Goals & KPIs Skill

A specialised guide for defining, cascading, tracking, and reviewing business goals and key performance indicators. While the Sales Operations Setup skill covers end-to-end sales infrastructure, this skill zooms in on the goal-setting and measurement discipline that every function — sales, marketing, product, customer success, finance, or HR — needs to operate effectively.

NEW: This skill now includes Small Company Quick Start guidance (5-50 people) with simplified frameworks, templates, and real-world case studies showing both successes and failures.

🚀 Quick Start by Company Size

Choose your starting point:

For 5-20 People: Small Company Quick Start

→ Read: references/small-company-quick-start.md

Start with Simple OKRs (3 company objectives, no cascade):

• 30-minute setup with Google Sheets
• 15-minute Monday check-ins
• No fancy tools needed
• Real examples from 5-50 person companies

For 20-100 People: Scaling OKRs

→ Read: This SKILL.md (full guide)

Use 2-Level Cascade (Company → Department):

• OKRs with department alignment
• Weekly + monthly review cadence
• Notion or Asana for tracking
• Department dashboards

For 100+ People: Enterprise Goal Systems

→ Read: references/framework-comparison.md + templates/goal-map.md

Consider Goal Map + OKR Hybrid:

• Annual Goal Map (strategic alignment)
• Quarterly OKRs (execution)
• Full review cadence (weekly → annual)
• Enterprise BI dashboards

📚 New Resources in This Skill

When to use what:

• New to OKRs? Start with small-company-quick-start.md + okr-anti-patterns.md
• Choosing a framework? Read framework-comparison.md
• Setting up tools? Read tool-integrations.md
• Learning from others? Read case-studies.md
• Designing KPIs? Read leading-vs-lagging.md + kpi-library.md

What This Skill Does

1. Goal Architecture

Design the right goal structure for your organisation:

This skill will:

• Recommend the best framework for your company size, stage, and culture
• Generate the full goal tree (company → department → team → individual)
• Define measurable Key Results / KPIs for every objective
• Create alignment maps showing how individual goals ladder up

1b. Goal Map Framework

A Goal Map is a single-page strategic planning tool that aligns every function around the company’s most important objectives. It combines qualitative vision with measurable targets, risk analysis, and an operational metrics map.

Functional View — One Row per Function

The Goal Map lays out the following rows for each function (Corporate, Sales, Strategy & Ops, Marketing, Client Success, Services/Interactive, Product, Technology, Finance & Admin, Human Resources):

This skill will:

• Generate a complete Goal Map template for your company
• Pre-populate purpose statements and BIG Goals for each function
• Help you fill in key questions, critical success factors, and risks
• Link the Goal Map to a detailed Metrics Map (see below)

Metrics Map — The Operational KPI Registry

The Metrics Map is the companion to the Goal Map. It lists every KPI by function with operational detail:

2. KPI Design & Libraries

Build the right KPIs for any function:

Revenue & Sales KPIs

• MRR / ARR growth rate
• Net Revenue Retention (NRR)
• Average Revenue per Account (ARPA)
• ACV Bookings — Net New $ and count
• Sales velocity (Opportunities × Win Rate × ACV / Cycle Length)
• Sales funnel conversion rate (ACV by stage)
• Quota attainment (% of reps at ≥ 100 %) and average attainment per seller
• Pipeline health and coverage ratio
• CAC payback period
• LTV : CAC ratio
• Magic Number
• Forecast variance (forecast vs. actual)
• Close to Revenue — measured in days
• Average time to close
• Average deal ACV

Marketing KPIs

• Marketing Generated Leads (MGLs) / Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) — count
• Cost per Lead (CPL) by channel
• MGL → Sales Accepted Lead conversion (count, $, %)
• MGL → Weighted Pipeline conversion (count, $, %)
• MGL → Closed/Won conversion (count, $, %)
• Cost per Unweighted Opportunity
• Cost per Closed/Won
• Website traffic growth (unique visits, YoY)
• Subscriber database growth
• Content creation volume (case studies, whitepapers, infographics, webinars, blogs, videos)
• Media impressions
• Social reach & impressions
• Brand messaging & rebrand execution (on time, on budget)
• Marketing-sourced pipeline %
• Event-to-opportunity rate
• Brand awareness / NPS lift

Product KPIs

• Feature adoption rate / usage adoption (logins, campaigns, key actions)
• Daily / Weekly / Monthly Active Users (DAU / WAU / MAU)
• Time to value (onboarding)
• Throughput — new features (total department, passed to engineering)
• Delivered capacity — revenue-creating vs. non-revenue-creating features
• Value creation / RONP (Return on New Product: new revenue forecasted via business case vs. delivered)
• Roadmap execution performance (strategic score 1-5 × delivery %)

Technology & Engineering KPIs

• Uptime — SLA (e.g., 99.9 %) and internal target (e.g., 99.99 %)
• System performance — API response time, page load, click redirects (ms)
• Production incidents by severity (Sev 1 / 2 / 3) — count per quarter
• Defect SLA performance (time to fix by severity)
• First Time Right rate (features/releases passing QA on first attempt)
• Engineering productivity / sprint velocity / throughput
• Bug resolution time (P0 / P1 / P2)
• Deployment frequency
• Release-to-incident ratio
• Customer-reported defect rate

Customer Success KPIs

• Growth — existing base revenue (% growth YoY)
• Upsell revenue by segment and type (volume, services, pricing, related)
• Retention — customer revenue by segment (% of starting ARR retained)
• Retention — customer count by segment (% of logos retained)
• Lifetime Customer Value / LCV (ARPU / churn rate)
• Net Promoter Score (NPS) — via third-party survey
• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
• Gross / Net Churn Rate
• Customer profitability — P&L for top 25-50 customers
• RYG (Red/Yellow/Green) health score by segment, including trending
• Health Score (composite: usage + support + engagement)
• Time to First Value
• Support ticket volume & resolution time
• Renewal rate
• Expansion revenue (upsell + cross-sell)

Finance & Operations KPIs

• Monthly Recurring Revenue (plan, actual, forecast)
• Revenue (plan, actual, forecast)
• Expenses by function (plan, actual, forecast)
• Burn rate & runway
• Gross margin %
• COGS and marginal cost (e.g., CPM for platform companies)
• Operating expense ratio
• AR performance (DSO, aging)
• AP performance
• Cash generation performance / cash conversion cycle
• Cost per acquisition
• Revenue per employee (by function & total)
• Headcount plan attainment
• Budget variance

People & HR KPIs

• Employee engagement score
• Regretted attrition rate
• Time to hire
• Offer acceptance rate
• Diversity index
• Internal mobility rate
• Training completion rate

3. Goal Cascading & Alignment

Ensure every team’s goals connect to the company mission:

Company Vision & Purpose
  └─ BIG Goals (aspirational, 2-3 year)
       └─ Annual Strategic Priorities (3-5)
            └─ Measurable Goals per Function
                 └─ Quarterly OKRs / Rocks by Department
                      └─ Team-level OKRs
                           └─ Individual OKRs / Goals

For each level, capture the full strategic context:

This skill will:

• Build a visual cascade map
• Identify misalignments and orphan goals
• Suggest cross-functional dependencies
• Create RACI matrices for shared objectives
• Define contribution weights for shared KPIs
• Generate a Goal Map (Functional View) showing all functions side-by-side
• Link each function’s goals to its Metrics Map KPIs

4. Dashboards & Reporting Blueprints

Design actionable dashboards at every level:

Executive / Board Dashboard

Department Dashboard

Individual / 1:1 Dashboard

5. Review Cadences & Rituals

Build the operating rhythm that keeps goals alive:

This skill will generate:

• Agenda templates for each cadence
• OKR scoring guides (0.0 – 1.0 scale)
• Retrospective question sets
• Goal-setting workshop facilitation guides

6. Scoring & Confidence Models

Quantify goal progress honestly:

OKR Scoring Guide

Confidence Rating (for forecasting & reviews)

7. Anti-Patterns & Common Mistakes

Avoid the traps that kill goal programmes:

→ For 20+ before/after examples with detailed fixes, see: references/okr-anti-patterns.md

This includes common mistakes like:

• Vague objectives (“Improve the product”)
• Activities disguised as KRs (“Hire 5 people”)
• Too many objectives (10+ per quarter)
• No connection between objectives and KRs
• Business-as-usual disguised as OKRs
• And complete rewrites showing how to fix them

When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when you need to:

• Define company / team / individual goals for the quarter or year
• Select a goal-setting framework (OKR, SMART, BSC, V2MOM, 4DX, EOS Rocks)
• Design KPIs for any function (sales, marketing, product, CS, finance, HR)
• Build dashboards that your team will actually look at
• Cascade goals from company down to individual
• Set up review cadences (weekly, monthly, quarterly)
• Score and grade goal progress
• Run a goal-setting workshop or offsite
• Diagnose why goals aren’t being met
• Align cross-functional teams on shared objectives

How It Works

When you invoke this skill, Claude will:

1. Understand your context — company stage, team size, current challenges
2. Recommend a framework — OKR, SMART, BSC, or a hybrid
3. Draft goals — objectives, key results, and KPIs
4. Build the cascade — company → department → team → individual
5. Design dashboards — metrics, layout, refresh cadence
6. Create review rituals — agendas, scoring guides, retrospectives
7. Identify leading indicators — so you know early if you’re on/off track
8. Generate action plans — for goals rated amber or red

Usage Examples

Example 1: Quarterly OKR Planning for a Startup

User: “Help me set Q2 OKRs for my 30-person B2B SaaS startup”

Claude will:

• Ask about company priorities (growth, retention, product, hiring)
• Draft 3-4 company-level objectives with 3-5 KRs each
• Cascade into department OKRs (Sales, Engineering, Marketing, CS)
• Suggest leading metrics to track weekly
• Create a scoring template for end-of-quarter grading
• Design a weekly check-in agenda

Example 2: Building a KPI Dashboard

User: “Design a KPI dashboard for our sales team”

Claude will:

• Recommend tier-1 (critical), tier-2 (important), and tier-3 (monitor) metrics
• Define formulas and data sources for each KPI
• Design dashboard layout with sections and visualisation types
• Set RAG thresholds (red/amber/green) for each metric
• Specify refresh cadence and data owners
• Suggest alerting rules for anomalies

Example 3: Annual Strategy → Goal Cascade

User: “We want to grow ARR from $5M to $10M. Help me cascade this into team goals”

Claude will:

• Break down the $10M target into new business, expansion, and retention
• Assign revenue targets to Sales (new logo), CS (expansion/renewal)
• Identify Marketing pipeline contributions needed
• Define Product goals to reduce churn and increase adoption
• Create Engineering capacity goals for feature delivery
• Set HR/People goals for hiring the team to execute
• Build a RACI matrix for cross-functional dependencies

Example 4: Goal-Setting Workshop Facilitation

User: “Facilitate a 3-hour goal-setting offsite for our leadership team”

Claude will:

• Create a detailed agenda with time blocks
• Prepare vision/mission review prompts
• Design breakout exercises for priority identification
• Build a template for drafting OKRs collaboratively
• Create alignment exercises (dependency mapping)
• Prepare voting/prioritisation frameworks (dot voting, impact/effort)
• Design follow-up action items and accountability plan

Example 5: Diagnosing Goal Failure

User: “Our Q1 goals all came in at 30-40 %. What went wrong?”

Claude will:

• Run a diagnostic framework (ambition, alignment, ownership, cadence, data)
• Identify root causes (too many goals? wrong metrics? no check-ins?)
• Compare leading vs. lagging indicators to find where things broke down
• Suggest corrective actions for Q2
• Redesign review cadences to catch issues earlier
• Recommend training or coaching for managers

Deliverable Templates

The skill can generate:

• 📋 OKR templates (company, department, team, individual)
• 📊 KPI definition sheets (name, formula, target, owner, data source)
• 🎯 Goal cascade maps (visual tree from company to individual)
• 📈 Dashboard blueprints (layout, metrics, RAG thresholds)
• 📅 Review agendas (weekly, monthly, quarterly)
• 🏆 Scoring rubrics (OKR 0-1 scale, SMART completion %)
• 🔄 Retrospective guides (what worked, what didn’t, what changes)
• 📝 Workshop facilitation plans (agendas, exercises, templates)
• ⚠️ Risk registers (goals at risk, mitigation plans)
• 🗂️ RACI matrices (for cross-functional goals)
• 📑 QBR presentation templates
• 💼 Board reporting templates (KPI summary, narrative, outlook)

Key Frameworks & References

OKR (Objectives & Key Results)

• Originated at Intel (Andy Grove), popularised by Google (John Doerr)
• Objective: Qualitative, inspiring, time-bound
• Key Result: Quantitative, measurable, achievable but stretchy
• Grading: 0.0 – 1.0 scale; 0.7 is “good”
• Cadence: Quarterly with weekly check-ins

SMART Goals

• Specific — clear and unambiguous
• Measurable — quantifiable outcomes
• Achievable — realistic given resources
• Relevant — aligned to business priorities
• Time-bound — clear deadline

Balanced Scorecard (BSC)

• 4 perspectives: Financial, Customer, Internal Processes, Learning & Growth
• Cause-and-effect linkage between perspectives
• Strategy maps to visualise connections

V2MOM (Salesforce)

• Vision — what do you want?
• Values — what’s important about it?
• Methods — how do you get it?
• Obstacles — what’s in the way?
• Measures — how do you know you have it?

4 Disciplines of Execution (4DX)

• Discipline 1: Focus on the Wildly Important Goal (WIG)
• Discipline 2: Act on Lead Measures
• Discipline 3: Keep a Compelling Scoreboard
• Discipline 4: Create a Cadence of Accountability

EOS Rocks

• 90-day priorities (3-7 per person)
• Binary: done or not done
• Reviewed weekly in L10 meetings

Goal Map

• A single-page strategic alignment tool used across all functions
• Functional View: Purpose, BIG Goals, Measurable Goals, Key Questions, Critical Success Factors, Assumptions, Risks, Mitigations, Open Questions — one column per function
• Metrics Map: Detailed KPI registry per function with targets, data sources, measurement frequency, and next steps
• Combines strategic (qualitative) and operational (quantitative) planning
• Works alongside any of the above frameworks as the strategic umbrella

Integration with Other Skills

This skill works alongside:

Getting Started

When you invoke this skill, be prepared to share:

1. Company context — stage, size, industry, business model
2. Current goals — what you have today (or don’t)
3. Pain points — what’s not working (alignment, tracking, execution)
4. Desired outcome — OKR template? KPI dashboard? Workshop plan?
5. Time horizon — this quarter? this year? multi-year?

Example Commands

• “Set Q2 OKRs for my 30-person B2B SaaS startup”
• “Design a KPI dashboard for our marketing team”
• “Help me cascade our $10M ARR goal into team objectives”
• “Create a weekly goal check-in agenda for managers”
• “Build a balanced scorecard for our company”
• “What KPIs should our customer success team track?”
• “Run a goal-setting workshop for our leadership offsite”
• “Score our Q1 OKRs and recommend improvements”
• “Define leading indicators for our revenue goal”
• “Help me diagnose why our goals keep failing”

How to Use This Skill

Invoke the skill with your specific goal-setting or KPI need, and Claude will guide you through the process — from framework selection to goal drafting, cascade design, dashboard creation, and review cadences.

This skill ensures your organisation doesn’t just set goals but achieves them through disciplined measurement, regular review, and data-driven course correction.