The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has whipped up some new regulations called the Consumer Duty, and let's just say, it's got the industry buzzing louder than a hive of caffeinated bees! But fear not, my friends, because where there's a challenge, there's also opportunity to shine brighter than a freshly polished penny!   So, picture this: You're in the captain's seat of a financial institution, sailing through the choppy seas of regulatory compliance. The Consumer Duty hits like a storm rolling in to rock the boat… but fret not! We've got you covered with just the tool to navigate th ..read more

We worked with a top tier, globally recognised financial institution that was looking to continue their high octane growth strategies. Working with one well defined part of the business in particular, we identified that their existing strategy implementation framework was too rigid for their current and future needs. Their strategy was set on a rigid "fire and forget" basis, and they communicated progress in outputs rather than outcomes. Without a process in place to allow for strategy to be reviewed and reset, a lack of strategic agility created significant risk in an environment that was co ..read more

In part two of our blog series, providing examples of how OKRs can be applied to particular industries, we’ll cover IT, operations, compliance and marketing. Again, we would caveat however that every organisation is different, and that’s where we come in. We adapt OKRs to drive positive outcomes in a way that is specific for your unique business. But hopefully these examples validate why OKRs are right for you, right now. IT OKRs promote alignment between IT and other departments within the organisation. When IT objectives are transparent and understood across the organisation, collaboration ..read more

The business world has woken up to OKRs, that much is clear. Use of this agile strategy implementation framework has rapidly expanded from a solid foundation in technology to an almost limitless scope encompassing everything from not-for-profits and startups to global retail giants. But despite this roll call of big and small, startup and established, many organisations still find themselves asking the question of whether OKRs are right for them. And this, in turn, leads many people to search online for examples of OKRs used within their specific business type or sector. Here at OKRAdvisory w ..read more

Someone once told me that traditionally, Q4 is where strategy happens. A fairly damning comment perhaps on the levels of engagement around strategy, and the ability and appetite of teams to deliver on priorities throughout the year. All those best laid plans and ideas from the previous year’s strategy sessions are still sitting there, gathering dust, as business as usual once again takes centre stage and dominates the agenda. The rush is now on to GET SOMETHING STRATEGIC DONE! And so it goes on, year after depressingly familiar year. But how to change? There appear to be two clear choices. Ei ..read more

Picture this if you will… an initial enquiry is made, the introductory discussions have taken place, and a proposal has been delivered. An OKR consultant has outlined for the client all of the main steps that need to be taken in order to maximise the likely success of the OKR implementation. From general introduction sessions and the training of different audiences, to the development and alignment of actual OKRs, and finally the implementation of an oversight and governance regime, it’s all been laid out. All is as agreed to this point. But the client looks at the list of recommended activit ..read more

ESG, DEI, CSR, sustainability, carbon literacy, UN SDGs… We’ve all heard of these seemingly interchangeable three letter acronyms and nods to environmentalism. But what do they really mean, why are they attracting so much attention, and why are they relevant to every organisation on the planet? And perhaps, most importantly, what does your organisation need to do about it, and how? For simplicity, we’ll refer to all the above as ESG, which emphasises the consideration of factors pertaining to: Environment - the preservation of our natural world, e.g., climate change and deforestation. Social ..read more

More than ever, businesses are coming under scrutiny for their environmental, social and governance practices. On the horizon in many of the world’s developed and emerging economies are regulatory standards, for example the European Sustainability Reporting Standards and the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures, that will require uniform disclosures of critical information such as global emissions, but also the risks to the business from climate change. Without being fully integrated into your organisation’s wider strategy, a big risk in adopting ESG principles is so-called ‘gr ..read more

Delivering. That’s the key word here… OKRs are about delivery, ensuring your strategic priorities are sufficiently focused and transparent to enable the rest of the organisation to deliver on what the organisation has set out to achieve over a given timeframe, through alignment and ultimately, engagement. It is vitally important to get this message about delivery across to clients, particularly as OKRs have become more widespread, and to avoid the increasingly common mistake that OKRs are about strategy development, or worse still are somehow the strategy itself. For those not “strategically ..read more

If there's one thing that can really derail a promising OKR implementation, it's training debt. So what do we mean by training debt? There's an expression in the world of software development called technical debt which is defined as "the implied cost of additional rework caused by choosing an easy (limited) solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer". Training debt is, unsurprisingly, the training equivalent that I have coined - when an organisation decides to cut corners on training and knowledge transfer in the pursuit of greater velocity, or reduced expense in ..read more