From the course: Measure What Matters: Succeeding with Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)

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Inputs, outputs, and outcomes

Inputs, outputs, and outcomes

- As you think about potential key results, it can help to sort them into three categories. They can be inputs, outputs, or outcomes. If you're intentional about which type of key results you're using, your teams will have a clear sense of which actions to take. First, inputs. Most simply, inputs are the things under your direct control. For example, you can control the number of stores that you may open in the coming year or you can control a website's features and the launch date. You can control the changes that reduce the weight of a part you manufacture. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, famously focuses on inputs. Under his leadership, Amazon prioritized a range of basic inputs from expanding product selection or cutting the time it took to pick and pack a shipment. These were the things they felt they could control. Jeff believed if Amazon focused on the inputs, the critical outputs, like revenue, would follow. So let's talk about outputs. These are what you produce. The…

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