The Importance of OKR Definition Inputs for Product Teams

One of the biggest hurdles in defining effective Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) happens before the OKR process even starts. It’s not about picking the right words—it’s about having the right inputs.

OKR definition doesn’t begin with a blank page and a brainstorming session. It starts with a shared understanding of where the product stands today and where it’s supposed to go next.

That’s why the quality of the inputs you bring to your OKR definition directly impacts how useful your OKR sets will be.

Why Inputs Matter

Answering the question,

“How does success for our product look at the end of this cycle?”
gets tricky when there’s no clear guidance.

Giving product teams the autonomy to define OKRs from the bottom up is a good thing—but autonomy alone doesn’t provide direction.

It’s up to the team to either get access to or generate the inputs they need to define their OKRs in a way that actually helps them move forward.

Mapping Inputs by Flight Level and Ownership

One way to make sense of these inputs is to group them by two factors:

• Flight Level: Strategic company direction vs. day-to-day tactical priorities

• Team Ownership: Inputs that are received vs. those created by the team

Focus on Inputs You Can Influence

This structure helps Product Teams concentrate on the inputs they can actually shape, instead of spending energy trying to influence high-level artifacts they have little control over.

Common OKR Definition Inputs Include:

• Company OKR Sets

• Product Vision

• Product Strategy

• Product Discovery Insights

• Previous Team OKR Sets

• Existing Roadmap Items

Company OKR Sets

The most important thing about company-level OKRs? They need to focus on the right metrics.

Yes, it matters which themes they cover—but even more importantly, they should emphasize Impact metrics. Without that, Product Teams are boxed into writing Output-only OKRs with little strategic relevance.

A Product Team’s ability to focus on Outcomes depends on whether the Company OKRs leave enough room for them to create.

Well-crafted company OKRs strike a balance:

• They guide teams by making strategy measurable

• They empower teams by giving them the space to define their own Outcomes and Outputs

Another consideration is how strictly company Key Results are treated as cascaded inputs. A rigid cascade might simplify the conversation—but it also restricts how much freedom a Product Team has to act.

Product Vision

There’s no shortage of templates and “best practices” out there—but many of them blur the lines between Product Vision and Product Strategy.

Let’s be clear:
Product Vision is about defining the future state of the market you’ve chosen to serve. It reflects your values, responsibilities, and what’s driving your work.

It’s a long-term direction, not a short-term roadmap.

For Product Teams, it can be challenging to articulate a distinct Product Vision—one that’s not just a reworded version of the company vision. But having that clarity matters.

Example: Two Levels of Vision

You can see the difference clearly in teams like the one at Airbnb responsible for the booking experience. Their Product Vision lives beneath the broader company vision, but it still stands on its own.

Understanding the Difference: Product Vision vs. Product Strategy

Before diving deeper into strategy, it’s important to clearly distinguish it from your Product Vision.

Too often, teams mix the two—and that confusion makes it harder to use either effectively. Vision is about the future state you aim to create. Strategy is how you plan to get there.

Product Strategy

While Product Vision looks forward, Product Strategy is about defining the most promising approach to win in the market you’re in.

And just like with vision, it's useful to separate company-level strategy from product-level strategy.

Continuing with the Airbnb example:
A strategy statement for their booking experience team might have been

“Transition the Airbnb marketplace from ‘request to book’ to an ‘instant book’ model.”

Was it perfect? Maybe not. But it was concrete—and it pointed toward a specific, measurable direction.

Strategy Is Built on Real Inputs

You can’t create a useful strategy by brainstorming in a vacuum.

Real strategy is built on quantitative and qualitative data—insights about the market, user behavior, operational constraints, and more. It doesn’t come from just filling in a few bullet points.

Filling in a gap text with “brainstorming” inputs won’t form a valid strategy.

Richard Rumelt famously said, “A goal is not a strategy.”
That’s true. But goals can be part of your strategy—and they should definitely result from it.

If your Product Strategy isn’t rooted in evidence, that will become obvious the moment you try to use it as an input for OKRs.

Strategy Gaps = OKR Gaps

If your team struggles to define OKRs beyond generic goals like “increase revenue,” chances are the root problem is a lack of strategic context.

But here’s the deal: if the Product Strategy isn’t clear, it’s not just on leadership.

Don’t wait for your manager or the C-suite to define your direction—work to create clarity yourselves.

The gaps in your Product Strategy—your plan to win—are often the missing ingredients that make your OKRs meaningful. That’s your leverage.

Product Discovery Insights

It’s still surprisingly common for Product Teams to be asked to define Outcome-based OKRs… without ever being given the chance to talk to users.

That alone undermines the whole idea of enabling product teams through OKRs.

Without access to real Discovery insights, teams can’t define Outcome OKRs in a meaningful way.

If Product Teams don’t have the skills, access, or environment to understand real customer problems and validate potential solutions, they’re missing critical context. And without that, there’s no foundation for Outcome-oriented Key Results.

Go Beyond Feature Requests

Understanding customer needs isn’t the same as asking users what they want.

Surface-level feature requests rarely translate into clear behavioral shifts—the kind of insights you actually need when defining Outcomes.

The work of Product Discovery is what helps translate real problems into measurable behavior changes. And those changes? They’re exactly what your OKRs should be aiming to track.

From Discovery Insights to Outcomes to Key Results

Mapping research insights to Outcomes—and then to Key Results—isn’t just a theoretical exercise. It ties directly into frameworks like Impact Mapping, which help connect early feature ideas and experiments back to overarching company goals.

This ability to use actionable Discovery insights to shape OKRs is what sets Outcome-oriented Product Teams apart from those stuck in OKR Theater.

Teams that rely on solid Discovery work don’t just define OKRs—they define the right ones.

Previous Team OKR Sets

Your past OKRs are more than historical artifacts.

Whether some Key Results carry over into the next cycle or you're simply reflecting on what worked and what didn’t, previous team OKRs are a valuable input for shaping your next set.

They give you a baseline to iterate from—grounding new priorities in recent learnings, not guesswork.

Why Some Key Results Don’t Hit 100%

Just because your OKR cycle ends doesn’t mean every Key Result hits 100%.

And that’s normal.

There are plenty of reasons a Key Result might fall short. Maybe there’s a skills or capacity gap on the team that made execution difficult.

Maybe your Key Results leaned too heavily on lagging indicators and didn’t give you time to course-correct mid-cycle.

Balancing leading and lagging indicators takes experience—and thoughtful discussion. That’s why your previous OKRs can be a useful input for the next round. They give you a reality check and help you refine your approach.

Existing Roadmap Items

There’s a common misconception that Product Roadmaps and OKRs don’t go together. But in reality, they can complement each other—if used intentionally.

The key is to recognize the roadmap priorities for what they are—and use OKRs either to support their execution or to shape how those priorities are approached.

Even if some roadmap items are fixed, OKRs still have value.

Use OKRs to Drive Team Improvements

Not all OKRs need to tie directly to product features or customer outcomes.

You can also use them to improve your internal processes, intentionally.

This includes:

• Research cadence

• Team health and happiness

• Incident response time

• Feedback loops and collaboration

OKRs don’t need to cover all of your work.
They can be a lightweight structure for tracking and improving how you work—not just what you ship.

And when paired with regular check-ins, they promote something most teams undervalue: learning.

Takeaway: High-Quality Inputs Lead to High-Quality OKRs

Inputs alone won’t generate great OKRs. But they do create the environment for meaningful brainstorming, alignment, and commitment.

Without that, teams are left trying to write OKRs based on a vague vision or a high-level goal like “double the revenue.”

At first, that might feel like freedom. But in reality, it leads to OKRs that lack the clarity and relevance needed to guide day-to-day decisions.