How to Score OKRs: The Definitive Guide to OKR Grading

Last verified: February 2026

Overview

Scoring OKRs at the end of each quarter is how teams learn whether their goals were ambitious enough, whether they focused on the right things, and where to invest next. The scoring process should be fast, honest, and forward-looking.

The Standard 0.0–1.0 Scale

Most organizations use Google's original scoring approach:

Score	Meaning	Color
0.0–0.3	Failed to make meaningful progress	Red
0.4–0.6	Made progress but fell short of the goal	Yellow
0.7–1.0	Delivered strong results	Green

The target for well-set OKRs is 0.7. Consistently scoring 1.0 means your goals weren't ambitious enough.

How to Score Each Key Result

Metric-Based Key Results (Most Common)

Calculate the percentage of progress:

KR: Increase monthly active users from 10,000 to 25,000

Actual: 19,500
Score: (19,500 - 10,000) / (25,000 - 10,000) = 0.63

Binary Key Results

If the result was achieved or not:

Achieved → 1.0
Partially achieved → 0.3–0.7 (use judgment)
Not achieved → 0.0

Milestone-Based Key Results

If the KR has defined stages:

All milestones complete → 1.0
3 of 4 milestones → 0.75
Scale proportionally

Scoring the Overall Objective

Average the Key Result scores, but use judgment:

Objective: Build a world-class onboarding experience

KR1: Reduce time-to-first-value from 14 to 3 days → 0.8
KR2: 30-day activation rate from 45% to 75% → 0.5
KR3: Onboarding NPS 60+ → 0.7

Average: 0.67 — solid progress but room for improvement.

The Scoring Meeting

Before the Meeting

Each OKR owner pre-fills their scores with supporting data
Scoring should take 5 minutes per OKR, not 30

During the Meeting (30-60 minutes)

Review each OKR — owner presents score and rationale
Calibrate — team discusses if the score is accurate
Extract insights — what worked, what didn't, what surprised you
Decide on carry-forwards — which OKRs need another quarter

After the Meeting

Finalize and publish scores transparently
Archive the quarter's OKRs for reference
Feed lessons into next quarter's OKR planning

Common Scoring Mistakes

Score inflation — rating everything 0.7+ to look good defeats the purpose
Ignoring context — a 0.4 during a crisis might represent heroic effort
Scoring activities, not outcomes — "we shipped the feature" vs. "users adopted the feature"
Skipping the reflection — the score itself matters less than the conversation around it
Punishing low scores — this kills psychological safety and honest scoring

What to Do with Scores

0.0–0.3: Ask why. Was the goal wrong? Did priorities shift? Was there a blocker?
0.4–0.6: Investigate — was this sandbagged, or genuinely difficult? Should it continue next quarter?
0.7–1.0: Celebrate, then ask if the goal was ambitious enough.
1.0 consistently: Your goals are too easy. Push harder next quarter.

How Krezzo Helps

Krezzo simplifies scoring with auto-calculated progress based on tracked metrics, pre-populated score suggestions, and team calibration workflows. Historical scores are preserved for trend analysis across quarters.

Sources

Doerr, John. Measure What Matters. Penguin, 2018.
re:Work by Google. "Guide: Set Goals with OKRs."
krezzo.com