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3 to 5 Key Result Areas

7 min read

3 to 5 Key Result Areas

Dimension: Direction · Type: Stage

A test for whether your role matters and whether you are using your hours well: name the three to five activities only you can do, where your time actually produces results. If you cannot list them, that is the gap. If you can, link each one upward to your team, agency, and overall mission.

Introduced by Liz Oseland (Account Director and Coach, 10Eighty) at the Own Your Future, Make Your Role Matter session of the UN Inter-Agency Career Week 2026, on 8 May 2026, as the practical answer to the “is my role mattering” question. The NASA cleaner story was the upstream check, used not as motivational lore but as a clarity test on whether each KRA links to the mission.

The framework

Three to five activities. No more. Each one meets two conditions:

  1. You can do it because of a specific technical ability, expertise, or role you hold. It is not just “this happens to be on my list this week”; it is something the organisation needs you specifically (or someone in your function specifically) to do.
  2. Your time on it produces results. A measurable output, a decision that moves, a deliverable that exists, a relationship that shifts. Activities that consume time without producing results are not KRAs; they are busywork.

The number is deliberate. Three to five is the upper bound on what one person can credibly own and produce results on. A list of seven KRAs means you have not chosen yet.

The test, used live: in any given working hour, are you spending time on something that is on your KRA list? If yes, you are being effective. If no, you are being busy.

When to use it

  • When you feel busy but cannot articulate the impact of any given week.
  • During a sprint planning conversation, to filter the backlog against what you alone can do.
  • When you are deciding whether to take on a new request or commitment, and you need a fast yes/no test.
  • As an annual or quarterly clarity check, especially when your role has shifted (a reassignment, a new portfolio, a partial handover).
  • When a manager asks “what are you working on?” and you want a substantive answer rather than a list of activities.

What you need

Honest awareness of your hours over the past two to four weeks (what you actually did, not what your job description says). Your job description and your team’s stated objectives. 30 minutes of quiet for the first list. Optional but useful: a calendar export from the past month.

The NASA cleaner story (the upstream check)

The session anchored the exercise in a story from the early 1960s. President Kennedy visited NASA, walked down a corridor, and saw a cleaner mopping the floor. He asked: “What do you do here at NASA?” The cleaner did not say “I am the cleaner”. He said: “I am helping to put a man on the moon.”

The story is not motivational lore. It is a clarity test. If a cleaner can connect a mop to a moonshot, you can connect your daily work to your agency’s mission, and if you cannot, that is the gap to close.

The operational form: for each of your three to five KRAs, write the line that connects it upward. Not abstract (“I support strategic objectives”) but specific (“My weekly synthesis brief is what the country director uses to set the agenda for the senior leadership meeting”). The connection has to land on something concrete.

If you cannot draw the line for one of your KRAs, either the activity is not really a KRA, or the linkage is broken upstream. Either is information you can act on.

Steps

  1. Pull the data. Past two to four weeks of calendar; brief written reflection on what you actually did with your hours. Do not work from job description alone.
  2. List candidate activities. Whatever you spent meaningful time on. Eight to twelve items is normal at this stage.
  3. Apply the two-part test to each. Does this require my specific ability or role? Did my time on it produce results? Items that fail either test come off the list.
  4. Cut to no more than five. If you have seven, choose. If choosing is hard, that is the work.
  5. For each remaining KRA, draw the upward line. From your activity to your team’s objective, to the agency’s goals, to the mission. The line has to be specific. The NASA cleaner test.
  6. Save the list visible. Pin it where you see it during the week. Use it as a fast yes/no test when new requests come in.
  7. Re-run quarterly. Roles drift; the right list shifts.

Worked example

A 10Eighty consultant runs the test on her own role. Her stated KRAs:

  1. Coaching delivery. She runs one-to-one coaching with clients across multiple UN agencies. Specific to her qualification (ICF-certified) and her experience. Produces direct outcomes for the clients.
  2. Training delivery. Designs and delivers workshops, including sessions like the Day 5 S8 closing. Specific to her facilitation skill and content expertise. Produces outcomes for cohorts.
  3. Account management. Manages the relationship with each agency client. Specific to her relationship history and accumulated context. Produces continuity that no one else in the firm could provide for those accounts.
  4. Project management. Runs the operational planning for multi-stream engagements. Produces deliverables on time.
  5. Team support. Mentors more junior consultants in the firm. Produces capability that compounds across future engagements.

Five KRAs. For each, she can draw the upward line: coaching delivery to client outcomes to the firm’s stated mission of “making the world of work a better place”. She uses the list as a calendar-defence tool. When a new request comes in, she checks: does this advance one of the five? If yes, she finds time. If no, she declines or delegates.

Compare: a UN staff member tries the same exercise and lists nine activities. The fact that she cannot cut to five tells her something. The exercise surfaces the trade-off rather than resolving it; what she does with the surfacing is the work.

Pitfalls

  • Listing seven KRAs because choosing feels uncomfortable. Five is the cap. Choosing is the point. If everything is a KRA, nothing is.
  • Confusing busy with effective. A full calendar is not a productive calendar. The two-part test is what separates them.
  • Listing activities that are operationally necessary but not yours specifically. Email triage, internal coordination, meeting attendance: these are real but they are not usually KRAs.
  • Drawing the upward line abstractly. “Contributes to organisational excellence” is not a line. “My monthly partner-performance dashboard is the input the regional director uses to decide where to escalate at the quarterly review” is.
  • Using the list to over-defend. The list is a tool, not an excuse to refuse all requests outside it. The point is the cumulative pattern, not every individual hour.
  • Treating the list as fixed. Roles shift. Re-run quarterly.
  • Skipping the data step. Working from the job description alone produces an aspirational list rather than a real one. Use the calendar.

When not to use it

When you are at the very start of a new role and have not yet had enough hours to know what you are actually doing. Wait two to four weeks; then run the exercise.

When the role is genuinely a transit role (a temporary assignment of a few weeks). The KRA cap is for roles with enough duration that the calendar-defence function is worth doing.

When the organisational context is in such flux (an active restructure, a sudden funding cliff) that the team’s objectives are unstable. Run the exercise once the dust settles.

How I use it

Personal note pending. Davide to fill.

Notes compiled by Davide Piga. Last updated 2026-05-09.

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