10 Great OKR Examples for Software Development Teams

Industry leaders have expressed their views on the developments expected in 2023, particularly in technology and business. They emphasize the growing importance of cloud-native technologies and the need for increased software quality and security. They also stress the need for existing software teams to enhance their efficiency to remain competitive and manage workforce demands.

Speaking of challenges and bottlenecks, the major concern that every software development team faces is managing deployment time which are mostly unpredictable. No matter how productive and skillful the developers are, new issues and challenges still arise. The team has to grow immune to challenges in software development’s recent trends.

Listed are some of the top OKR examples by Profit.co for the software development team. This provides the ultimate guide and tips to companies to drive goals by staying productive and, at the same time, by avoiding common mistakes.

Let’s dive into the software development team OKR examples that will help you with the goal-setting framework no matter what type, size, and scope of your product and organization.

#1: Improve the release quality

Improving the release quality can help you cope with bug deduction and product testing updates in beta. With regard to software development increasing code unit test coverage can help to correlate with the parameters of release updates

Objective

David Griffin

Improve the release quality

68%

Target Date: Q2-2023

Visibility: All Employees

Key Results

Reduce the number of bugs getting reported after a new release from 20 to 5

Q2-2023 # of Errors

20 5 10

67%

Increase the average number of end users testing product updates in beta from 3 to 6

Q2-2023 # of users

3 6 5

67%

Increase code unit test coverage from 80% to 90%

Q2-2023 Unit Test Coverage

80% 90% 70%

70%

#2: Improve the product UI/UX

Improving UI is a challenging yet exciting task with a need to make the software visually stimulating with an attractive interface that aligns with the business goals.

The following key results serve such purposes well at a reduced deployment time.

Objective

David Griffin

Improve the product UI/UX

65%

Target Date: Q2-2023

Visibility: All Employees

Key Results

Conduct UX research

Q2-2023 Percentage tracked

0% 100% 55%

55%

Identify and fix 10 UX issues to avoid multiple clicks

Q2-2023 UX Issues

0 10 7

70%

Implement 15 menu consolidations

Q2-2023 # of Consolidations

0 15 10

67%

Improve 15 work flows

Q2-2023 # of Workflows

0 15 10

67%

#3: Improve software product quality

The product quality, the process, and the project are closely associated with product availability, user satisfaction with a smooth experience, and an uncompromising security score. Focusing on such metrics can help you maintain product quality.

Objective

David Griffin

Improve software product quality

63%

Target Date: Q-2023

Visibility: All Employees

Key Results

Increase bug fixes from 50 to 100.

Q2-2023 # of Bugs

50 100 56

56%

Implement at least 15 stunted flows

Q2-2023 # of Flows

0 15 9

60%

Improve product availability from 99% to 99.9%

Q2-2023 Product availability

99.0% 99.9% 99.7%

99.7%

Increase user satisfaction from 80% to 90%

Q2-2023 User satisfaction score

0% 100% 82%

82%

#4: Improve the release quality

Product stability can be improved by focusing on the ability of the product to function continuously over a period of time without any error. And the examples given below can help you achieve such goals with successful results.

Objective

David Griffin

Improve product stability

41%

Target Date: Q2-2023

Visibility: All Employees

Key Results

Decrease prod issues from 10 to 5 per month

Q2-2023 # of Production Issues

10 5 7

60%

Ensure APIs response time is within 400 ms

Q2-2023 APIs response time

600 ms 200 ms 388 ms

8%

Decrease production exceptions from 2000 to 200

Q2-2023 # of Production exceptions

2K 200 722

71%

Decrease trackJS errors from 30 to 0

Q2-2023 # of TrackJS errors

30 0 10

67%

Increase product stability from 99% to 99.9%

Q2-2023 Product stability

99.0% 99.9% 0%

0%

#5: Expand our product functionality through integration with other solutions

Integrating the product with other definite solutions at the market can help you combine various platforms into unified software architecture to increase functionality and improve the convenience of customers.

Definitely, you need KRs that improve and enhance integration solutions.

Objective

David Griffin

Expand our product capabilities through integration with other solutions

68%

Target Date: Q2-2023

Visibility: All Employees

Key Results

Enhance and improve 5 existing integrations from 2 to 5

Q2-2023 # of Integrations

2 5 4

67%

Release top 5 new integration solutions

Q2-2023 # of Integrations

0 5 4

80%

Release 10 SSO integration

Q2-2023 # of SSO Integrations

0 10 6

60%

Increase user satisfaction from 80% to 90%

Q2-2023 User satisfaction score

80.0% 90.0% 86.6%

86.6%

#6: Build a world-class product team

Building an efficacious product team that would deliver world-class skilled developmental milestones would certainly contribute to the overall growth of the company. Focusing on the soft skills and well-being of the team members is an added advantage.

Objective

David Griffin

Build a world-class product team

53%

Target Date: Q2-2023

Visibility: All Employees

Key Results

Hire 5 highly skilled software engineers

Q2-2023 New software

0 5 3

60%

Increase well-being program from 1 to 3 for team members

Q2-2023 # of team members

1 3 2

50%

Increase competency rating for software engineers from 70 to 90

Q2-2023 Competency rating

70 90 80

50%

#7: Improve business continuity (BCP)

The organization’s ability to withstand environmental, operational and developmental risks and disasters by preventing interruption to business operations, meeting customer needs and product developmental delays, and surviving the challenges with the aim to improve business operations availability, efficiency and customer satisfaction. Following is a sample Objective and Keys Results for achieving your BCP goals.

Objective

David Griffin

Improve business continuity (BCP)

51%

Target Date: Q2-2023

Visibility: All Employees

Key Results

Ensure there are zero data breach incident in the application and in the infrastructure

Q2-2023 Data breach incidents

2 -2 0

50%

Reduce SLA violations for production applications from 5 to 2

Q2-2023 SLA violations

2 5 3

67%

Increase application availability from 99% to 99.9%

Q2-2023 Application availability

99.0% 99.9% 99.7%

99.7%

#8: Engage mobile users

App engagement and user retention on the critical criteria to convert a curious first time user into a regular user and key results focusing on that will help you engage maximum number of users with higher retention rate.

Objective

David Griffin

Engage mobile users

62%

Target Date: Q2-2023

Visibility: All Employees

Key Results

Launch 3 voice assistant integrations (Siri, Google Assistant, & Cortana)

Q2-2023 Task tracked

0% 100% 61%

61%

Increase Android & iOS installs from 500 to 2000

Q2-2023 # of Installs

500 2K 1.36K

57%

Increase app store and play store rating from 4.2 to 4.5

Q2-2023 Play store rating

4.2 4.5 4.4

67%

#9: Reduce the software development cycle time (SDLC)

As long as you manage and stay committed to reducing the time taken from production to release, you can focus on delivering the product on time, concerning the client’s suggestions and demands. Framing such key results can increase your efficiency for timely delivery.

Objective

David Griffin

Reduce the software development cycle time (SDLC)

41%

Target Date: Q2-2023

Visibility: All Employees

Key Results

Increase the sprint velocity of the software development team from 15 points to 25 points.

Q2-2023 Sprint velocity

15 25 20

50%

Reduce the average volume of bugs per release from 15 to 5.

Q2-2023 Volume of bugs

15 5 9

60%

Decrease the average Q/A code evaluation time by 50%

Q2-2023 Code evaluation time

100% 50% 69%

69%

#10: Improve SW product performance

Focusing on Key results that build predictable performance of the product yields a functional solution that satisfies operational performance. Also, it improves the speed of the product by keeping the customer engaged.

Objective

David Griffin

Improve SW product performance

48%

Target Date: Q2-2023

Visibility: All Employees

Key Results

Reduce product page load time from 5 sec to 2 Sec

Q2-2023 Page load time

5 Sec(s) 2 Sec(s) 3 Sec(s)

67%

Reduce web page image size from 500 kb to 300kb

Q2-2023 Image size

500 300 387

57%

Maintain server resources utilization of not more than 80%

Q2-2023 Server resources utilization

120% 40% 80%

50%

Implement CDN solution (Milestone KPI)

Q2-2023 Launch product

0% 100% 60%

60%

Conclusion

You might find inspiration in the OKR examples provided above. While starting the implementation of OKRs among your team and department may seem easy, the process can become challenging. To effectively manage this, collaborate and engage teams by distributing individual tasks, tracking progress, and conducting regular OKR reviews. Manage timelines diligently and ensure transparency and visibility across the organization.

Many leading software companies, including Google, Apple, and Intel, utilize OKRs to drive business growth and development. By integrating OKR software into your strategy, you too can harness this powerful tool to enhance performance and achieve organizational goals.