Why Every Scrum Team Should Care About OKRs
In the world of Scrum, our focus is delivering valuable increments each Sprint. But how do we know that what we’re building truly aligns with the bigger picture? How can we be sure that our progress adds up to real outcomes—not just completed tasks?
That’s where OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) come in.
OKRs help answer a fundamental question: Why are we doing this work? While Scrum helps teams inspect and adapt their process, OKRs help teams inspect and adapt their direction.
What Are OKRs, and Why Should Scrum Teams Care?
OKRs are a simple but powerful framework to set clear, inspiring goals and measure progress toward them. They help organizations define:
- Objectives: What do we want to achieve?
- Key Results: How will we know we’re getting there?
They originated in Silicon Valley but have since been adopted by organizations of all sizes and industries. OKRs are not about micromanagement or top-down control. They’re about clarity, focus, and learning.
While Scrum helps teams deliver iteratively and incrementally, OKRs provide a strategic context for that delivery. Together, they bridge the gap between day-to-day work and long-term impact.
With OKRs in place, Scrum teams can do more than just "build the next feature"—they can ask, "How will this feature change our outcomes?"
Common Challenges Scrum Teams Face—And How OKRs Help
Here are some common frustrations shared by Scrum practitioners:
- "Our team is busy, but it's unclear if we’re delivering what really matters."
- "We don’t know how our work connects to the organization’s goals."
- "Stakeholders ask for metrics, but we only have burn-down charts."
- "We finish the Sprint, but we’re not sure if we’re closer to success."
These are signals that the team might be missing strategic feedback loops.
OKRs help solve these challenges by:
- Clarifying direction: When teams know the Product Goal is tied to OKRs, they can orient Sprint Goals around meaningful outcomes.
- Improving stakeholder alignment: OKRs bring business and tech closer, especially when discussed during Sprint Reviews.
- Enhancing metrics: Burn-down charts show effort; Key Results show impact.
- Strengthening purpose: When work is clearly connected to objectives, motivation and ownership grow.
- Focusing conversations: OKRs help teams and leaders talk about what really matters, rather than debating feature scope or velocity.
How OKRs and Scrum Work Together
When used together, OKRs and Scrum reinforce each other:
- The Product Goal is aligned with a quarterly OKR cycle.
- Sprint Goals focus on actions that contribute to Key Results.
- Sprint Reviews double as OKR check-ins, focusing on progress and learning.
- Retrospectives are used to improve how teams align their work to outcomes.
- Product Backlog refinement includes discussing how backlog items impact key results.
This integration brings strategy into the Sprint—not just at the top of the organization.
At GymTonic, a fictional gym chain undergoing digital transformation, OKRs helped teams focus their Scrum efforts on improving app adoption and member engagement. Instead of starting with features, they started with objectives:
"Let’s help more members reach their fitness goals through personalized training plans."
From that, the teams identified experiments, features, and changes they could implement. Then, every Sprint became a step in testing and delivering those improvements.
Scrum gave the cadence. OKRs gave the focus.
Take It Further
If you’re a Scrum Master, Product Owner, or Developer who wants to:
- Add strategic alignment to your backlog refinement
- Make Sprint Reviews more valuable
- Bring outcomes into your daily conversation
- Give your team more clarity about why their work matters
…I invite you to explore my new video course: Practical OKRs & Scrum for Business Results.
The course includes 12 short video lessons (3–5 minutes each), mini quizzes, and examples following the journey of GymTonic.
🎓 You’ll learn how to:
- Design OKRs that are meaningful and usable for teams
- Align OKRs with Scrum roles and events
- Use OKRs to improve transparency, learning, and stakeholder engagement.
📩 If you want to take this course, contact me. I will provide free vouchers for some of the interested ones.
🤔 Are you interested in this topic, but don't know how to start? Contact me as well. I will give you a free guide.