When to use each type of KR - To do, Metric, Jira issue & Jira issue via JQL?

Owned by Annu
Last updated: Sept 24, 2020
4 min read

Key results vary from employee to employee across all the departments but in the end, they are designed to collectively achieve their respective team’s goals & consequently company goals. Within UpRaise you will find three types of Key results.

  • Metric

  • To to

  • Jira issue

  • Jira issue via JQL

Each level of the objectives (company, team, individual) can have same types of key results. 

Each key result is different from others and has a different purpose too. Let us see examples of these key results within UpRaise. 

 

This is an example of team level objective in UpRaise. On the next image, we have added a metric type key result to this objective.

Metric

These metric type key results should be measurable and at the same time, it should be ambitious. Key results are meant to be a bit difficult but not impossible. When we say measurable, it means you should have some numbers associated with a metric KR so you can measure it against the objective. Eg. increase profit by 30% or increase sales revenue by 20%. 

When we say metric should be difficult then it means you should set some high-level deadlines those are difficult to achieve but not completely impossible. e.g. If You have a metric called grow sales turnover by 75% and you achieve 100% increment in sales turnover then it means your metric wasn't ambitious and difficult enough. 



 



In the example mentioned in the image above, You can see this key result has a measurable aim to achieve. You know where you stand currently and what are you aiming for. 

To do

To do type of KRs are binary in nature. They are either incomplete or complete. These KRs are sort of important to do's those are going to help you in achieving a main goal/objective. Eg. Conduct one-day session of a scrum expert to make your team understand the philosophy behind it. This to do will be either complete or incomplete. 

In the image below, the checkbox is unchecked and progress is 0%.



In this image, the checkbox in checked and progress is 100%.



 


Jira issue

Important

Important to know that there are two schools of thought with regards to whether Jira issues make for a good key result. While we think in some select cases it makes sense to use Jira issues as KRs, some OKR coaches think it is outright wrong. You will need to make your own decision about it.

UpRaise supports both these variations. Either you can add Jira issues as Key Results or can connect them as Actions to key results. That is dependent on your configuration explained here.


This helps you to keep track of Jira issue progress within UpRaise by connecting Jira issues with your Objectives. UpRaise integration with Jira comes in the picture here. When you want to add Jira epics or Issues as KR to an objective, use Jira issue type KR here. For example, you can a connect an epic or Jira Issue that exists in your Jira and it's related to your objective as well.





In the image above, you can notice SP-4 ARN is a bug, ARN-7 is an epic. Both are Jira issue KRs, which means you can add Jira epic and other types of Jira issues as KRs. The progress of these Jira issue KR depends on how the progress calculation is configured by your admin. 

Jira issue via JQL

Whenever you want to add multiple Jira issues in a Jira issue type KR or you want system to automatically update your Jira issues in a KR, system allows you to save a JQL with its title. If you add any new Jira issue or update the existing one and if it matches with the saved JQL, system auto updates it in the Jira issue KR added via JQL.  Read How to add Jira issue KR via JQL? for more details. 



You might have noticed every KR type has some weightage associated with it. You can check details related to weightage on this page