A Series C insuretech went from three company objectives and nine key results to one and three, in a single quarter.
A fast-scaling insuretech, fresh from a significant Series C and expanding internationally, was losing delivery pace as it grew; over one quarter we refocused its OKRs from three company objectives and nine key results to one objective and three, and fixed the metric foundation underneath.
Context
The company had recently closed a significant Series C, was recruiting hard, and was expanding internationally. After a challenging quarter with OKRs, the leadership wanted a smoother, more focused next quarter, one that held pace and alignment through rapid growth. The CEO had noticed both delivery pace and innovation falling as the organisation scaled.
The problem we found
Interviews across the senior leadership team and the wider organisation revealed a rollout weak on fundamentals. The critical issue: OKRs were being used as a performance-management system, which was driving misalignment and sandbagging. The OKRs themselves were generic and did not reflect the strategy.
What we did
We ran an education session with the leadership team on why OKRs and performance management must stay separate, then analysed the current OKRs against the strategy. A series of leadership working sessions drilled into the strategy so the OKRs reflected the critical hypotheses being tested, producing a clearer strategic narrative that was easier to update as the organisation learned.
Support included scheduled in-cycle and ad-hoc leadership meetings, plan development, comms support, and coaching across the organisation over Slack and Zoom, plus training and coaching of multiple product teams across geographies.
Why it worked
Senior leadership commitment made the difference: leaders went first, created a psychologically safe environment, and were willing to unlearn behaviours that no longer worked. Focus followed from that, not the other way round.
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.
If your OKRs have quietly become a performance-management system, we can separate them, refocus on the few that matter, and fix the metric foundation, usually inside a quarter.