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OKR Template: A Quarterly OKR Planning Spreadsheet for Startups

A free OKR planning template with four sheets: instructions, company OKRs, department OKRs and a 13-week check-in log. Below is a walkthrough of every sheet, how to run a quarter with it, worked OKR examples and the mistakes that make OKRs fail.
Download the OKR Planning Template
Free, no sign-up. Excel (.xlsx), opens in Google Sheets.

What an OKR template is for

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) are a goal-setting method built around two questions. Where do we want to be at the end of this quarter? And how will we know we got there? The objective answers the first question in plain language. The key results answer the second with numbers. An OKR template gives that method a fixed shape. Instead of goals scattered across slide decks, chat threads and someone's notebook, every objective, key result, target, owner and score sits in one place that the whole team can see. The shape matters more than the software. A spreadsheet that people actually open every week beats a dedicated OKR tool that nobody logs into. This template is deliberately simple. It is the structure I point founders to when they want to start using OKRs without a long rollout: one workbook, four sheets, and a quarterly rhythm that a small team can keep up.

Who this OKR template is for

The template is built for startups and small companies, roughly from the point where a founding team stops fitting around one table to the point where you have several departments with their own leaders. In practice that means:
  • Founders and CEOs who want the company to agree on three to five priorities for the quarter and stop relitigating them every week.
  • Department leads in sales, product, engineering, marketing and customer success who need to show how their team's work moves a company-level number.
  • Operators and chiefs of staff who run the weekly check-in and need a running log of progress, blockers and next actions.
  • Board members and advisors who want to see what the company committed to at the start of the quarter and how it scored at the end.
If you are a large organization with hundreds of people and multiple layers of cascading goals, you will probably outgrow a spreadsheet. For a company under about a hundred people, a shared workbook is usually enough, and the discipline of a weekly review matters far more than the tool.

What's inside the OKR template

The workbook has four sheets. Here is what each one contains and how it is meant to be used.

Sheet 1: Instructions

The first sheet is a one-screen summary of the rules the rest of the workbook assumes:
  1. Set 3 to 5 objectives per quarter. Objectives are qualitative and inspirational.
  2. Each objective should have 2 to 4 key results. Key results are quantitative and measurable.
  3. Key results should be stretch goals. Reaching 70% is success.
  4. Review progress weekly and score at the end of the quarter.
  5. OKRs cascade: company, then department, then individual.
Leave this sheet in the file when you share it. New team members will read it, and it settles arguments about how many OKRs are allowed before they start.

Sheet 2: Company OKRs

This is the main planning sheet. It has six columns:
ColumnWhat goes in it
ObjectiveThe qualitative goal, numbered O1, O2, O3
Key ResultThe measurable outcome, numbered KR1, KR2 under each objective
TargetThe number you are aiming for by quarter end
CurrentThe latest actual value, updated during the weekly review
ScoreA 0.0 to 1.0 score, filled in at the end of the quarter
OwnerThe one person accountable for that key result
The sheet comes pre-filled with three example objectives so you can see the format before replacing them with your own:
  • O1: Achieve Product-Market Fit, with key results to reach $50K MRR (target $50,000), achieve an NPS score of 40 or more (target 40), and reduce churn to under 3% (target under 3%).
  • O2: Build World-Class Team, with key results to hire 5 key roles (target 5) and achieve employee satisfaction of 8 or higher (target 8).
  • O3: Establish Market Leadership, with key results to publish 12 thought leadership pieces (target 12) and speak at 3 industry events (target 3).
The Current, Score and Owner columns are empty. There are no formulas in the workbook, which keeps it portable between Excel and Google Sheets and lets you decide how to score (more on that below).

Sheet 3: Department OKRs

The second planning sheet has columns for Department, Objective, Key Result, Target, Current and Score. It includes blocks of three rows each for five departments: Sales, Product, Engineering, Marketing and Customer Success. Add or remove departments to match your org chart, and add rows if a department has more than three key results. This sheet is where cascading happens. Each department's objectives should make it clear which company key result they are trying to move. A simple convention is to reference the company OKR in the department objective, for example "Support O1: make onboarding self-serve for new accounts."

Sheet 4: Weekly Check-in

The last sheet is a log with one row for each of the 13 weeks in a quarter (Week 1 to Week 13) and columns for OKR, Progress, Blockers and Next Actions. It is the sheet you will open most often. Each week, write down which OKR moved, what is in the way, and what happens next. By the end of the quarter you have a record of how the quarter actually went, which makes the retrospective far more honest than relying on memory.

How to use the OKR planning template, step by step

Here is the sequence I recommend for running a quarter with this workbook.

Step 1: Review last quarter before writing anything new

Start with the previous quarter's scores and the Weekly Check-in log. Which key results did you hit, which did you miss, and why? Misses usually fall into three groups: the target was unrealistic, the work was never prioritized, or something changed in the market. Each one points to a different fix for the next quarter.

Step 2: Draft three to five company objectives

The leadership team drafts the company objectives first. Write them as short statements of where you want to be, not as task lists. "Achieve product-market fit" is an objective. "Launch the new onboarding flow" is a project that might help you get there. If a draft list has more than five objectives, cut it. The point of OKRs is to say no to good ideas that are not this quarter's priority.

Step 3: Attach two to four key results to each objective

For each objective, ask: what numbers would convince a skeptic that we achieved this? Write those as key results with a clear target. A good key result has a metric, a starting value, a target value and a deadline (the end of the quarter, unless you say otherwise). Put the target in the Target column so there is no ambiguity later.

Step 4: Assign one owner per key result

Every key result gets exactly one name in the Owner column. Teams can share the work, but one person is responsible for reporting progress and raising blockers. A key result with two owners usually ends up with none.

Step 5: Cascade to departments

Share the company OKRs and ask each department lead to propose their own objectives and key results on the Department OKRs sheet. Review them together. You are checking two things: that the department OKRs plausibly move the company numbers, and that the combined workload is realistic. This is also the moment to find conflicts, such as two teams both depending on the same engineer.

Step 6: Run the weekly check-in

Once a week, update the Current column and add a row to the Weekly Check-in sheet. Keep the meeting short. Each owner reports the number, whether it is on track, and any blocker that needs help from someone else. Discussion of how to fix a blocker happens after the meeting with the people involved.

Step 7: Score and retrospect at quarter end

In the final week, fill in the Score column for every key result, average the key results to score each objective, and hold a short retrospective. Then carry the lessons into Step 1 of the next quarter.

Scoring OKRs

The template leaves the Score column blank on purpose, because scoring is the part teams most often get wrong. The usual convention:
  • Score each key result from 0.0 to 1.0 as the share of the distance you covered between the starting value and the target: (current minus start) divided by (target minus start). If MRR started at $30K with a target of $50K and finished at $44K, you covered $14K of a $20K gap, a score of 0.70.
  • When a key result starts at zero, such as "Hire 5 key roles," that is simply current divided by target. If you want a formula, =MIN(D2/C2,1) in the Score column works once the Target column holds a plain number.
  • The same formula handles key results where lower is better (churn, cost, response time). If churn started at 5% and the target is 3%, reaching 3.5% means you covered 1.5 of the 2 points, a score of 0.75. The template has no Start column, so add one next to Target if most of your key results begin from a non-zero baseline.
  • Score each objective as the average of its key results.
  • Treat roughly 0.7 as success. Key results are stretch goals, so hitting 1.0 on everything is a sign the targets were too comfortable.
Scoring is about learning, not grading people. A team that scores 0.4 on an ambitious key result and explains exactly why has given you more useful information than a team that scores 1.0 on a safe one.

OKR examples

The examples below are illustrative. They describe a hypothetical early-stage B2B software company and are not data from any real business. Use them to see how the columns fit together, then write your own.

Example: a quarterly OKR for a seed-stage SaaS company

ObjectiveKey ResultTargetCurrent (week 13)Score
O1: Prove customers will pay for the core workflowKR1: Grow MRR from $30K to $50K$50,000$44,0000.70
KR2: Convert 10 pilot accounts to paid annual contracts1060.60
KR3: Reduce logo churn from 5% to 3% monthly3%3.5%0.75
O2: Make onboarding work without the foundersKR1: Cut median time to first value from 21 days to 77 days10 days0.79
KR2: Raise the share of new accounts that finish setup without a support ticket from 40% to 80%80%65%0.63
In this illustration, O1 averages about 0.68 and O2 about 0.71. Both are in the range you would expect from well-set stretch goals. The interesting conversation in the retrospective is KR2 under O1: why did only six pilots convert, and was the blocker pricing, procurement or product? Notice what the example avoids. "Launch the onboarding redesign" does not appear as a key result, because shipping something is an output, not an outcome. The redesign is a project the team might run to move the time-to-first-value number.

Example: cascading to department OKRs

Using the same hypothetical company, here is how two departments might fill in the Department OKRs sheet to support the company's O1:
DepartmentObjectiveKey ResultTarget
SalesTurn pilots into paying customersRun a pricing conversation with all 15 pilot accounts by week 615
Close 10 annual contracts10
Customer SuccessKeep the customers we winComplete a health check with every account under 90 days old100%
Respond to every at-risk signal within one business day1 day
Each department objective traces back to a company key result, but it is written in terms the team controls day to day.

Example: a weekly check-in row

WeekOKRProgressBlockersNext Actions
Week 6O1 KR2: Convert pilots to paid4 of 10 signed; 5 in legal reviewTwo accounts need a security questionnaire we have not completedEngineering lead to complete questionnaire by Friday; sales to schedule follow-ups
A row like this takes two minutes to write and gives everyone, including the board, a clear picture of where a key result stands.

How to write key results that work

Most OKR problems are really key result problems. A few tests to apply to every draft:
  • Is it a number? "Improve customer satisfaction" is not a key result. "Raise NPS from 28 to 40" is.
  • Is it an outcome, not an activity? "Publish 12 thought leadership pieces" is in the template as an example, and it is a reasonable starting point for a marketing team. A stronger version ties the activity to its result, such as qualified inbound leads from that content.
  • Can you measure it today? If you do not already track the metric, the first week of the quarter will be spent building the dashboard. Either do that before the quarter starts or make "instrument the metric" a key result in its own right for one quarter.
  • Would 70% feel like a real achievement? If 70% of the target would be disappointing, the target is too low. If 70% would require a miracle, it is too high.
  • Does one person own it? If you cannot write a single name in the Owner column, the key result is probably too broad.

Common OKR mistakes

These are the patterns that make OKRs turn into paperwork:
  • Too many objectives. Seven objectives with four key results each is 28 priorities, which means there are no priorities. The template's limit of three to five objectives exists for a reason.
  • Writing a to-do list. If every key result starts with "launch," "build" or "hire," you are tracking projects. Projects belong in your project tool. OKRs should describe the result those projects are supposed to produce.
  • Setting and forgetting. A team that writes OKRs in week one and looks at them again in week 13 does not really have OKRs. The Weekly Check-in sheet is the most important sheet in the workbook.
  • Tying OKR scores to bonuses. Once compensation depends on the score, people set targets they know they will hit, and the stretch disappears.
  • Cascading by decree. When leadership hands each department a list of targets, the department has no ownership of them. Ask departments to propose how they will contribute, then negotiate.
  • Treating business as usual as an OKR. Keeping the lights on matters, but a metric that only needs to stay healthy is better tracked on a dashboard. OKRs are for the things you are trying to change this quarter.

A simple OKR cadence for a quarter

A rhythm that fits a small company:
  • Two weeks before the quarter: review last quarter's scores and draft company objectives.
  • One week before: finalize company key results with targets and owners, then collect department proposals.
  • Week 1: publish the final Company OKRs and Department OKRs sheets to the whole team.
  • Weeks 1 to 13: a short weekly check-in, logged on the Weekly Check-in sheet.
  • Around week 6 or 7: a mid-quarter review. Confirm the OKRs still make sense. Changing a key result mid-quarter should be rare, but if the business has changed materially, say so and update it rather than pretending.
  • Week 13: score every key result, hold a retrospective, and start the next cycle.
If you report to a board, the end-of-quarter scores are a natural input for the next board meeting. The board deck template has a Key Highlights slide and a Challenges & Lowlights slide where last quarter's best and worst key results fit well.

How OKRs fit with my other frameworks

OKRs answer "what are we trying to achieve this quarter," but the right objectives depend on your stage. That is where the 0→1→10 Scaling Framework comes in. In the 0→1 phase, the work is customer discovery, rapid iteration and founder-led sales, so objectives tend to be about proving demand. In the 1→10 phase, the work is building repeatable systems, hiring specialists and putting process in place, so objectives shift toward repeatability and team capacity. Using a 1→10 objective at a 0→1 company, or the reverse, is one of the most common ways to set the wrong OKRs. Targets also deserve a sanity check against uncertainty. The 3-Lens Scenario Matrix asks you to model optimistic, realistic and pessimistic cases and define decision triggers of the form "if X happens, we do Y." That pairs well with OKRs. A realistic-case forecast is a good anchor for a stretch target, and a pessimistic case tells you which key results to protect if the quarter goes badly. The Scenario Planning Spreadsheet on the resources page is the companion template for that exercise. My own background is in building and scaling companies, including co-founding UnifyCX, which grew to more than 6,000 employees, and through Scalable Ventures I now build and invest in AI-powered software companies. Across those different stages, what has stayed constant is that the team needs a short, shared list of what matters this quarter and an honest weekly look at whether it is happening. That is all this template is trying to give you.

Related reading

Get the OKR Planning Template

Download the OKR Planning Template
Free, no sign-up. Excel (.xlsx), opens in Google Sheets.

Frequently asked questions

What is included in this OKR template?

The workbook has four sheets. Instructions summarizes the rules (3 to 5 objectives per quarter, 2 to 4 key results each, 70% achievement counts as success, weekly review, scoring at quarter end, cascading from company to department to individual). Company OKRs has columns for Objective, Key Result, Target, Current, Score and Owner, pre-filled with three example objectives. Department OKRs has rows for Sales, Product, Engineering, Marketing and Customer Success. Weekly Check-in has a row for each of the 13 weeks in a quarter with columns for OKR, Progress, Blockers and Next Actions.

How many OKRs should a startup set per quarter?

The template recommends 3 to 5 objectives per quarter with 2 to 4 key results each. Early-stage teams usually do better at the low end: three objectives with two or three key results each gives everyone a short list they can remember without looking it up. If you need more than five objectives, some of them are probably tasks or business-as-usual metrics rather than priorities.

How do you score OKRs?

Score each key result from 0.0 to 1.0 as the share of the distance covered from the starting value to the target. For a key result that starts at zero, that is simply the current value divided by the target, and the same approach works for lower-is-better metrics such as churn. Average the key results to score the objective. Because key results are meant to be stretch goals, a score around 0.7 is treated as success. Consistent scores of 1.0 suggest the targets were too safe, and scores below 0.3 suggest the target was unrealistic or the work never got prioritized.

What is the difference between an objective and a key result?

An objective is qualitative and describes where you want to be at the end of the quarter, for example achieving product-market fit. A key result is quantitative and tells you whether you got there, for example reaching $50K in monthly recurring revenue or a Net Promoter Score of 40 or more. If a key result cannot be measured with a number at the end of the quarter, it is not a key result yet.

Should OKRs be tied to compensation or performance reviews?

Generally no. OKRs work because teams set ambitious targets and report honestly when they miss. Tying bonuses to OKR scores rewards sandbagging, since the easiest way to score 1.0 is to set a target you already know you will hit. Use OKRs to focus the company and keep performance conversations separate.

Can I use this OKR template in Google Sheets?

Yes. The file is a standard Excel workbook (.xlsx). Upload it to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets, or use File > Import in an existing sheet. The columns and sheets carry over as they are. The Score column is left blank so you can enter scores by hand or add your own formula.

How do OKRs cascade from company to department to individual?

Leadership sets the company OKRs first. Each department then writes OKRs that contribute to one or more company key results, using the Department OKRs sheet, and individuals can set personal OKRs that support their department. Cascading should be a conversation rather than a copy: departments propose how they will move a company number instead of receiving a list of targets, and some department OKRs will cover work that matters to that team even if it maps loosely to the company level.

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