Finance OKR Example
Objective: Improve finance reporting
Key Result: Reduce documentation reported late by 50%
To-Do For Finance People Working With OKRs
When working with OKRs, finance people should remember:
Key results need to be achievable and not unrealistic
Initiates are what drive the business closer to achieving those key results
Always make OKRs numeric - otherwise, they’re likely just initiatives or things unrelated to OKRs
How Much Finance Work Fits Into OKR?
Naturally, all of the work that people working in Finance do won’t fit into the OKR framework. Instead, teams should focus on using OKRs for projects that seek to improve how they’re working.
As you’ll see from the examples above, most of them are focused on how teams can become more efficient.
Key Parts Of Finance OKR Examples
Every OKR in Product Management should focus on the following:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Results-oriented
Time-bound
Finance OKR Criteria 1: Specific
Your OKR should be specific enough so that when other people within the organization, that aren’t necessarily on your team, know what you’re working on. No one ever got punished for having an OKR that was a bit too long. Instead, writing fuzzy or unclear OKRs is a definite no-go.
Finance OKR Criteria 2: Measurable
Because OKRs are usually working with specific metrics, it’s a lot easier to check the box that the OKR is measurable. We measure things that are relevant to the progress of the products that the PM is working with.
Finance OKR Criteria 3: Achievable
It’s important to have achievable OKRs. They should always be ambitious, but nothing is more demotivating than unachievable goals. A rule of thumb is that the chance of achieving a Key Result should be around 50% from the start. If you reach 70% and above, it’s considered a success.
Finance OKR Criteria 4: Results-oriented
Being focused on results is a very important aspect of OKR. It’s so important, that we’ve dedicated an entire section to describing why you should focus on outcomes over outputs below.
Finance OKR Criteria 5: Time-bound
A key part of defining a goal is also defining when you’re expecting it to be met. For OKR, your goals are usually divided into different cycles and your goals should of course be reached within the end of the cycle.