With the development of an organization-wide OKR monitoring and reporting system, Strategy leaders at a global technology company saved hours every month while gaining a faster path to decision-making.
The Situation
At a global technology company, the Strategy organization had recently been centralized under the Chief Strategy Officer, consisting of five different business units. Since Strategy had previously operated independently of each other, the processes for managing, tracking and reporting on OKRs varied widely, with a significant reliance on manual trackers, individual spreadsheets and written status updates.
Strategy leaders had defined a single set of OKRs for the entire organization, but they faced a challenge. Their current systems for tracking OKRs relied on frequent status memos, spreadsheet updates, and plenty of back-and-forth with their team members. It could take up to a week to get the complete picture of what was going on – all just in time to do it all over again the following week!
In an organization where five different operating models existed for tracking OKRs – and quite frankly, none of them achieved clear visibility – how would the leaders centralize OKR monitoring and reporting in order to more efficiently surface risks and make decisions?
The Approach
The mission was clear – to create a visible system of record where OKR progress was tracked, monitored and reported in a manner that enabled the Strategy executives to surface actionable insights and make decisions faster.
I accomplished this with the rollout of Asana, a work management platform, to the global team of 120 strategists, inclusive of an end-to-end enablement strategy that drove adoption and adherence to the new operating model.
- I built executive-level dashboards that surfaced actionable insights on OKR progress.
- I customized workflows, automations and templates which created visibility into how work got done across the organization, while driving accountability with individual employees.
- I led trainings, designed learning materials, hosted office hours, and established a cadence of consistent learning and improvement opportunities to aid adoption.
- I led a team of “Asana Champions” within the organization, responsible for guiding their teams through adoption and surfacing insights for further refinement of the operating model.
- I worked with the Asana vendor to become a first mover in leveraging the platform’s AI-enabled tools – like Smart Status Updates and AI Studio – to shape workflows and improve efficiency.
The Results
Executive-level decision making accelerated: By centralizing tasking, tracking, and resource planning into one intelligent workspace, the Strategy organization has enabled leaders to pivot quickly, optimize execution, and scale programs globally and locally. In the first 90 days, Strategy leaders saved an estimated 114 hours in manual tracking and reporting – equating to a potential 456 working hours saved over the course of a year.
Accountability deepened: Tying individual and team-level work directly to OKRs created stronger alignment between daily execution and broader strategic priorities. In a survey conducted five months after launch, two-thirds of Strategy employees reported that the OKR platform helped them better visualize how their work connects to business goals.
Transparency transformed collaboration: Real-time visibility into milestones, dependencies, and blockers enabled teams across geographies and business units to act in sync. Each month, OKR reviews took place in leadership team meetings without the need for extensive emails, presentations, or manual preparation. This saved hours of work each month and accelerated the speed and quality of decisions.