In this article, we'll take a closer look at the differences between Effective Experiments Objectives and the conventional OKR system

Conventional OKR Structure

OKRs and Objectives are very similar in structure. The conventional OKR structure is broken down as follows:

Objectives
- Key Results
  - Initiatives

If you're not familiar with OKRs, here's a quick introduction

Objectives Structure

To understand the difference between OKRs and Objectives, you need to first understand the anatomy and structure of the Objectives

Metric Based Objectives

Most similar to the conventional OKR system, metric based objectives are focused on clear and measurable outcomes.

Objective
- Target
  - Supporting Activities

Learning Based Objectives

Learning based objectives are more exploratory with a more qualitative outcome. This also means that learning based objectives don't have targets as they're not quantitatively measured. Thus the following structure:

Objective
- Learnings
- Recommendations
- Outcome

Key Differences

Although Objectives overlaps significantly with OKRs, it does have some clear differences which you can see below:

Progress

OKRs - Tasks and initiatives contribute to the overall progress of the OKR
Objectives - Supporting activities do not contribute to the overall progress at all

Outcomes

OKRs - Exclusively metric based and therefore measurable
Objectives - Can be both measurable and non-measurable outcomes