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How to Run OKR Check-In Meetings (Step-by-Step Guide)
Published on:
August 15, 2025
OKR check-in meetings are a key part of any organization's goal setting and tracking methodology. Going over OKR progress in thorough structured sessions makes sure your team doesn't lose sight of the organization's broader strategy. Afterall, it is incredibly easy for employees to lose sight of their objectives when they are caught in the middle of their day-to-day responsibilities and tasks.
The numbers don't lie. According to a survey to a survey by Brightline Initiative, the average organization fails to hit 20% of their strategic objectives due to poor strategy implementation.
A regularly scheduled meeting that goes through each participants OKRs, their progress, and the potential challenges they might be facing is the best way to counteract poor strategy implementation and ensure objectives never lose visibility.
So whether you're implementing OKRs for the first time or optimizing your existing OKR process, this guide provides a comprehensive framework for running effective OKR check-ins.
Core components of an effective OKR check-in:
How OKR check-ins differ from other meetings:
Unlike performance reviews, which evaluate individual or team output over extended periods, OKR check-ins operate on a strategic frequency focused specifically on goal progression.
Unlike daily stand-ups, which concentrate on immediate task execution, OKR check-ins provide strategic perspective on whether those tasks are effectively moving key results forward.
This distinction is crucial: Organizations with weekly check-ins demonstrate significantly higher objective achievement rates than those relying on ad-hoc progress reviews.
The recommended cadence: Weekly or biweekly, depending on your organizational context.
Weekly OKR check-ins are optimal for:
Biweekly check-ins may suffice when:
Monthly intervals are generally insufficient. The extended gap between touchpoints allows issues to compound and reduces the ability to course-correct effectively.
The optimal duration for an OKR check-in meeting can be adjusted based on headcount. Keep it short enough to respect calendars yet long enough to surface meaningful insight. A strict OKR meeting agenda made up of status review, impediment spotlight, commitment confirmation, prevents conversations from expanding into sprawling, sixty-minute marathons.
Should a particular issue require deeper examination, schedule a focused follow-up rather than stretching the check-in beyond its core purpose.
Optimal duration: 15-30 minutes, scaled appropriately for team size.
A clear agenda keeps OKR check-in meetings focused and productive. Below is a step-by-step framework you can adapt for your team. This agenda assumes a 15-30 minute meeting and incorporates OKR check-in best practices for goal tracking and team alignment.
Every OKR check-in meeting needs to start with OKR reporting. This is the process of working through each OKR systematically and discussing progress updates. The owner of each objective can share progress on their key results using status labels that everyone has agreed upon beforehand.
During the check-in, each OKR owner should discuss the advancements they've made, the results they have achieved, and the key milestones they have hit.
A key factor is to keep updates concise and strategic. The detailed analysis can happen offline or even down the line within the same meeting. Use this time to ensure everyone understands the current trajectory and what it means for the team's objectives.
Status categories you can use to keep everyone aligned:
How this looks in practice:
"For our objective to increase brand awareness, we have three key results. Website traffic is at 15% growth toward our 20% target. I'm marking this as On Track. Social engagement is at 8% versus our 25% goal, so that's At Risk. And our PR mentions are actually at 27% against our 25% target, so that one's Complete."
Now that your team has assessed where they are, the next step is to discuss where you are headed. The best way to evaluate this is through a simple confidence assessment.
This is the part of the meeting where each OKR owner discusses just how attainable their OKRs actually are by the end of the cycle. Using confidence scores to evaluate OKR progress is a great way to identify early warning signs. To do this effectively, you need to determine a consistent scale with which you will be scoring your OKRs.
This more often than not comes in the form of a 0-10 scale, color-grading, or a mix of both. What you are essentially doing here is assigning the categories we've identified above actual values on a scale. Below, you will find a sample confidence scale you can use during your OKR check-in meetings.
Confidence scale you can use:
How this looks in practice:
"I'm rating the customer retention OKR at yellow-7. We're making solid progress on the product improvements, but the delayed feature release has me moderately concerned about hitting our Q4 target."
With confidence scores firmly in place, and everyone aligned on which OKRs are at risk and which OKR's are on track, the next step in the your OKR check-in meeting is to identify blockers and challenges, especially for those OKRs that are at risk.
Each OKR owner should go through the primary challenge standing in the way of their progress. What are the obstacles standing in the way of their key results? The trick here is to discuss blockers without turning this meeting into a brainstorming session. That can come in a follow-up. For this part of your OKR check-in, you simply want participants to be aware of these challenges.
Common blockers that can surface:
How this looks in practice:
"My main blocker for the partnership OKR is legal review. The contract has been with them for two weeks, and until it's approved, we can't move forward with the integration work that affects two of our key results."
Decide what actions or initiatives to prioritize before the next check-in. Each OKR owner should identify one or two high-impact tasks to move their results forward. The tasks identified here can directly be associated with the blockers discussed in the previous step.
Goal owners should specify exact deliverables with clear deadlines before the next check-in. These commitments should directly address the gap between current progress and target achievement. If priorities have shifted due to new information from this meeting, acknowledge the change and adjust accordingly.
Elements of effective priority commitments:
How this looks in practice:
"For the product adoption OKR, my priority is completing the user onboarding flow redesign by Wednesday. This directly impacts our activation rate key result, which is currently at risk."
Every OKR check-in should close with a brief discussion on what each meeting participant took away from the meeting. This step is particularly useful in making sure everyone is on the same page until the next OKR check-in.
There are multiple different ways to do this, based on your company culture. Teams might share brief reflections, acknowledge contributions, or simply confirm next steps.
Options for closing your check-in:
Mind you, you can apply all or none of these and simply come up with a creative and engaging way to wrap up your OKR meetings that fits your team dynamics.
The best way to conduct OKR check-ins inside Microsoft Teams is to use an OKR software that connects with your Microsoft Teams meetings. In that regard, you can't go wrong with the highest-rated OKR software in the Microsoft Teams App Store, Teamflect. With Teamflect, you can:
And do so much more. Would you like to learn more? You can schedule a quick call and speak to an expert about your OKR management needs and how Teamflect can help.
Beyond following a structured agenda, these proven practices elevate your OKR check-ins from routine meetings to high-impact sessions.
Rotate this role or assign it to your most organized team member.
The facilitator's role should be:
When blockers threaten to derail the meeting, they might intervene with: "Important issue! Let's schedule a deep dive this afternoon."
Capture updates as they happen, not after. Use collaborative tools that integrate with your workflow, whether that's OKR tracking tool, a shared document, or your project management platform.
Live documentation eliminates the "Wait, what did we agree on?" emails and creates an audit trail of progress.
Teams using Teamflect, for instance, can not only presents the goals and OKRs of all meeting participants inside ongoing meetings, but update them within the meeting, take notes, and create related tasks.
Create an environment where team members feel safe admitting when they’re off track. Make it safe, even rewarded, to report delays or obstacles. The best way to accomplish this is to replace:
With:
If your team knows that admitting challenges leads to help rather than criticism, they'll flag issues while they're still manageable.
Avoid turning check-ins into a status-only report. Use the meeting to build momentum by celebrating wins and clarifying next step. Dedicate time to celebrate completed key results, recognize effort on challenging objectives, and connect this week's progress to next quarter's goals.
A simple: "This positions us perfectly for the product launch"
Transforms a dry update into team energy.
As an OKR software, Teamflect provides users with a complete platform. More than just a goal-setting tool, Teamflect also is the best recognition software for Microsoft Teams, allowing managers to send recognition badges to employees, during ongoing OKR check-in meetings.
Hold check-ins on the same day and time each week or biweekly. Set recurring reminders in Teams to ensure attendance. Consistency builds habits, making OKRs a natural part of your team’s workflow.
Below lie rapid-fire responses for recurring curiosities about OKR check-ins, cast into a compact FAQ that remedies reader doubts:
Both have their place. Team-wide check-ins create transparency, foster collaboration, and ensure everyone understands how their work connects. Individual check-ins address personal development goals, sensitive issues, or role-specific objectives that don't require team input.
Best practice: Run weekly team-wide OKR check-ins for shared objectives, supplemented by monthly one-on-ones for individual goals and deeper coaching.
Example: A marketing team meets weekly to review their shared objective "Increase qualified leads by 40%," while each member discusses personal skill development OKRs in their monthly one-on-one.
Review how far you are toward the goal, compare it to where you should be at this point in the timeline, and note any challenges or changes. Use clear status indicators like On Track, At Risk, or Off Track to guide next steps.
OKR check-ins are forward-looking operational meetings. They happen weekly or biweekly during the OKR cycle, focusing on current progress, immediate blockers, and next steps. Think of them as steering corrections while driving.
Retrospectives are backward-looking learning sessions. They occur at the end of an OKR cycle (typically quarterly), analyzing what worked, what didn't, and how to improve the next cycle. Think of them as reviewing the journey after reaching your destination.
Use check-ins to execute your current OKRs effectively. Use retrospectives to set better OKRs next time. For guidance on the full cycle, see our OKR tracking guide.
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