Read the full case study here: OKR Strategic Planning
Introduction
A VP of Tech Operations at a large SaaS company recognized a widening gap between CISO-level priorities and the objectives set by individual directors resulting in missed expectations and excess bureaucracy. Recent turnover further complicated matters, leaving roles, responsibilities and priorities unclear. Although teams previously set their own Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), they lacked a consistent, effective methodology across the organization. To address these challenges, the VP engaged DayBlink Consulting to rebuild the OKR program, facilitate development workshops and drive OKRs into daily tasks.
After a highly successful initial session, it became evident that all Tech Ops teams would benefit from the training, prompting the expansion of workshops across the entire organization. DayBlink supported each group in revising existing OKRs, developing next year’s objectives, creating clear team charters, and building detailed maturity roadmaps. This unified framework strengthened organizational alignment, and increased operational velocity by ensuring that communications and progress updates directly reflected leadership priorities.
Problem
Instead of driving momentum, the client’s goal-setting efforts created confusion and misalignment and rewarded intentionally low targets.
Tech Ops wanted a cohesive and forward-looking strategic planning approach. Historically the efficacy of the goal setting framework was limited by internal bureaucracy and a lack of executive buy-in. The process did not enable executives to see how organizational and team-level objectives supported their own priorities, leading them to undervalue reported progress. This frequently resulted in initiatives being underfunded or deprioritized, despite potential for significant impact. Furthermore, various teams within the organization operated under differing goal setting approaches and standards.
Lack of alignment created inefficiencies and confusion across teams, even when success depended on close collaboration and interdependent project work. Without a unified framework or shared priorities, teams coordinate sub-optimally, limiting overall organizational progress. By recognizing these issues, the Operations team sought support to develop a unified, inspirational OKR framework that would encourage long-term strategic thinking, enhance alignment, and build a more cohesive and forward-focused culture.
Solution
Our team equipped the Tech Ops organization with the structure, education and clarity needed to adopt a unified OKR framework.
Through a series of educational workshops, we guided the Operations team in understanding effective OKR formulation and the importance of aligning team objectives with the broader strategic vision. We established a unified OKR framework that ensured alignment, enabling leadership to receive consistent updates on the initiatives and outcomes they valued most.
Internal sessions with department leads uncovered near-term priorities, key projects, and maturity objectives, which were then translated into roadmaps that provided a clear path toward desired future states. These multi-year roadmaps were developed collaboratively, to ensure a comprehensive view of dependencies and shared priorities.
The teams developed each project within the roadmaps to drive incremental improvements in organizational maturity, with clearly defined steps that collectively advanced the Operations function toward its target state. By structuring initiatives in this way, leadership could easily track progress, make informed decisions on resource allocation and align across teams on the most critical milestones.
To strengthen coordination and transparency, we developed detailed Charters for each organization within the Operations team, clearly defining their roles, interdependencies, and areas of responsibility. These Charters not only enhanced internal alignment and accountability, but also served as communication tools to convey priorities and expectations to external stakeholders, ultimately fostering a more integrated and strategically focused operations culture.
Outcome
By implementing our OKR framework, Tech Ops achieved real top-down alignment, shifted from disjointed work to coordinated delivery, and finished 15 projects ahead of schedule.
These efforts helped the Operations team achieve significantly greater velocity in the following year. The new OKR framework and organizational Charters brought improved clarity in communication between Operations leaders and executive leadership, fostering a shared understanding of priorities and progress. The introduction of detailed, multi-year roadmaps established a clear path toward higher levels of organizational maturity, outlining specific requirements, goals and dependencies for each major initiative. With this enhanced insight, executives were significantly more inclined to back and invest in the organization’s initiatives. Additionally, by defining a clear “definition of done” for every OKR and project, the team created consistent expectations and alignment from the C-suite to Org Directors. This comprehensive approach not only enhanced accountability and transparency, but also enabled a culture of inspiration, collaboration, and long-term strategic focus across the Operations function.