8 free OKR templates from Coda’s Solutions Architects

Time-tested shortcuts to optimize your team’s planning processes.

Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) provide the space for leadership guidance in their Objectives, along with the quantifiable, metric-driven Key Results that ensure verifiable progress. And, if we learned anything from talking to hundreds of teams while writing The Ultimate Coda Handbook for Planning & OKRs, it’s that there are many ways to set up your planning process, particularly if you use OKRs. Whether you’re new to OKRs or a planning veteran, it can be helpful to use OKR templates with specific focuses. For example, your team might need a template with an emphasis on planning, while another team could benefit from an execution-focused template—and others prefer bringing both phases together. Planning looks different for every team, which is why our Solutions Architects have created eight free templates to help teams run their entire OKR process.

1. Bringing teams and tools together: Team hub template.

With Coda, you can run the whole planning process in a single doc. One doc can have multiple pages (and subpages), which makes it easier to craft a planning process that feels coherent and clear for your teams.

An example team hub, showing a customized view that facilitates connections across a team.

This template allows teams to build their hubs in Coda to keep everyone on the same page—no matter how the company and information evolves. Connected tables lead to interconnected team goals, colorful buttons speed up collaboration, and organizational tools like pages and subpages simplify way-finding. Connect OKRs to your team’s daily work, and have everything live in one place for better insights and collaboration.

2. Prioritization: Big Rock brainstorm template.

Teams use this template when finalizing the Big Rocks (also called big bets or strategic initiatives) for the planning period. These Big Rocks are the top priorities for the company and are typically set by leadership. After the Big Rocks are set, this template uses the $100 exercise to determine the most essential priorities.

Use the $100 exercise to help your team decide your Big Rocks.

In the $100 exercise, everyone is asked to add a few priorities or goals to the Big Rocks table. Then everyone is invited to distribute their $100 across the options. The key to this process is for everyone to allocate their $100 privately, then come together for a brainstorming session to review and discuss the results collectively.

3. Drafting the right goals: SMART template.

SMART is a tool to help set, write, and track your OKRs. And it’s an acronym that conveys the Objectives of an organization into achievable ones: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.

The SMART goals template asks questions about the Objective, laid out in each column.

The SMART goals system brings teams and companies closer together by asking specific questions that are intended to help achieve your goals. This increases the odds of success by outlining clear intentions instead of vague or ambiguous goals, and by establishing set beginning and finish dates. The best way to start writing your SMART goals is to ask questions—lots of them––and this template has prompts to get you started.

4. Bridging tools: JIRA issues and OKRs template.

In this template, you can pull Jira issues into a table, then connect those issues to your OKRs in the goals table. The automatically updated progress bar helps to measure progress for company-wide goals and a basic timeline of all epics in one place.

The Jira Issues and OKRs template lets you sync issues and epics to manage progress from Coda.

Coda’s Jira Pack allows you to sync Jira Cloud Issues and projects into any doc—and then align them to epics. By combining the measurable aspects of OKR tracking with agile epics, you and your team can view completion progress for company-wide goals and a basic timeline of all epics in one place.

5. Accountability: Weekly OKR status update template.

Providing visibility into your OKR progress is a great step toward effective goal setting. But when it comes to granular accountability for the team, you might want something a bit more detailed.

The weekly OKR status update template has Objectives, Key Results, status updates, all synced to a weekly cadence.

This status updates template gives your team the ability to track weekly progress, flag at-risk OKRs, and create customizable views that provide the right information to the right groups. Use this template to keep everyone moving in the right direction, week after week.

6. Visibility: Org-wide OKR tracker template.

This template tracks priorities and performance across teams or organizations. Your OKRs will be able to live alongside other pages in your doc—like project briefs and team hubs—so they can evolve as your team does.

The org-wide OKR tracker template allows for monitoring various teams’ KR progress.

To use this template, use the buttons to add teams, Objectives, and Key Results. You’ll soon find that you can show Key Results of the entire organization, sorted by most progress made. This function allows you to point leaders to where they can be most helpful and is key to a successful execution period. These easy-to-process dashboards summarize OKR information so that it can be reviewed regularly in leadership meetings. Connect OKRs across the company so that everyone stays aligned.

7. Reflection: Quarterly retrospective template.

You’re never starting from zero when planning, so it’s important to reflect on what went well and what didn’t. The goal of this template is to look back on the past period (e.g., last quarter) and understand what worked well and what lessons have been learned for the plan forward.

The quarterly retrospective template gives space for team members to reflect upon the prior quarter.

This template works by toggling the activities and achievements of the past quarter into brainstorm mode, and then asking the team to add their feedback. Once everyone’s had a chance to share, un-toggle brainstorm mode to reveal all the ideas, and ask people to upvote those that resonate.

8. Celebration: Quarterly kudos board template.

Recognize someone who has made a notable achievement, exemplified team values, or invested time helping others succeed this past quarter—because hard work deserves celebration.

The quarterly kudos board template lets you give a shout-out to those that step up to help drive KRs home.

Use this template to invite your team to write kudos and upvote others’ kudos. Then share it out on Slack so everyone else can join in!

No matter the need, Coda has a template.

From setting strategic Big Rocks to tracking the team’s progress on KRs to giving your colleagues the kudos they’ve earned, we’ve got it covered. Remember: these templates are free! All you need to get going is to click the blue “copy doc” button on each template so that you can edit and use it for your team.

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