A hyper-growth European tech company rebooted its OKRs and rated the process 4.6 out of 5.
After two quarters of OKRs with limited impact, a hyper-growth European tech company selected ZOKRI through a market-wide RFP to reboot the system around strategy; the reworked approach scored 4.6 out of 5 in an internal value survey and led to a nine-month retained engagement.
Context
The company had used OKRs for two quarters with limited progress. The underlying behaviours that had motivated adopting OKRs in the first place were still present, so the leadership went to market to reboot the system properly.
What we did
Selected through a market-wide RFP, we coached the leadership team and facilitated workshops in Paris, re-booting OKRs with high-level strategic OKRs anchored in the strategy and measurements connected to a strategic data model. OKRs were agreed, OKR teams were created, trained, coached and supported to make significant progress, with retrospectives to follow.
We were then retained for a further nine months to train internal champions, coach OKR leads, facilitate more leadership workshops, build data models and KPI trees, and create internal training assets: templates, guides and handbooks.
Why it worked
Anchoring OKRs in the strategy and a real data model gave the teams something worth committing to, and the coaching made the new behaviours stick where two earlier quarters had not.
Sector-anonymised at the client's request. Figures are the client's own; no numbers have been added. Written by Matt Roberts.
A UK-based strategy and OKR consultant and two-time SaaS founder with a venture-backed exit, Matt turns strategy into execution for teams scaling from tens to thousands. He co-founded ZOKRI in 2018, having previously co-founded Linkdex, a venture-backed enterprise SaaS platform he led to a trade sale.
Two quarters of OKRs with little to show for it usually means the system was never anchored in strategy. We reboot it around your strategy and coach it until it sticks.