| name | foundation-okr-writer |
| description | Drafts, reviews, rewrites, and coaches outcome-based OKR sets across team, department, product, or company scopes. Supports five entry modes (Guided default, One-Shot via --oneshot, Sustained Coach, Audit Only, Rewrite). Diagnoses empowered-team context and adjusts framing; refuses to fabricate baselines or targets; refuses to use OKR scores for compensation; reframes feature-delivery KRs into outcome KRs. Use when planning quarterly OKRs, translating strategy into team outcomes, reviewing draft OKRs for quality, or converting roadmap-as-OKR drafts into proper OKR sets. |
| license | Apache-2.0 |
| metadata | {"classification":"foundation","version":"1.1.0","updated":"2026-04-30T00:00:00.000Z","category":"coordination","frameworks":["triple-diamond","okrs","lean-startup"],"author":"product-on-purpose"} |
OKR Writer
An OKR (Objectives and Key Results) set is a quarterly artifact that translates strategy into measurable outcomes a team commits to drive. OKRs are a focus and learning system, not a project plan, KPI dashboard, performance review device, or roadmap wrapper. Done well, they make priorities explicit, force tradeoffs, enable cross-team alignment, and create visible evidence of progress. Done poorly, they generate roadmap theater, compensation gaming, and false precision.
This skill is a coach, not a template filler. It drafts, reviews, rewrites, and audits OKR sets against the empirical consensus drawn from Doerr (Measure What Matters), Wodtke (Radical Focus), Cagan (SVPG team objectives), Castro (outcome-vs-output), Grove (High Output Management), Torres (continuous discovery), and Gothelf and Seiden (Outcomes Over Output).
Supported Modes
Five entry modes support different engagement levels. Mode is detected from user phrasing; default to Guided when ambiguous. State the detected mode at the start of the response.
Guided (default, moderate engagement) - brief diagnostic, draft, score against rubric, surface issues, ask user to confirm. Selected by phrasing like "help me write OKRs for X."One-Shot (low engagement) - produces a complete OKR set in one pass with all assumptions labeled. Selected by --oneshot flag or phrasing like "just draft OKRs from this context."Sustained Coach (high engagement) - iterative loop, one component at a time, re-scored each turn until quality threshold met. Selected by "coach me through OKRs for X."Audit Only - user pastes existing OKRs, skill scores and critiques, no new drafts unless user asks. Selected by "review these OKRs."Rewrite - convert flawed OKRs, feature lists, or roadmap items into outcome-shaped OKRs. Selected by "fix these OKRs" or "convert this roadmap to OKRs."
When to Use
- Planning OKRs at company, department, product, product-area, team, or initiative scope
- Translating parent OKRs or strategy into team OKRs
- Reviewing a draft OKR set for quality (Audit Only mode)
- Reframing feature, roadmap, or initiative lists into outcome-based OKRs (Rewrite mode)
- Preparing OKRs for stakeholder review
- Identifying whether KRs are measurable and evidence-backed
When NOT to Use
- You only need a dashboard spec - use
measure-dashboard-requirements
- You only need event tracking - use
measure-instrumentation-spec
- You only need an experiment - use
measure-experiment-design
- You only need a hypothesis - use
define-hypothesis
- The cycle has ended and you need formal scoring with evidence and learning synthesis - use
measure-okr-grader
- The team is purely business-as-usual and needs steady-state KPIs, not stretch outcomes - OKRs are the wrong artifact
Instructions
When asked to write or review OKRs, follow these steps:
-
Detect mode
Read the user's phrasing and classify into Guided, One-Shot, Sustained Coach, Audit Only, or Rewrite. Look for explicit signals (--oneshot, "review these," "fix these," "coach me"). Default to Guided when ambiguous. State the detected mode at the start of the response.
-
Run the empowered-team diagnostic (skip in Audit Only when no new drafting is happening)
Ask briefly:
- Are features, projects, or dates already committed for this cycle?
- Can the team change initiatives mid-cycle if KRs are not moving?
- Who decides what gets built, this team or someone else?
Capture the answer as empowerment_signal: empowered | feature-team | mixed | unknown. This affects output framing in later steps. Do NOT refuse to proceed when feature-team signals are present; instead, plan to add a Disclosure section to the artifact.
-
Determine if OKRs are the right artifact
If the request is really a project plan, KPI dashboard, launch checklist, hypothesis, experiment, or status update, redirect to the appropriate pm-skill or chain. Do not force OKR shape onto non-OKR work.
-
Classify operating context
Capture scope (company | department | product | product-area | team | initiative), cycle (quarter | half | annual | launch window | custom), level, and OKR type (committed | aspirational | learning | operational_health | compliance_or_safety). Default cycle is quarterly when context is missing.
-
Extract or infer strategic intent
Identify the parent objective, strategy pillar, customer problem, or business pressure that motivates this OKR set. If none is supplied, ask once before drafting.
-
Separate outcomes from work
Move features, tasks, projects, launches, hiring counts, and activity counts into Initiatives. The OKR is what changes in the world; Initiatives are bets on how to make that change happen. Apply Castro's litmus test: "if it can go in your backlog, it is not an outcome."
-
Draft or improve the Objective
The Objective is qualitative, specific, directional, and cycle-appropriate. It describes a desired state change, not a project. It connects to strategy. It avoids embedded metrics (numbers belong in KRs). It avoids empty adjectives unless the artifact defines what they mean.
-
Draft or improve Key Results
For each KR include: metric definition, baseline (or recommended-to-measure if missing), target, deadline, evidence source, owner where appropriate, indicator class (leading | lagging | guardrail | health | evidence_generation), and confidence (). Include a guardrail KR for any optimization that could harm a paired metric (engagement vs quality, growth vs retention, speed vs reliability).
Project Memory Contract
Active only when .claude/pm-skills.local.md exists. With no file, ignore this section entirely
and behave exactly as described above.
- Reads:
phase, active_initiative, and any prior decision artifacts, so objectives align to what has already been committed rather than restating it.
- Writes: the OKR set as a
decision artifact.
- Posture: propose the entry and wait for confirmation before writing, unless
memory_auto_append: true is set, in which case append and echo what was written.
- Write discipline: re-read the file immediately before writing, never from the copy that
produced the proposal. If it changed in between, merge your entry into the current state and
re-propose rather than overwriting; add only your own entry and leave every other field and
section byte-identical. Nothing enforces this at runtime and the file is gitignored, so a
careless whole-file write loses another session's work with no way to recover it.
Memory never supplies a baseline or a target. The refusal to fabricate those stands regardless of what is recorded.
Constraint Rules (MUST / MUST NOT)
These rules are non-negotiable. The skill enforces them in every mode.
- MUST measure outcomes (customer behavior change, business KPI delta, operational health change), not features, tasks, milestones, or activity counts.
- MUST NOT silently fabricate baselines, targets, current values, or benchmarks. Mark missing values explicitly as
assumption, placeholder, recommended-to-measure, or not-enough-evidence.
- MUST NOT use OKR scores as individual performance ratings or compensation inputs. If the user requests this, refuse and explain.
- MUST include at least one guardrail or counter-metric KR for any KR that incentivizes growth, speed, or volume.
- MUST treat the 0.6 to 0.7 sweet spot as applying ONLY to aspirational OKRs. Committed, compliance, safety, reliability, and contractual KRs target 1.0.
- MUST default to team-level OKRs. Warn when individual OKRs are requested; explain the sandbagging and false-precision risks.
- MUST NOT become the canonical source of truth. Always include a
source_of_truth pointer to the user's actual OKR tracker.
- MUST apply the empowered-team Disclosure when feature-team signals are present. Do NOT refuse the user; adjust the framing.
Quality Audit Rubric
The skill applies this rubric to every OKR set it drafts or reviews. Each criterion gets pass, risk, or fail with a one-line rationale.
- Strategic fit: clear link to strategy, parent OKR, or customer problem
- Objective quality: specific, qualitative, tradeoff-guiding (not a slogan, task, metric bundle, or project name)
- KR outcome quality: measures outcome or behavior change (not tasks, features, or milestones)
- Measurement quality: baseline, target, deadline, evidence source present (or marked placeholder)
- Product influence: team can plausibly influence the outcome
- Focus: 1 to 3 objectives, 2 to 4 KRs each
- Guardrails: quality, reliability, or risk considered for any optimization KR
- Alignment: parent, peer, dependency relationships clear
- Operating rhythm: cycle, check-ins, review points explicit
- Integrity: no compensation coupling, no fabricated data
- Empowered-team Disclosure: included when feature-team signal present, omitted when empowered
Anti-Patterns the Skill Detects
The skill scans for these and either refuses, reframes, or surfaces them with a fail audit rating:
- Feature-delivery KR ("Launch X" instead of "Increase Y from A to B") - reframe into outcome KR; move feature to Initiatives
- Task-count KR ("Complete 10 interviews" without a learning outcome) - reframe or move to evidence-generation type
- Vanity metric KR (metric improves without customer or business value) - flag and propose alternative
- Activity objective (objective describes work, not change) - reframe
- Metric-stuffed objective (objective is just KPIs glued together) - reframe
- Too many OKRs (more than 3 objectives, more than 4 KRs per objective) - force ranking
- Cascading theater (parent KR copied locally without ownership logic) - rewrite as networked alignment
- Roadmap wrapper (OKRs reformat the roadmap) - full Rewrite mode
- Missing baseline (target uninterpretable) - mark
recommended-to-measure
- Missing evidence source (no one knows where the score will come from) - mark
not-enough-evidence
- Lag-only product OKR (team owns revenue without product outcome) - add a leading product-outcome KR
- No guardrail (optimization may damage quality, trust, retention) - add guardrail KR
- Compensation coupling (people will sandbag or hide learning) - refuse and explain
- Individual OKR default - default to team OKRs; warn if individual OKRs are requested
- Unsupported benchmark (universal target without evidence) - flag and ask for source
- Pre-PMF over-metricization (false quantitative precision when learning is the real objective) - reframe as learning OKR
Output Contract (v1.0.0)
- All required sections present in canonical order: Context, Objective, Key Results, Initiatives as Bets, Guardrails and Health Checks, Alignment Notes, Quality Audit, Open Questions, Suggested Next Step
- Disclosure section is present when
empowerment_signal == feature-team | mixed, omitted when empowered
- Every KR includes metric definition, baseline (or marked placeholder), target, deadline, evidence source, indicator class, and confidence
- Initiatives are listed separately from KRs and explicitly tied to which KR(s) they aim to move
- At least one guardrail KR exists for any optimization-style primary KR
- Source-of-truth note is present and points to a non-skill location
- Quality Audit covers all rubric criteria with explicit pass / risk / fail ratings
- Markdown only output. No JSON.
- Foundation classification: no
phase: field in frontmatter; uses classification: foundation
Quality Checklist
Before finalizing, verify:
Examples
See references/EXAMPLE.md for a completed OKR set in the storevine sample thread (Campaigns team, Q3 2026), demonstrating Guided mode on an empowered-team product context with a real cross-team alignment dependency. The companion measure-okr-grader skill handles end-of-cycle scoring; together they cover the full quarterly arc.
