BBC Studios Product Group
From a stalled COO mandate to 83% team adoption — how we rebuilt BBC Studios’ OKR programme from the ground up.
0% → 62%
Business initiative alignment
0% → 66%
Focus on outcomes
10% → 83%
Teams completing OKR process
The Challenge
A mandate without a method
The COO at BBC Studios had made the call: OKRs were to become the new way of working across the Product, Technology and Operations function. It was the right ambition — but the organisation had no existing knowledge of how to design or roll out the framework.
A handful of Technology and Operations teams had already tried to implement OKRs independently. Those early attempts hadn’t landed. Teams were writing OKRs that were really just KPI lists, alignment between teams was absent, and the process felt like additional admin rather than a useful management tool.
The business needed more than training materials. It needed a structured approach, leadership alignment, and someone to guide the first real cycle from strategy to execution.
What We Did
Training, coaching and architecture
Following the initial training programme’s success, the Chief of Staff brought us back to take the work further. We were asked to design the OKR architecture for the organisation — the structure that would determine how OKRs cascaded from company level down to teams and individuals.
We created an OKR playbook that gave teams a shared language and process, removing the ambiguity that had caused the earlier attempts to stall. We facilitated leadership off-sites to surface and align strategy before it was expressed as OKRs.
We then trained the full Product, Technology and Operations function — followed by team-based coaching to embed the practice. The coaching sessions weren’t just about writing better OKRs; they were about changing how teams thought about their work and its connection to organisational outcomes.
We led the first cross-business strategic workshop connecting New York and London — helping both offices express their strategy as outcomes for the first time rather than a list of projects and activities.
The Difference We Made
Measurable change, not just activity
0% → 62%
Business initiative alignment
Teams that had been working in silos began connecting their work to company-level strategy. Alignment across business initiatives went from effectively zero to 62%.
0% → 66%
Focus on outcomes
Perhaps the most important shift: teams moved from writing output-based OKRs (features shipped, projects delivered) to outcome-based OKRs (user behaviour, business impact).
10% → 83%
Teams completing the OKR process
The percentage of teams that completed the full OKR cycle — from setting objectives to tracking and reviewing — rose from 10% to 83%.
We went from teams that had never completed an OKR cycle to a function where 83% of teams were running the full process. The shift in how people thought about their work — from outputs to outcomes — was the real change.
Chief of Staff
BBC Studios Product Group
Services Used
What we delivered
OKR Training
Full-function training for Product, Technology and Operations — covering OKR principles, writing quality OKRs and simulation exercises.
Learn more →Team-Based Coaching
Coaching sessions with individual teams to embed the practice and shift focus from outputs to outcomes through real cycle work.
Learn more →OKR Architecture & Playbook
Designing the OKR structure, cascade model and playbook — giving the organisation a shared language and process that stuck.
Learn more →Work With Us
Facing a similar challenge?
Whether OKRs are new to your organisation or a previous attempt has stalled, we can help you build a programme that actually works.