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In this live presentation from the Accelerate 2024 Conference, Ana Cervantes, Senior Manager of Strategy Execution at Avery Dennison, shares the company’s journey implementing OKRs with WorkBoard. Drawing on her background in operations and supply chain leadership, Ana discusses challenges with strategy clarity, alignment, and execution, and outlines how WorkBoardAI enabled Avery Dennison to shift from activity-driven work to outcome-focused execution at scale.
The Challenge
- Strategy Dilution Across Organizational Layers:
Strategy was getting lost from corporate leadership to sites and frontline teams, leaving leaders unable to clearly articulate enterprise strategy or how daily work connected to it.
- Leadership Misalignment and Unclear Priorities:
Business reviews surfaced misalignment among leaders, with teams treating “everything as a priority” and lacking discipline around true strategic focus and deprioritization.
- Low Transparency and Slow Decision-Making:
Teams spent excessive time gathering data and preparing materials, limiting visibility into progress and slowing the organization’s ability to make timely, informed decisions.
- Execution Capacity Waste and Engagement Risk:
Employees were busy but not necessarily focused on the right outcomes, resulting in wasted execution capacity and declining engagement indicators despite superficially positive survey scores.
The WorkBoardAI Solution
- Enterprise-Wide Transparency into Strategy and Execution:
WorkBoardAI enabled clear visibility into objectives, outcomes, and ownership, scaling from 13 teams to 150 teams with OKRs within a few quarters.
- Stronger Alignment Through Outcome-Based Focus:
Leaders learned to deprioritize non-strategic work, with 43% of executives formally dropping and communicating outcomes, cascading clarity throughout the organization.
- Improved Execution Velocity and Operational Rhythm:
Monthly Business Reviews were streamlined, reducing slide volume by 80% and freeing leaders from weeks of preparation to focus on execution and decision-making.
- More Effective Project and Program Delivery:
Strategic projects run in WorkBoard, such as “Project Lee,” achieved standout results by clearly linking outcomes, workstreams, and action plans to enterprise priorities.
Conclusion
By implementing WorkBoardAI and OKRs, Avery Dennison significantly improved transparency, alignment, and execution velocity. Within two quarters, OKRs scaled from 13 to 130 teams, growing to 150 teams and nearly 1,000 employees operating with an outcome mindset. Monthly business review preparation time dropped dramatically, project performance improved, and leaders gained the ability to focus teams on fewer, higher-impact priorities.
