The new year is here, so it’s time to make plans! And when it comes to setting practical Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), the type of key result you choose can make all the difference. This article will examine the difference between the various KR types and learn how to pick input, output, or outcome KRs for different scenarios.
Understanding the Key Result Types
Understanding the Key Result Types
Not all Key Results (KRs) are created equal. Depending on how they’re defined, they can track actions, immediate results, or the broader impact of your work. Here’s a breakdown of the three main types of KRs and how they function within an OKR framework.
Input Key Results: What You Do
Input KRs measure actions or activities that teams can directly control. They represent the “doing” part of achieving goals, such as the number of calls made, hours spent coding, or meetings conducted. For example, “Make 1,000 calls with potential customers this quarter” is an Input KR.
Inputs are easy to measure but do not necessarily reflect whether the work drives meaningful results. Going back to our example, those 1,000 sales calls may be completely pointless – for all we know, they were cold calls with customers who were not interested in the product, and the sales manager just wasted everyone’s time.
So, while tracking only your inputs and hoping everything down the line works out is tempting, this is not always the case. That’s why you must mix and match – as we will explore later in this article. Remember that while tracking inputs is essential, they should never be your only KR type due to how misleading they can be.
Output Key Results: What You Deliver
Output KRs measure the immediate results of your actions — essentially what you produce. These are tangible deliverables or milestones, like launching a new feature, reducing response times, or delivering a training program. For example, “Send 100 business offers” is an Output KR.
Outputs are closer to business impact than inputs but don’t guarantee value. You may receive the expected result, but if that result does not produce the Outcome you need, it’s just an activity logged without the desired effect.
Outputs are better at being progress indicators, especially in the operational and development contexts, where their impact is relatively consistent and can be observed. However, they are more challenging to track and often do not provide enough content to show the entire picture.
Outcome Key Results: What You Achieve
Outcome KRs measure the value or impact your work delivers. They focus on the change or benefit created, such as higher customer satisfaction, increased sales, or reduced churn. Returning to our examples, “Sign 50 contracts over 100 000 USD each” would be their Output KR.
Outcomes are the gold standard for KRs because they tie directly to your business objectives. However, they can be harder to measure and are often lagging indicators, meaning the results may take time to appear. Depending on the industry, Outcomes may lag so much that they only show up a quarter – or even a year – after the initial Input was performed.
For that reason, while Outcomes are fantastic indicators, they can not be your only ones. Otherwise, you risk entirely ignoring day-to-day operations and even intermediate results, which may leave you blind to any potential problems.
The Bottom Line
Effective OKRs rely on the right balance of input, output, and outcome KRs. While outcomes should be the ultimate focus, outputs often provide critical short-term feedback, and inputs drive the actions that make it happen. Understanding these types enables you to craft KRs that lead to measurable and meaningful success.
How to Choose the Right KR Type
Getting the right mix of Inputs, Outputs, and Outcomes can be challenging, especially if it is your first time doing so. Thankfully, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel and do everything manually — two excellent frameworks will help you.
The Five Whys Method
Effective goal-setting relies on understanding the true drivers behind challenges or opportunities. The Five Whys is a simple yet powerful problem-solving technique designed to uncover root causes rather than settling for surface-level fixes. Developed by Sakichi Toyoda and popularized within the Toyota Production System, this method is ideal for identifying the “why” behind an issue and aligning your actions to address it.
The process involves repeatedly asking “Why?” to drill down into the core of the problem. Here’s a step-by-step guide:
- Define the Problem: Clearly articulate the issue you’re facing.
- Ask “Why?”: Identify the initial reason behind the problem.
- Ask “Why?” Again: For every response, dig deeper by questioning why it occurs.
- Repeat Up to Five Times: Keep asking “Why?” until you uncover the root cause. You can stop sooner if the underlying issue becomes clear.
Example of the Five Whys Method
Problem: Customers are dissatisfied with our support service.
- Why? Response times are too long.
- Why? Support staff are handling too many tickets.
- Why? The ticket management system is inefficient.
- Why? It lacks automation features to prioritize tickets.
- Why? We haven’t invested in upgrading the system.
With this breakdown, you have all the indicators you need. “Increase customer satisfaction with our support service” is your Outcome, “Improve our support response times” is your Output, and “Increase the effectiveness of our ticket management system” is your Input. Add measurable metrics to each, and you have your Key Results.
Did you notice how we flipped the script at the end and started with the Outcome first? That’s due to the second framework: the Backward Mapping Method.
The Backward Mapping Method
Backward Mapping is a problem-solving and planning technique that begins with the desired result (the outcome) and works backward to identify the necessary actions, behaviors, and steps to achieve it. This method effectively aligns initiatives with strategic goals, ensuring that every action contributes directly to the desired outcome. Here’s how it works:
- Define the Outcome: Clearly articulate the end goal or the result you want to achieve. Be specific and measurable.
- Identify the Required Outputs: Determine what tangible results or deliverables are needed to achieve the outcome.
- Trace Back to Key Actions: Break down the outputs into the actions or tasks necessary to produce them.
- Focus on Behaviors and Changes: Consider the behaviors or changes needed to support the actions.
- Map to Initiatives: Translate these actions into specific initiatives or projects.
Example of the Five Whys Method
Outcome: Increase customer retention by 10%.
- Outputs:
- Launch a customer loyalty program.
- Enhance customer service response time.
- Actions:
- Analyze feedback to identify customer pain points.
- Implement a faster ticketing system.
- Develop a rewards framework for repeat customers.
- Behaviors:
- Customers engage with the loyalty program.
- Staff consistently provide exceptional service.
- Initiatives:
- Deploy a ticketing system with automated prioritization.
- Launch a targeted rewards campaign via email and social media.
Backward Mapping keeps teams focused on the end goal, ensuring every action directly contributes to success. It provides clarity, prevents wasted effort, and aligns initiatives with strategy. By working backward from the outcome, teams can prioritize the most effective steps while staying flexible and adapting. This makes it a powerful tool for setting OKRs and driving accurate results.
What Does it look like in Practice?
An ideal OKR structure balances Inputs, Outputs, and Outcomes, ensuring comprehensive tracking across all process stages. While achieving this perfect balance isn’t always feasible — especially in short timeframes — it’s a strong framework to aim for.
Take the example above, created in the Oboard OKR App. Our Objective is Increase Customer Loyalty, which we’ve broken down into:
- Output: Launch a loyalty program by the end of 2024.
- Outcome: Increase repeat purchases by 15% within the first quarter.
Each includes Initiatives, represented as Jira tickets in our case—these are our Inputs.
With Oboard, we can also analyze how Initiatives impact Key Results. For our Output, every Initiative directly contributes to progress, meaning their completion directly influences the KR score, which is automatically calculated based on Jira statuses. Our Outcome, however, functions differently. While it may have a supporting Initiative, it doesn’t directly affect its success. In our example, the Outcome includes an Initiative, but since it plays a more indirect role, we assign it a weight of 0. The progress towards the Initiative is still automatically tracked via Oboard, but the actual value of the Outcome can be overwritten manually for better precision and transparency.
And this is just a tip of the iceberg of what you can do with Oboard to automate and improve your goal tracking. To learn more, check out How to Implement OKRs in Jira.
Conclusion
Planning your Key Results for 2025 isn’t just about setting ambitious goals—it’s about ensuring they drive real impact. You can balance short-term progress and long-term success by understanding the differences between input, output, and outcome KRs. While outcome KRs should be the ultimate focus, output KRs provide valuable checkpoints, and input KRs keep teams accountable for the work required to get there.
Frameworks like the Five Whys and Backward Mapping make this process even more effective by helping you identify the root causes of challenges and align every action with your end goal. When used correctly, these methods ensure that your OKRs aren’t just aspirational statements but clear, actionable roadmaps to measurable success.
As you set your OKRs for 2025, take the time to refine your key results, connect actions to impact, and leverage the right tools to stay on track. With the right approach, you won’t just set goals—you’ll achieve them.
Need expert guidance on setting and executing OKRs? Contact Oboard Consulting for professional OKR coaching, or try the Oboard OKR App to streamline your goal-setting process today!
