OKR Consultancy & Implementation for Numatic International Ltd

Project Background

McKenna Agile Consultants have been working with Numatic International Ltd to roll out Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) across their business. Numatic aimed to create a goal-driven, outcome-focused culture that would support their ambitious plans for 2024 and beyond, fuelling future growth.

You never have to look far to find a Numatic product – be it the familiar face of their iconic Henry vacuum or commercial cleaning solutions – keeping all industries clean, right across the globe. Manufacturing here in the UK and exporting worldwide, Numatic provides the complete package, from wet and dry vacuums to floorcare and janitorial trolleys, testing beyond the standards, driving sustainability and delivering performance you can trust.

The Challenge 

In early 2024, Numatic’s leadership team decided to adopt OKRs to help achieve their long-term goals over the next 5 to 10 years. With a strong vision, mission, and values as their strategic foundation, they sought to align the company with their ambitious goals, focusing on growth, tangible sustainability, and continued operational excellence.

Numatic approached us with the following challenges:

• Establish a cadence for the OKR cycle to support execution
• Facilitate the first round of OKR cycle meetings, providing coaching and guidance
• Ensure a simple, consistent and effective reporting system for tracking OKR progress
• Serve as an ongoing OKR partner to tackle context-specific challenges as they arise
• Create communications as required to support the broader change management impact of an OKR implementation

The Solution

During the initial 4-month engagement, key milestones of the OKR implementation included:

• Develop and deliver hands-on OKR training
• Adopt a squad-based approach to OKR implementation
• Providing OKR refinement coaching to squads
• OKR consultancy to support teams through OKR cycles

“We needed an OKR consultant to partner with us who could give us that expert opinion, guidance and challenge throughout this process. McKenna Agile Consultants have been instrumental in giving us the knowledge, practice and confidence in rolling out the OKR framework across the business. This increased focus and goal setting skill means that we are already starting to see tangible progress after only 1 OKR cycle with Squads making huge strides towards their Sub Key Results.”

Sales Director and OKR Champion for Numatic, Simon Barry

Hands On OKR Refinement

We conducted a one-day OKR workshop at Numatic’s Somerset headquarters for 30 leaders. The workshop covered everything from the history of OKRs to small group sessions where participants refined the executive-level OKRs.

An Agile Approach Using Squads

To ensure alignment and drive cross-functional collaboration, we adopted a Squad approach to the OKR implementation. The squad approach, popularised by Spotify in 2012, emphasises the importance of culture and networks within organisations. The Squads now meet every two weeks to plan and review progress.

Providing OKR Refinement Coaching To Squads

As Squads developed and refined their Sub Key Results, we provided coaching to ensure these were measurable, outcome-focused, and consistently articulated.

Execution through OKR Cycles

Most organisations struggle with OKRs when they neglect to establish a disciplined OKR cycle to support them through execution. We provided OKR consultancy to:

• Support the Squads in their bi-weekly OKR check-ins
• Facilitate the monthly executive OKR review
• Facilitate the end-of-quarter OKR review and retrospective
• Roll out OKR tools to track and report on OKRs, Sub KRs and supporting tasks, activities and initiatives

Delivery

We delivered this OKR implementation over the course of 4 months, using a blend of in-person and online sessions. The training was delivered in person, whereas the OKR refinement sessions and OKR consultancy sessions were spread between video calls and on-site at Numatic’s headquarters.

Get in touch today to learn how we can help to take your strategy execution to the next level using OKRs.