OKRs 101

Driving Decarbonization through Focused Impact

Jackson Hoffart

🏎️ Will it make the car go faster?

  • Red Bull’s Formula 1 Racing team asks one question before every decision:

  • “Will it make the car go faster?”

  • If the answer is no, it’s not a priority.

  • Everyone from the pit crew to the strategist knows the same goal.

  • For RMI, that question might be more like:

  • “Will it drive decarbonization?”

  • This question helps us focus our energy and creativity on work that accelerates impact — the equivalent of making our car go faster.

🎯 Why are we talking about OKRs?

Objectives and Key Results help bridge our day-to-day work with SPD’s broader mission:

  • Enabling public and private sector actors to make energy transition decisions using SPD products.

  • They:

    • Define what to prioritize and (often more crucially) what not to.
    • Help every team member align on outcomes that move the needle.
    • Connect organization, team, and personal objectives to measurable outcomes.

⚙️ OKR Fundamentals

Good OKRs always focus on outcomes and not activities.

  • Objective: What we want to achieve
  • Key Results: How we’ll measure success
  • Each KR must be measurable and collectively signal achievement of the Objective.

🧩 Anatomy of a Good OKR

  • Example Objective:
    • Ensure every SPD product delivers impact and engagement, not just technical completion.
  • Key Results:
    • All new project concepts validated with real users (0–1.0)
    • All new project proposals budgeted for comms & design (0–1.0)
    • All product launches include a “splash” marketing moment (0–1.0)
    • Collaboration process defined with Influence team (0–1.0)

🧮 Stretch and Grade

If you always hit 100%, your goals aren’t ambitious enough.

  • Key Results shouldn’t be binary “done/not done.”
  • We use a 0–1.0 scale to track progress.
  • ~0.7 indicates we’re at the right level of stretch — ambitious but achievable.
  • OKRs are designed to push learning, not punish shortfalls.

⚠️ Common Pitfalls

  • OKRs should be:
    • Few in number
    • Measurable
    • Focused on value, not activity
  • Avoid:
    • Confusing outputs: 🚫 “deploy web application to production and publish blog post”)
    • with outcomes: ✅ “X% of pilot users log in more than twice within the first month”)
    • Setting too many OKRs — focus is power
    • Writing vague or unmeasurable goals (“do more research”)

🏗️ How SPD Uses OKRs

  • We decide what’s most important each quarter
  • We measure progress toward outcomes, not outputs
  • We keep workload realistic to prevent burnout
  • We maintain alignment and velocity across the team

🧭 How Are OKRs Different From OOMs?

Concept Purpose
OOMs Report organizational milestones & long-term yearly targets
OKRs Ground each quarter in actionable, measurable goals that connect to daily work and sprint backlogs

💻 Hands-On — OKRs in Jira Goals

📚 Resources