9 OKR examples for Tech Debt

What are Tech Debt OKRs?

The OKR acronym stands for Objectives and Key Results. It's a goal-setting framework that was introduced at Intel by Andy Grove in the 70s, and it became popular after John Doerr introduced it to Google in the 90s. OKRs helps teams has a shared language to set ambitious goals and track progress towards them.

OKRs are quickly gaining popularity as a goal-setting framework. But, it's not always easy to know how to write your goals, especially if it's your first time using OKRs.

To aid you in setting your goals, we have compiled a collection of OKR examples customized for Tech Debt. Take a look at the templates below for inspiration and guidance.

If you want to learn more about the framework, you can read our OKR guide online.

Tech Debt OKRs examples

You'll find below a list of Objectives and Key Results templates for Tech Debt. We also included strategic projects for each template to make it easier to understand the difference between key results and projects.

Hope you'll find this helpful!

OKRs to enhance Webhooks Experience and Address Technical Debt

OKRs to reduce technical debt

OKRs to allocate resources to refactor high-priority tech debt

OKRs to enforce coding standards to prevent new tech debt

OKRs to substantially reduce technical debt across all projects

OKRs to eliminate high-risk tech debt over the next year

OKRs to minimize technical debt across all 100 crawlers

OKRs to reduce critical tech debt by 50% in six months

OKRs to tackle technical debt

How to write your own Tech Debt OKRs

1. Get tailored OKRs with an AI

You'll find some examples below, but it's likely that you have very specific needs that won't be covered.

You can use Tability's AI generator to create tailored OKRs based on your specific context. Tability can turn your objective description into a fully editable OKR template -- including tips to help you refine your goals.

• 1. Go to Tability's plan editor
• 2. Click on the "Generate goals using AI" button
• 3. Use natural language to describe your goals

Tability will then use your prompt to generate a fully editable OKR template.

Watch the video below to see it in action 👇

Option 2. Optimise existing OKRs with Tability Feedback tool

If you already have existing goals, and you want to improve them. You can use Tability's AI feedback to help you.

• 1. Go to Tability's plan editor
• 2. Add your existing OKRs (you can import them from a spreadsheet)
• 3. Click on "Generate analysis"

Tability's Strategy Map makes it easy to see all your org's OKRs

Tability will scan your OKRs and offer different suggestions to improve them. This can range from a small rewrite of a statement to make it clearer to a complete rewrite of the entire OKR.

You can then decide to accept the suggestions or dismiss them if you don't agree.

Option 3. Use the free OKR generator

If you're just looking for some quick inspiration, you can also use our free OKR generator to get a template.

Unlike with Tability, you won't be able to iterate on the templates, but this is still a great way to get started.

Tech Debt OKR best practices

Generally speaking, your objectives should be ambitious yet achievable, and your key results should be measurable and time-bound (using the SMART framework can be helpful). It is also recommended to list strategic initiatives under your key results, as it'll help you avoid the common mistake of listing projects in your KRs.

Here are a couple of best practices extracted from our OKR implementation guide 👇

Tip #1: Limit the number of key results

The #1 role of OKRs is to help you and your team focus on what really matters. Business-as-usual activities will still be happening, but you do not need to track your entire roadmap in the OKRs.

We recommend having 3-4 objectives, and 3-4 key results per objective. A platform like Tability can run audits on your data to help you identify the plans that have too many goals.

Tip #2: Commit to weekly OKR check-ins

Don't fall into the set-and-forget trap. It is important to adopt a weekly check-in process to get the full value of your OKRs and make your strategy agile – otherwise this is nothing more than a reporting exercise.

Being able to see trends for your key results will also keep yourself honest.

Tip #3: No more than 2 yellow statuses in a row

Yes, this is another tip for goal-tracking instead of goal-setting (but you'll get plenty of OKR examples above). But, once you have your goals defined, it will be your ability to keep the right sense of urgency that will make the difference.

As a rule of thumb, it's best to avoid having more than 2 yellow/at risk statuses in a row.

Make a call on the 3rd update. You should be either back on track, or off track. This sounds harsh but it's the best way to signal risks early enough to fix things.

How to track your Tech Debt OKRs

Your quarterly OKRs should be tracked weekly in order to get all the benefits of the OKRs framework. Reviewing progress periodically has several advantages:

• It brings the goals back to the top of the mind
• It will highlight poorly set OKRs
• It will surface execution risks
• It improves transparency and accountability

We recommend using a spreadsheet for your first OKRs cycle. You'll need to get familiar with the scoring and tracking first. Then, you can scale your OKRs process by using a proper OKR-tracking tool for it.

If you're not yet set on a tool, you can check out the 5 best OKR tracking templates guide to find the best way to monitor progress during the quarter.

More Tech Debt OKR templates

We have more templates to help you draft your team goals and OKRs.

• OKRs to attain the second Michelin star for the restaurant
  customer-feedbackgourmet-dishesrestaurant-managerfood-criticcustomer-service-teamchef-team
• OKRs to improve content conversion rates through A/B testing
  content-conversion-ratesa/b-testingcontent-creatorsmarketing-analystsweb-developers
• OKRs to triple our website traffic
  trafficcontent-marketingmarketinggretel
• OKRs to build a comprehensive new customer CRM database
  crm-databasepotential-leadsdata-analystcustomer-relationship-managerdata-analysis-teamcustomer-relationship-management-team
• OKRs to increase Maternity to Pediatrics patient transition rate
  patient-transitiondropout-reductionpediatric-staffmaternity-staffpediatrics-departmentmaternity-department
• OKRs to improve test coverage and automation for proactive debt remediation
  test-coverageautomationquality-assurancesoftware-developmentdebt-remediationtesting-and-automation