Sound familiar?
“Three weeks in, the urgent stuff won.”
The OKRs were agreed. Then the week filled up with everything else.
“We only look at them again in week twelve.”
The weekly meeting is status updates, and nobody can say how the quarter is going.
“Setting them took a month, and we’re still arguing.”
The debate is really about the strategy, and nobody has said so.
“We’ve got so many OKRs we need software to track them.”
Everything is a priority, so nothing is.
What we do
We work backwards from your vision and strategy to select the most important results you need to create this quarter. We write the objectives so people understand the intent, and decide how to measure the key results so they help teams make decisions day to day.
What it looks like when it works
Your OKRs reflect the real work, including what’s urgent and important.
Your weekly check-ins are used for problem-solving and course-correcting.
Setting the OKRs is a single meeting, with one follow-up to align after planning.
Everyone has a clear focus driven by a few simple company-wide OKRs.
How it runs
Before
A conversation with each leader, and a look at your strategy and last quarter’s goals.
During
We set your OKRs together, working from the strategy backwards, and allocate owners for each.
After
Teams work through their plans and resourcing to ensure they can deliver, and align with each other to coordinate the big rocks.
You leave with
OKRs your leaders believe in and can use to guide decision-making daily
Typical format
How long: from two hours to a full day
Where: online, in your office, or at an offsite
Preparation and support: by email and video call, as much or as little as you need
Options: team workshops for those that need it, and a short survey of your company before and after
I frequently use 'I channel my inner Richard' in OKR meetings - so you definitely made an impact with the company.
OKR Process Lead, Series D SaaS startup
Case studies
OKRs that worked after a failed first attempt
A Series D SaaS startup whose own OKRs had failed got them working, then used them to break the bottleneck stopping it scaling.
Read more
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From strategy handed down to strategy owned together
A Series D tech scale-up that had outgrown its OKR process got its leaders owning the strategy together, and later doubled revenue and made its first profit.
Read more
+
From asking founders for OKRs to running its own
A venture capital firm that asked its portfolio to use OKRs wanted help with its own, to improve how it runs. Its AUM has kept growing since.
Read more
+
Try it yourself first
OKRs
How to set OKRs with your team in a week
A day-by-day process for setting OKRs with your team: strategy on Monday, final OKRs on Friday.
Read →
OKRs
The OKR Cheat Sheet
OKRs have four parts. How to write them, fix weak Key Results and avoid the usual mistakes, with a one-page cheat sheet to download.
Read →
Who you’ll be working with
I run every session myself.
I spent six years at Google, then two at Amazon, where I led a 100-person organisation. Since then, I’ve worked with over 200 leaders and 16 startup leadership teams as a facilitator and coach.
If I’m not the right person to help, I’ll introduce you to someone who could be.
What usually comes first: Strategy workshop
Often run together: Operating cadence review
Know someone this would help?
Here’s a line you can send them:
Richard helps a leadership team set OKRs, and stays with them through the first quarter so the OKRs actually get used.
Next steps
Start with a free, 20-minute Clarity Call. Confidential, and no preparation needed.
“
From unsatisfying to structured goal-setting
Before, we were unsure about the formulation of OKRs, and our process was very inefficient and unsatisfying. With Richard's help, we are now much more structured and efficient in our OKR process, we create a lot more ideas and get better buy-in of the teams with more alignment across the organization.
Stefan Lederer
CEO & Founder
Bitmovin