how to assess whether your assumptions about the business were right, extract learnings that compound, and set up the next quarter with a model grounded in reality. Close one quarter and open the next in a single session.
Assemble tools that manage pipeline, automate outreach, and track performance to help reps sell more efficiently and managers forecast accurately.
Achieve the state where your product solves a genuine, urgent problem for a defined market that's willing to pay and actively pulling your solution in.
Define pipeline progression steps to standardise how reps advance opportunities and give managers visibility into where deals stall or convert unexpectedly.
Calculate how many users you need in experiments to detect meaningful differences and avoid declaring winners prematurely based on insufficient data.
Select metrics that reveal whether you're achieving strategic goals to track progress and identify problems before they become expensive to fix.
Store raw data from all business systems in one place to run analyses and build reports that combine information across marketing, sales, and product.
Track predictable monthly subscription revenue to monitor short-term growth trends and make faster decisions than waiting for annual revenue reports.
Track how fast your pipeline of ready-to-buy leads grows to forecast sales capacity needs and spot when lead quality or sales efficiency changes.
Articulate the specific outcome customers get from your solution to communicate why they should choose you over doing nothing or using alternatives.
Track your user journey through Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, and Revenue to identify which stage constrains growth most.
Track predictable yearly revenue from subscriptions to measure business scale and growth trajectory in B2B SaaS and recurring revenue models.
Clear mental clutter by transferring all thoughts, tasks, and ideas onto paper or screen, creating space for focused work.
Track revenue growth from existing customers through expansion and contraction to prove your product delivers increasing value over time.
Identify and leverage limitations as forcing functions that drive creative problem-solving and strategic focus.
Prioritise tasks systematically by sorting them into urgent-important quadrants, focusing effort on high-impact activities.
Calculate how much pipeline you need relative to quota to ensure you generate enough opportunities to hit revenue targets despite normal conversion rates.
Design experiments that answer specific questions with minimum time and resources to maximise learning velocity without over-investing in unproven ideas.
Assign full conversion credit to the final touchpoint before purchase to identify which channels close deals but miss earlier influences that started journeys.
Cultivate belief that skills and results improve through deliberate effort, treating setbacks as learning opportunities rather than fixed limitations.
Connect tools so data flows automatically between systems to eliminate manual entry, keep records current, and enable sophisticated workflows across platforms.