Translating strategy into measurable goals is hard enough. Breaking those goals down across organizational levels (from company to team to individual) while managing different time horizons (annual and quarterly) adds another layer of complexity. Get the structure wrong, and you end up with goals at different altitudes mixed together, unclear definitions of success, and broken contribution paths. The result is confusion about what actually drives what, and a frustrating disconnect between your strategic narrative and how progress gets measured.

The core challenge isn't just creating good Objectives and Key Results. It's organizing them so the relationships are clear. When should company goals be annual versus quarterly? How do team quarterly goals support company annual goals? When do you create a child Objective versus just adding another Key Result? These structural decisions determine whether your OKR program creates clarity or compounds confusion.

This article provides the foundational principles and practical patterns for structuring OKRs across organizational levels and time periods.

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Prerequisites: Basic understanding of OKR concepts. If you're new to OKRs, start with Introduction to OKRs.

Before diving into organizational structure and time periods, you need to understand the most critical principle of effective OKR hierarchies:

Every Objective must be defined by Key Results that share the same time horizon before you cascade to child Objectives at shorter time horizons.

This principle prevents the most common structural mistake: mixing time periods at the same hierarchical level.

The Problem: Mixed Time Horizons

When Key Results span different time periods (2026, 2027, 5-year) as peers under the same Objective, you haven't actually defined what "expand into new markets" means for any specific time period. You've just listed various future states without clarity about which matters when.

The Solution: Matched Time Horizons

Now each Objective is clearly defined by its Key Results at the same time horizon. The annual Objective is measured by what happens by end of 2026. The quarterly Objective is measured by what happens by end of Q1. The relationship between them is clear: quarterly success builds toward annual success.

For each Objective, ask:

If your Key Results span multiple time periods, you can't answer these questions coherently. You're really describing multiple objectives across different horizons, not one well-defined objective.

Your organization operates at different altitudes simultaneously. Getting the structure right means matching time horizons to organizational altitude.

Rhythms uses a simple organizational structure:

Teams in Rhythms represent groups of people working toward shared goals. Some teams align with your formal organizational structure (departments, business units, or reporting hierarchies). Other teams are assembled specifically to accomplish a goal (cross-functional groups, special projects, or strategic initiatives). Both use the same team structure in Rhythms.

Different organizational altitudes typically work at different time scales:

The annual and quarterly combination: Most organizations benefit from annual goals at the company level (providing stability for planning and resource allocation) paired with quarterly team execution. This gives you strategic continuity while maintaining execution agility.

Exception for high-uncertainty environments: If your organization can't set measurable goals over an annual time horizon with confidence (common in startups or rapidly evolving markets), use quarterly goals at all levels. Choose based on your ability to predict and measure outcomes, not arbitrary rules.

Organizations often have 3-5 year strategic plans that provide directional context. Rhythms is optimized for annual and quarterly execution cycles (the goals that translate strategy into measurable work). Strategic context works best captured in Objective descriptions rather than as separate time-period goals in Rhythms.

Using labels to connect to strategy: You can use labels in Rhythms to tag which Objectives connect to which strategic pillars, imperatives, or themes from your long-term plans. This maintains the strategic connection without creating multi-year time periods in the tool. Focus your goal structure on the annual and quarterly objectives that drive execution.

To build effective hierarchies, you need to understand that Rhythms treats alignment and contribution as separate concepts:

Alignment creates the organizational structure. It shows which goals connect to which other goals in the hierarchy. Alignment answers: "How do these goals relate to each other?"

Contribution controls progress calculation. It determines whether a child goal's progress mathematically affects its parent's progress. Contribution answers: "What actually measures success for this parent goal?"

By default in Rhythms:

This separation allows you to create clean hierarchies across time horizons:

The quarterly Team Objective shows strategic connection to the company's annual goal (alignment), but the team's quarterly progress doesn't mathematically roll up to the company's annual progress (contribution). This makes sense. You can't average quarterly completion percentages into an annual churn rate. They're measuring related outcomes at different time scales.

Why Initiatives don't contribute by default: Completing work activities (Initiatives) doesn't prove you achieved outcomes (Objectives). By default, initiatives don't contribute to progress calculations, which also means initiative delays won't automatically surface in parent goal summaries or risk indicators. However, Rhythms gives you control over this through Model Customization settings. Most organizations keep initiatives non-contributing to maintain focus on outcomes, but administrators can enable contribution if you want work delays to affect parent progress and visibility. This flexibility lets you match the tool to your organizational philosophy.

Each goal in your hierarchy needs a way to track progress. Rhythms offers three update methods:

Key principle: Prefer data source connections and automatic rollup over manual updates. The more automation, the more accurate and timely your progress tracking.

Now that you understand the foundation, here's how to structure goals across different time horizons.

When creating any OKR, answer these three questions in order:

1. What is my strategic direction? (This context may come from organizational strategy documents, leadership direction, or broader company objectives)

2. What do I need to accomplish by the end of the parent period to give me confidence I'm on the right path? (Define the Objective, then identify the Key Results that prove success at that time horizon)

3. What do I need to accomplish in the child period that will give me confidence I'm on track to achieve the parent period goals? (Create child Objectives with their own defining Key Results at the shorter time horizon)

When your child period goals measure the same metric as your parent period goal, you're breaking down a larger target into checkpoint milestones along the way.

For cumulative metrics (revenue, customers, deals closed), each checkpoint shows your net position at that point in time:

Notice: Each quarterly KR states both starting and ending positions, showing net growth (accounting for any churn). Both annual and quarterly KRs connect to the same revenue data source, so they update automatically as revenue changes. The quarterly Objectives describe what you're focusing on each quarter to hit those revenue milestones. Because these are child Objectives (not child KRs), they don't contribute to the annual Objective's progress. The annual KR tracks the overall metric directly from the data source.

For non-cumulative metrics (percentages, rates, satisfaction scores), set the target you need to achieve by each checkpoint:

Sometimes your child period goals use different metrics than your parent period goal. The child metrics, when achieved, give you confidence you'll hit the parent target.

The Q1 metrics (campaigns, leads, conversion rate) are different from the annual metric (total customers), but achieving them gives you confidence you're building the engine needed to hit 10,000 customers annually.

When to use each approach:

OKRs translate strategy into measurable outcomes. Initiatives connect those outcomes to daily work.

Objectives and Key Results define what success looks like. Initiatives define how you'll get there. Without clear Initiatives, even well-defined goals lack executable plans.

Initiatives represent the specific work your teams will execute (the projects tracked in tools like Jira, Linear, and Monday.com that drive progress toward your Objectives and Key Results). Depending on your workspace configuration, Initiatives can align to:

Alongside Key Results (simple pattern):

Initiatives appear as siblings to Key Results, showing the work you'll do to achieve the outcomes.

Nested under Key Results (focused pattern):

Initiatives nest under specific Key Results when the work directly drives that particular metric. This requires Initiative-to-Key Result alignment to be enabled by your administrator.

Across time horizons (mixed duration pattern):

Initiatives can exist at any time horizon. Some span the full annual period, others are time-boxed to quarters or even shorter execution cycles.

By default, Initiatives don't contribute to progress calculations, and that's intentional. Completing work activities doesn't prove you achieved outcomes. However, structuring Initiatives properly matters for several important reasons:

Configuration note: With contribution enabled for initiatives (a Model Customization setting your admin can configure), initiative status can also affect parent progress calculations and surface in AI summaries and risk assessments. Most organizations keep the default non-contributing setting to maintain focus on outcome metrics rather than activity completion. See Model Customization: Configuring Alignment and Contribution Rules for details on these settings.

Structure your Initiatives with the same care as your OKRs. The organizational clarity they provide creates a foundation for understanding how execution connects to outcomes.

Here are common structures that work well for different organizational contexts. Each example shows how to structure alignment across organizational levels and time horizons, along with practical guidance on update methods.

When to use: Company sets quarterly objectives, teams align their quarterly execution.

Why this works: Same time horizon (quarterly) across organizational levels. Clear contribution paths. Each Objective is defined by its own Key Results before nesting. The Engineering Team's Objective aligns to show strategic connection but doesn't contribute mathematically to the Company Objective (child Objectives never contribute to parent Objectives by default).

Update method note: Company KRs connect to monitoring and ticketing systems for real-time updates. The Company Objective uses automatic rollup from its contributing KRs. Team KRs similarly connect to data sources, and the Team Objective rolls up from those KRs.

When to use: A metric serves dual purposes (company tracks overall composition, teams track their specific contribution).

Why this works: The 2,000 Product A customers serves dual purposes when multi-parent alignment is enabled. For the company, it's one component of the total customer composition (helping explain why the 10,000 target was hit or missed and which products drove results). For Product A team, it's their primary success metric proving market fit.

Critical data source distinction: Even though Product A customers are part of the total 10,000, the Company KR and Team KR connect to different data source slices. The Company KR connects to ALL customers. The Team KR connects to Product A customers specifically. This is why you use data source connections rather than rollup here. The segments might sum mathematically, but they're tracking different slices of data.

When to use: Company maintains annual strategic focus, teams execute in quarterly cycles.

Why this works: The Product Team's Q1 Objective is aligned to the company's annual goal (showing strategic connection) but does not contribute to the company's annual progress calculation (they're at different time scales). The team measures their quarterly success independently. The Q1 Team Objective uses automatic rollup from its two contributing Q1 KRs.

As quarters progress: The team will create Q2, Q3, and Q4 Objectives that continue supporting the annual company goal while adapting focus based on what they learn each quarter.

When to use: Work that advances multiple organizational goals simultaneously.

Why this works: One initiative can align to multiple parent Objectives (if multi-parent alignment is enabled by your admin) when the work genuinely advances multiple outcomes. The initiative doesn't contribute to progress calculations by default (work completion doesn't equal outcome achievement), but the alignment makes the cross-functional work relationship visible in your goal tree structure. As the initiative updates in Jira, those status changes sync to Rhythms automatically. Each team can see the initiative's current status in the context of their own goal.

Configuration note: With contribution enabled for initiatives (a Model Customization setting), initiative delays can affect parent progress and surface in AI summaries. Most organizations keep the default non-contributing setting to maintain focus on outcome metrics.

⚠️ Configuration note: Multi-parent alignment is optional. Check with your workspace admin whether this is enabled for your organization.

When to use: Individuals connecting their work to team objectives.

Why this works: Individual goals align to team goals at the same time horizon (quarterly). Individual Key Results measure personal contribution and connect directly to work tracking tools for automatic updates. When team structure is set up correctly by leaders, individuals have clear guidance on what success looks like. The Individual Objective uses automatic rollup from its two contributing KRs.

Use these questions to determine the right structure for your situation.

If you're setting organization-wide goals:

If you're setting team goals:

If you're setting individual goals:

Use Annual when:

Use Quarterly when:

Avoid mixing time horizons at the same level. If you have both annual and quarterly Key Results as peers under the same Objective, that's a signal to restructure.

This is a common decision point when structuring hierarchies.

Create a child Objective when:

Add another Key Result when:

The test: If you're creating a child Objective just to group a single Key Result, it's probably unnecessary. Just make it a peer Key Result of the parent Objective.

For each Key Result and Initiative, determine the best update method:

Connect to data source when:

Use automatic rollup from contributing children when:

Manual updates when:

Key principle: Prefer automation (data sources and rollup) over manual updates. The more automated your progress tracking, the more accurate and timely your insights.

Important distinction: Even when parent and child goals measure similar metrics (like Pattern 2's customer example), you often use data source connections for both rather than rollup. Use rollup when children are Key Results contributing to a parent Objective. Use separate data sources when parent and child are both tracking metrics from systems, even if the metrics are related.

What it looks like:

Why it's wrong: Key Results spanning different time periods (annual plus quarterly) as peers under the same Objective don't define when the Objective succeeds. Is success measured at end of 2026, end of Q1, or end of Q2?

How to fix:

Now the annual Objective is defined by the annual KR. The Q1 and Q2 Objectives support the annual goal through their own quarterly Key Results measured at their respective time horizons. Notice Q1 KR states "from 0 to 200" and Q2 KR states "from 200 to 500", showing net customer positions that account for any churn.

What it looks like:

Why it's wrong: "European Sales Region" isn't an outcome to achieve. It's an organizational unit or geographic territory. It doesn't describe what success looks like.

How to fix:

Make the team the owner of the Objective, and write the Objective as the outcome the team wants to achieve. The organizational unit (European Sales) is the owner, not the goal itself.

What it looks like:

Why it's wrong: The parent and middle Objectives have no Key Results. How do you know if you "improved customer experience" or "enhanced onboarding"? The only measurement is buried three levels down.

How to fix:

Every Objective now has its own defining Key Results. You can measure success at each level independently. Parent Objective uses automatic rollup from its 2 contributing KRs. Child Objective similarly uses automatic rollup from its 2 contributing KRs.

What it looks like: Goal titles containing "2026:", "Q1:", or "5-Year:" prefixes.

Why it's wrong: If you're adding time period labels to goal titles, that's a signal the time period property isn't being used correctly, or that you're mixing time periods where they don't belong.

How to fix:

What it looks like:

Why it's wrong: Six levels of Objectives with no Key Results until the bottom creates confusion about where success is actually defined and measured.

How to fix: Limit hierarchies to 2-3 levels. Each level should have its own defining Key Results:

What it looks like:

Why it's wrong: When an Objective contains a specific measurable target, it's usually a Key Result for a higher-order Objective that isn't stated.

How to fix:

If your Objective has a number in it, ask yourself: "What's the broader outcome this metric proves?" That broader outcome is probably your real Objective. The metric belongs as a Key Result under that Objective.

When setting up your OKR structure, you can use the Rhythms chat interface to get guidance on your hierarchy.

Example prompts:

The chat interface understands your current goal structure and can identify:

Use AI assistance to validate your structure before you cascade goals broadly across your organization.

Most organizations benefit from annual company goals (providing planning stability and resource allocation clarity) paired with quarterly team execution. However, if your organization operates in a high-uncertainty environment where you can't confidently set measurable annual targets (common in startups or rapidly evolving markets), use quarterly goals at all levels. Choose based on your ability to set meaningful annual targets, not arbitrary rules.

Technically yes if configured by your admin, but it's often not recommended. Quarterly progress at the team level and annual progress at the company level operate at different time scales. Averaging them together usually produces meaningless numbers. Better approach: align team quarterly goals to company annual goals (showing strategic connection) without mathematical contribution.

Ask: "Does this need its own narrative about what success means, or is it just another way to measure the parent Objective?" If it needs its own definition of success (with its own set of Key Results), make it a child Objective. If it's another measurement of the same success, make it an additional Key Result at the same time horizon as your existing KRs.

Typically 2-3 levels work best (OKR > OKR > OKR). More than that and you risk losing clarity about what contributes to what. The key isn't arbitrary depth limits. It's ensuring each Objective is defined by Key Results at the same time horizon before nesting deeper.

This depends on your workspace configuration. By default, Initiatives align to Objectives. Your admin can enable Initiative alignment to Key Results if that better matches how your organization works. See Model Customization: Configuring Alignment and Contribution Rules for configuration options.

Yes. Initiatives in Rhythms connect your OKR outcomes to daily work. When you enable auto-updates from tools like Jira, Linear, or Monday.com, your Initiative status stays current automatically. Initiative alignment provides important context about how work connects to outcomes. See Setting Up Auto-Updates for how to connect your work management tools.

You close and score them to document what you achieved and learned. For detailed guidance on the closing process, see Closing and Scoring OKRs. Then you create new quarterly goals for the next quarter, informed by what you learned from the previous quarter.

Yes, if your workspace admin has enabled multi-parent alignment. This is useful when cross-functional work advances multiple goals simultaneously (for example, a platform initiative that improves both customer experience and operational efficiency). The Initiative appears under each aligned Objective, and context from connected tools (like Jira updates) is visible across all relationships.

Use automatic rollup when the parent Objective's success is measured by its child Key Results contributing their progress. Use data source connections when metrics are tracked in external systems. You can use both: a parent Objective might use rollup (calculated from child KRs) while each child KR connects to its own data source. For detailed explanation of how rollup works, see [LINK: Understanding OKR Automatic Rollup].

Stating both positions makes the net growth target explicit. "Grow to $9M" starting from $8M means you need $1M net growth (accounting for any churn or contraction). This is more precise than "Add $1M" which could be interpreted as gross additions without considering losses. For cumulative metrics, always state the net position you need to reach.

Understanding the OKR Framework:

Creating Your Goals:

Understanding Progress Tracking:

Managing Your Structure:

Automatic Updates:

For Administrators: