Key Result Types

What do you want to accomplish?
Written by Borut Bolčina
Updated 1 year ago

A Key Result type informs us of the intention where the value should go to make it a success. Agile Tools support six types.

Agile Tools Key Result types

Baseline

Often we do not know from which value to improve. Getting to the baseline value of some metric is not always trivial. Sometimes there are technical hurdles, and sometimes the process is in the way. The baseline type is unique when it comes to scoring. It is the only type where there is no scoring. You use the baseline type as a starting point for the next cycle, where you will use one of the other types.

Agile Tools generic Baseline Key Result type

Image 1 - Create a generic Baseline Key Result, wizard step 2

Decrease

There are metrics that we want their values to be low - to make them lower than they are today. When creating a Key Result of this type, you will have to provide the initial value (From, X) and the target value (To, Y).

Agile Tools generic Decrease Key Result type

Image 2 - Create a generic Decrease Key Result, wizard step 2

Increase

The most commonly used type. If it is in the "nature" of the metric (preferably part of the Key Result) to be better if the value is higher, then you select this type when creating a Key Result.

Agile Tools generic Increase Key Result type

Image 3 - Create a generic Increase Key Result, wizard step 2

Maintain

Sometimes, just preventing values from dropping (or rising) outside some defined thresholds is good. So, the concept of keeping the thing you measure is a success in itself.

Agile Tools generic Maintain Key Result type

Image 4 - Create a generic Maintain Key Result, wizard step 2

Milestone

Most popular with early OKR practitioners. Often, this is a (longer-running) task that does not include a metric - you always want to achieve 100 percent. You can enumerate the steps and assign a percentage (a weight) to each.

Agile Tools generic Milestone Key Result type

Image 5 - Create a generic Milestone Key Result, wizard step 4

Percentage

It is the most generic type, as we can measure anything from 0 to 100 percent. In most cases, such kind of progress monitoring is not only tedious but unnatural. For your convenience, we added the option to track by the number of "items", so you do not have to calculate "by hand".

Agile Tools generic Linear Percentage Key Result type

Image 6 - Create a generic Linear Percentage Key Result, wizard step 2

Agile Tools generic Discrete Percentage Key Result type

Image 7 - Create a generic Discrete Percentage Key Result, wizard step 2

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