Work together
What we do
We help organizations shift from projects to outcomes with a unique approach to OKR.
We help clients worldwide—from hyper-growth startups to Fortune 500 giants—succeed with OKR and Outcome Planning via training and coaching. Past clients include Expedia Group, Adobe, Target, and The Home Depot.
Are we a good fit?
If you are looking for training for a small company (fewer than 100 employees) or to develop your individual skills, join the waitlist for our next public workshops.
We don’t want to work with everyone. We want to be the best option in the world for a specific type of client where we can make a difference.
OKR looks simple, but many organizations fail with it. The problem is that people often end up using OKR in name only—they keep working the same way they always have and call it OKR.
To be successful, organizations need to unlearn old ways of working. And leaders need to shield teams from being pulled back into the old model.
That’s why we only work with clients who are committed to shifting from projects to outcomes. They already understand the need to focus on outcomes and want help to do this in practice.
Our core business
Our primary client are organizations that understand and believe in the value of modern product management and empowered teams.
We work both with pure digital/technology companies and tech-enabled businesses in general.
If your organization follows the work of authors such as Marty Cagan, Melissa Perri, Jeff Patton, Teresa Torres, Barry O’Reilly, Ken Norton, and Gibson Biddle, among others, you are our core audience.
Our clients include both organizations already using modern product management and those committed to adopting it, whether startups or traditional companies.
Do you only work with tech product teams?
We frequently work with leaders and teams in areas such as marketing, sales, customer service, customer success, finance, HR, and legal.
To drive business impact and create real alignment, areas outside of product and technology eventually will also need to change their ways of working, especially their leaders.
When leaders are committed to focusing on outcomes and understand the required mindset shift, all of the areas above are able to adopt OKR and Outcome Planning successfully.
Is your team ready to focus on outcomes?
Moving from projects to outcomes is a journey. You don’t need to develop tech products to attend our workshops, but the closer you are to the “startup ways of working,” the easier it will be.
Unfortunately, not all teams are ready to focus on outcomes. In particular, teams struggle when:
- They are detached from the customers and the business and do not understand their needs.
- They have limited experience using metrics, data, and analytics as part of their daily work.
- They are used to working on projects for several months without measuring outcomes.
Traditional IT organizations are the most common example of groups that are not ready to focus on outcomes.
First, they have to unlearn the old model and change how they work.
In several instances, we’ve worked with traditional organizations where IT resisted Outcome Planning even after the other departments had shifted from projects to outcomes.
Leaders go first
There is a clear pattern in companies that succeed with OKR: leaders go first.
In successful OKR adoptions, senior leaders are directly involved from the beginning. Executives are committed to adopting OKR, leading by example, and demonstrating that using OKR is a priority.
For startups and companies with a few hundred employees, the CEO needs to be directly involved. However, for companies with thousands of employees, it is not necessary to adopt OKR across the entire organization simultaneously. Instead, we recommend a pilot led by a director or VP with a mandate to shield a part of the organization from the old model.
Signs we’ll be a good fit
- Leaders are committed to adopting Outcome Planning and giving teams outcomes to achieve instead of features to build or projects to deliver.
- The leadership team understands that OKR is just a tool to help us focus on outcomes.
- Leaders are committed to making OKR a priority, getting involved from the beginning, and dedicating the time to make it work.
- Leaders are not looking for a quick fix and understand that shifting from projects to outcomes is a journey. You will improve every quarter, but you won’t get there overnight.
- Leaders and team members are willing to unlearn old models.
- Leaders are committed to changing the way the organization works, starting with themselves.
- Leaders understand they need to shield teams from being pulled back into the old model and are committed to doing so.
- The leadership team is committed to incorporating OKR into the organization’s day-to-day activities and creating a regular tracking cadence, preferably weekly.
Our approach
Here’s an overview of our approach:
- Intro call with senior leaders: The first step in our process is a conversation with senior leadership to understand what your organization wants to achieve with OKR. What problems are you trying to solve?
- Proposal and contract.
- Assessment and customization: We begin our engagement by assessing your current practices and capabilities to create a program tailored to your needs.
- Workshops: After the assessment, we will run remote workshops in which participants learn by doing via digital tools like Zoom and Miro. These are real workshops with several breakout hands-on activities that teach attendees how to write great OKRs and avoid common mistakes. At the end of each workshop, we will run a facilitation session to help participants write great OKRs.
- Coaching: After the workshops, we will host remote follow-up coaching sessions with participants to finalize their OKRs and teach them how to track results via the weekly check-in.