GET STARTED WITH REMOTE OKRs COACHING!

After helping hundreds of teams get started with OKRs, I’ve developed a 3-phase approach to OKRs coaching that works every time.  Here’s a summary of each of the three phases based on a typical 8-month program to support you over the course of TWO OKRs cycles.  This approach works every time because we have a plan for addressing the inevitable problems we’ll uncover during our first cycle together.

Phase 1. Deployment Coaching (~Month 1)

First, we confirm why you are deploying OKRs. Then, we assess your existing strategy and any OKRs if you’ve already got some in place. Based on your unique situation and the goals of your OKRs program we define your deployment plan.

Examples of Deployment Parameters: The questions we must answer BEFORE deploying OKRs

  1. Levels: At what level will we set OKRs?
  2. Number: How many OKRs will we set?
  3. Scoring: How will we score OKRs?
  4. Cycle Time: How long is an OKRs cycle?
  5. Types: What are the three types of key results? Do we allow milestones?
  6. Tooling: Where do we draft, publish, and track OKRs? What templates do we use?
  7. Performance Reviews: How will OKRs relate to performance reviews?
  8. OKRs vs KPIs: How do we differentiate OKRs from KPIs?
  9. Alignment: How will we ensure OKRs are aligned?
  10. Bottoms-Up: How will we ensure most OKRs originate bottoms-up?

Your deployment parameters answer these questions and more. Even if you already have an OKRs program in place, it’s critical that we confirm these parameters. They are the foundation of your OKRs program. It goes quickly. We do this in several coaching sessions over a couple weeks.

Phase 2. Training (~Month 2)

The parameters defined in phase 1 inform your OKRs training program. We customize your training to define top-level and/or team-level OKRs. We may incorporate an OKRs expert training that creates a group of internal OKRs coaches (also known as OKRs ambassadors or OKRs experts). These internal coaches ensure your OKRs program is sustainable after we leave. We begin training workshops with an overview of OKRs with a focus on your unique set of deployment parameters. Most of the training workshop time is dedicated to interactive exercises to develop real OKRs. Remote training workshops run 2-3 hours. They work best with small groups of 5-10, but with online breakout rooms, we can accommodate 25 participants.

Phase 3. Cycle Coaching (~Months 2-8)

After delivering a training to introduce OKRs, we guide you through a 3-step OKRs Cycle: 1) Set and Align OKRs, 2) Check-In and Monitor, and 3) Reflect and Reset. Cycles typically run 3-4 months and I want to be there with you for two cycles. Here’s a quick overview of each of the 3 steps.

OKRs Cycle Step 1: Set and Align OKRs

While the OKRs training from phase 2 will include some form of OKRs drafting, you will not end the training with a final set of OKRs aligned and ready to publish. In this first step of the OKRs cycle, we help you refine, align, and ultimately publish your OKRs in a single location, your “OKRs Tracker.” This can be a dedicated software tool or you can use one of our field-tested OKRs Tracker spreadsheets which tend to work quite well when getting started.

OKRs Cycle Step 2: Check-In and Monitor

In step 1, defining OKRs, we effectively wrote down our goals. Publishing OKRs in a single location is a big win. Your team may be elated at this stage. In many cases, simply creating OKRs can lead to a feeling of increased focus, alignment, and engagement. However, your work is not done. We ensure you integrate OKRs into daily work throughout the OKRs cycle. Now we need to focus on those goals and execute. Without a coach, many teams simply go back to their desk and work on their to-do list. They do not integrate OKRs into their daily work.

OKRs Cycle Step 3: Reflect and Reset

Reflect and reset is my personal favorite step in the OKRs cycle. Unlike a retrospective that focuses on looking back, this step features both a reflection on the past as well as a reset into the future. Perhaps I like this step so much because I take credit for inventing it. Nonetheless, this is where the rubber meets the road. As OKRs coaches, we do not hold you accountable for achieving all your key results. However, we do hold you accountable for documenting learnings and applying these learnings to the next OKRs cycle. At the end of the period, we facilitate a Reflect & Reset session to document these learnings and ensure you apply them.

Who will do our OKRs coaching?

I am involved with every OKRs coaching project. However, we find it best to take a team-based approach so you have a dedicated OKRs coach that attends all your coaching and training sessions. Your dedicated coach is a certified coach on my team with at least two years of OKRs coaching experience and a track record of success. In addition to North America, our global coaching team can support organizations in Europe and Asia.

How long is a remote OKRs coaching program?

The ideal 2-cycle OKRs coaching program runs 8 months. This enables your first cycle to emphasize learning, not scale. During the first cycle, it’s best to carve out a pilot group for OKRs coaching rather than including the entire organization. The second cycle focuses on applying the learnings from the first cycle to the pilot group. In the second cycle, you refine your approach to OKRs with pilot teams and explore how best to expand the use of OKRs across the organization.

If you would like a phone call with Ben to discuss remote coaching, please fill out the form below.

 

WHAT CLIENTS SAY?

Rachel Richter


Dun & Bradstreet
Senior Leader, Customer Analytics & Insights

  Ben is a forward-thinking and collaborative business partner to Dun and Bradstreet. We regularly engage Ben for advice and guidance for all of our OKRs and priorities for Marketing. He has truly pushed our thinking and helped us establish meaningful and aspirational OKRs. We owe a lot of our success to Ben’s guidance and support.

Alison Zabik

ExxonMobil
Planning & Decision Technology Manager

Omid has helped us to shift from task-driven to outcome-driven priorities for our team.

Roger Fugett


CareerBuilder.com
CIO

  It’s been enlightening working with Ben on our OKR framework. He is experienced and brings such to the table helping us learn very quickly. You witness his passion and thirst to perfecting his craft.

Luke Lu

Lazada
Chief of Staff

Dikran’s approach to OKRs is well-structured and to the point. He supported our deployment with a combination of training workshops and coaching feedback. I highly recommend Dikran as an OKRs coach.

Kuangyang

Huawei
First OKR Facilitator and Practitioner

Ben delivered an informative and energetic OKRs training for both our HR colleagues and Managers.  It helped shape how we approach OKRs and has updated our understanding of OKRs. Thanks a lot for this great training.

Steven Craig

Pablo Group
Director of Services

Gerri has been instrumental in helping the management team at Pablo Group develop, deploy, execute, and measure our OKRs. Gerri was more than a consultant to our team. She was an active advisor invested in our success as a business and an engaging coach advocating for full team participation focused on helping us find our answers... I happily recommend Gerri to our colleagues.

JOHN HERBOLD


Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder

  Ben is the epitome of an all-star coach. He’s incredibly perceptive, a great listener, very socratic in his approach, and laser focused on improving performance. Given how powerful OKRs are to the focus and productivity of an entire organization, I’d say Ben is the most valuable consultant I’ve ever hired.

Richard Heins

Dentsu International
VP of Product Management

Omid has been a terrific coach, mentor, and thought-partner as our global teams transitioned our OKRs maturity from “crawling” to “walking.”  We were stuck in a rut with our existing homegrown OKRs implementation. With Omid’s help, we’ve turned the ship around. We have seen strong momentum, and buy-in, from our teams. Better yet, this success has inspired the organization to take another look at OKRs. I highly recommend Omid to others looking for help in a complex, political organization.

Brandon Hendrix

Thras.IO
VP Marketing

  Dikran facilitated an effective and extremely informational OKRs workshop with our leadership team. He was able to quickly educate us on OKRs and was flexible as we applied OKRs questioning throughout the day. Dikran gave us what we needed to take a shot at running through the three steps of an OKRs cycle on our own.

Philip G. Clark, Ph.D.


3M
Technical Director

Ben brings his considerable experience working with a variety of clients to helping 3M identify how OKRs can be used within different teams and different situations. We particularly appreciated him helping us identify the “Why?” behind our objectives which in turn made us have stronger and more meaningful OKRs.

Kelvin Choong

Blacksire
CEO

I’m delighted with Catherine Chen’s coaching service! The amount of effort and time saved driving results and accountability with Catherine’s help has been massive. We see increased alignment through focus on goals.

Melanie Wessles


Booking.com
Agile Coach

  Ben and I worked together on implementing OKRs at Booking.com. I really enjoyed our collaboration as Ben is very easygoing, helpful and patient… He is always happy to continue the discussion and help grow your OKR knowledge.

Terry Copeland

Capture RX
VP Operations

  Dikran helped us get OKRs implemented and on track. He was very engaging and quickly responded to questions. In a short period of time, it felt like he was part of our team, not an outside consultant.

Dave Tucker

Workiva
Vice President, Engineering

Ben has helped us to rethink our approach to OKRs from the ground up. He has a unique ability to take what can be a very theoretical topic and make it very practical and straight forward. He has been a game changer for our organization.

Fardad Zand

Careem
Senior Strategy Director & Chief of Staff

 Omid helped us diagnose our OKRs framework and coached us to improve it based on best practices and our unique requirements. His consulting experience and deep knowledge of OKRs helped us successfully launch v2.0 of our OKR framework.

Jason A. Meyerhoeffer

First Federal
President and CEO

Dikran was extremely helpful. We had started with OKRs ourselves and were struggling with the implementation of the framework. Dikran was able to answer our questions and coach us through the process.

Luiisa Gerstner

Oviva
Chief of Staff

Omid is a real OKRs expert. He was able to answer all our questions and tailor the OKRs framework to precisely what our company needed. Omid’s training workshop with our entire executive team along with his ongoing 1:1 coaching support dramatically improved the quality of our OKRs. Overall, Omid’s coaching has made a positive impact on our organization.

Martin Betzwieser


Zalando Lounge/Outlet
Head of Finance & Customer Care

  Ben provides ongoing support on introducing OKRs at Zalando in a very pragmatic way. He kicked-off Objectives & Key Results as a mindset shift. I highly recommend Ben as an enabler for organizational mindset changes regarding target setting – always a pleasure to cooperate with him!

Alessio Pisa

Instilla
CEO

Gerri helped me understand the best way to apply OKRs methods for my company. The acceleration we had thanks to the work done with Gerri has been impressive.

Harry, Wang Zhizhong

D.Light Design Limited Group
Co-Founder & Managing Director

At the end of 2017, I met Ben Lamorte. It was the tenth year of D.Light Design Limited as a world-renowned organization. It was at a time when the new businesses of subsidiaries in various countries were developing rapidly, and the organizational structure and performance appraisal mechanism urgently needed significant adjustments.

Rashid Al Ghurair

Cafu
Founder & CEO

Omid helped us structure a great OKRs program and brought clarity to our entire leadership team; CAFU is now a high-performing organization. I highly recommend Omid’s coaching to any growing organization looking to deploy an effective OKRs program that can unleash their full potential.

Clare Martin

MiQ Digital
Global Talent Director

Omid’s support was invaluable. He helped us write OKRs more effectively and supported our OKRs program in several ways from refining our approach for OKRs globally, to training and coaching teams and OKR champions across all countries and central functions. Teams provided very positive feedback and were impressed with Omid’s knowledge and expertise.

Seth Mulligan

TCGplayer.com
Operations Manager

  Ben’s guidance, support materials, presentations and willingness to speak directly with our teams contributes hand-in-glove with TCGplayer’s ability to continue to scale up successfully. We are very happy to recommend Ben’s amazing OKR guru work, as he has helped us advance quickly in a short period of time.

Zach Posner

The LegalTech Fund
Co-Founder & Managing Director

We needed an OKRs Coach to help us create and implement OKRs. Gerri taught, coached, listened, and engaged our entire team and provided the tools we needed to stand up our OKR program and take it to the next level.

Didi
Regional Overseas Leadership Team

The biggest takeaway from Ben’s OKRs training is that by knowing how to set objectives and key results, we have the information of “Who does what? When? And How”. We now have clear information which can move the needle.

Betsy Grindlay

Speedway Motors Inc.
VP People, Purchasing, and Marketing

Ben’s coaching style is easy to work with while still being straight forward. He listens to your needs/ideas, provides objective feedback and is able to structure what you are saying. It's been an absolute pleasure to hop on a Zoom with Ben. I'm looking forward to a long future together.

Contact Ben for OKRs Coaching