You create OKRs at key moments: planning a new quarter, launching a strategic initiative, forming a new team, or responding to shifting priorities. The goal is always the same: translate strategy into measurable outcomes and concrete work.

Rhythms gives you three ways to create OKRs, each suited to different situations:

For a complete understanding of the OKR framework and best practices, see Introduction to OKRs.

All creation paths begin from your Rhythms home screen. Click "New Objective" in the top right corner. You'll see two options:

Rhythms chat is also always available through the sidebar, so you can start a conversation about creating OKRs from anywhere in the platform.

Chat is the simplest way to create OKRs in Rhythms. Instead of filling out forms, you have a natural conversation where Rhythms helps you think through strategy and suggests well-structured OKRs.

Begin by telling Rhythms what you need:

From the creation flow: Click "New Objective" → "Explore with Rhythms"

From anywhere: Use the chat sidebar to start the conversation

Once you start, Rhythms gathers context to help you create effective OKRs:

The power of conversational creation is refinement through dialogue. You can:

Modify values and details:

Add or remove components:

Get guidance and explanations:

Explore alternatives:

Go through as many rounds of refinement as needed. Chat remembers the full conversation, so you can build incrementally.

When your OKRs look right, chat presents them as drafts:

To approve: Say "Yes, save them" or "Looks good, create them" or simply "Proceed"

To modify: Continue the conversation with changes

Approved drafts appear in the Rhythms UI for final review. From there, you can:

Important: Drafts created in chat aren't searchable until published. They exist only for your review.

Chat can also add components to OKRs you've already created:

"Add 3 initiatives under the 'Improve Customer Satisfaction' objective"

Rhythms will:

If you prefer traditional forms or want more direct control, use the form-based interface enhanced with AI suggestions.

Click "New Objective" → "Write Myself"

Enter your Objective title in the main field.

Use AI assistance:

Set metadata:

Configure alignment:

Get suggested Key Results: After filling in Objective details, Rhythms can suggest Key Results that measure success. You can accept these suggestions or write your own.

Choose next action:

Define the Key Result:

Set owner and time period:

Choose next action:

Define the Initiative:

Choose next action:

When you need to break down a parent Objective across multiple teams:

Understanding contribution: When you create a child Objective, you can choose whether it contributes to the parent's progress calculation. By default, child Objectives don't contribute (the parent measures progress through its own Key Results). However, you can enable contribution if the child's outcomes directly determine parent success. For detailed guidance on when to enable contribution and how progress rollup works, see Understanding OKR Automatic Rollup.

Best practice: The parent Objective should have its own Key Results that directly measure success. Use contributing children only when the child's Key Results are the actual measures of parent success, not when children are simply aligned work streams.

When you're planning a new period and have strategy documents, Rhythms can generate complete OKR sets by analyzing your documents alongside organizational context.

Start the conversation: Click "New Objective" → "Explore with Rhythms"

Upload your documents: Tell Rhythms you want to create OKRs from strategy documents, then upload:

What Rhythms analyzes:

Review suggested OKRs: Rhythms presents complete OKR sets (Objectives with Key Results and Initiatives) that reflect your strategic direction.

Refine through conversation: Just like conversational creation, you can iterate:

Accept or reject individual Objectives: You don't have to accept everything. Pick what fits and refine or reject the rest.

Finalize details: Set owners, teams, time periods, and alignment for all accepted OKRs.

Review and publish: Drafts appear in the UI for final review before publishing.

After creating OKRs through any method, verify:

To make changes after creation, see Managing and Updating OKRs in Rhythms.

Be specific about context when using chat:

Iterate before approving:

Use natural language:

Reference your current view:

Leverage organizational context:

Don't expect instant publishing:

Start simple, add complexity:

Chat is the best option in most scenarios because it helps you think through strategy, suggests improvements, and refines ideas through conversation. Use forms when you have OKRs fully defined and just need to enter them quickly, or when you prefer direct control over every field.

Rhythms offers two ways to track progress:

You can switch between methods anytime on the OKR detail page by clicking "Change to metric-based" or "Change to progress-based."

Learn more about metric types in Understanding Metric Types in Rhythms and how parent progress calculates in Understanding OKR Automatic Rollup.

Yes. You might use chat to create the initial structure, then use forms to add specific Key Results or Initiatives later. Or start with document generation, then use chat to refine individual Objectives.

Keep iterating in chat with more specific requests, or reject suggestions and write your own. The AI provides a starting point, not a requirement. You maintain full control.

Strategy documents, quarterly plans, vision statements, and planning memos work well. The more specific your documents are about priorities and outcomes (not just activities), the better the AI suggestions.

Yes. See <LINK: Managing and Updating Your OKRs> for guidance on editing owners, teams, time periods, alignment, and other attributes.

Apply the frameworks from Introduction to OKRs:

Drafts exist only for your review and aren't searchable in Rhythms. If you don't publish them, they won't be visible to your organization. You can return to them later through the UI to publish or discard.

With document-based generation or chat, you can create comprehensive OKR sets across teams in one session. Each Objective gets assigned to its appropriate team during the creation process.

Understanding the framework: See Introduction to OKRs for best practices on Objectives, Key Results, and Initiatives.

Setting up metrics: See Understanding Metric Types in Rhythms for detailed guidance on Key Result metrics.

Understanding rollup: See OKR Parent-Child Rollup for how parent progress automatically calculates from contributing children and when to use this feature.

Making changes: See Managing and Updating OKRs in Rhythms for guidance on editing OKRs after creation.

Tracking progress: See Effective Check-Ins to Track OKR Progress in Rhythms for how to update progress.