In this live presentation from the Accelerate 2024 Conference, Denise Kanfield, Transformation Leader and OKR Guru at Cisco, shares how she has guided Cisco Security through continuous organizational change using OKRs and WorkBoardAI. Denise explores the process of navigating leadership transitions, acquisitions, and growth while maintaining clarity, alignment, and an outcome-focused culture using a consistent strategy execution platform.
The Challenge
- Fragmented Strategic Visibility Across Business Units:
When Denise joined Cisco Security, multiple GMs ran independent product organizations, making it difficult to understand what each business unit was actually working on and how efforts connected to overall strategy.
- Inefficient and Manual Alignment Processes:
Prior experiences without a dedicated system required heavy manual effort—spreadsheets, static reviews, and ad-hoc artifacts—that quickly became outdated and made cross-team alignment slow and error-prone.
- Organizational Disruption from Continuous Change:
Cisco Security faced constant disruption from acquisitions, annual strategic replanning, and three leadership changes in two years, creating confusion, emotional resistance, and uncertainty about priorities.
- Perception of OKRs as “Extra Work”:
Teams initially viewed OKRs as an added burden rather than a core part of how work got done, leading to frustration and inconsistent adoption across the organization.
The WorkBoardAI Solution
- Single Source of Truth for Strategy and Execution:
WorkBoard provided a persistent, shared view of objectives, key results, and alignment, allowing leaders and teams to instantly see how work connected vertically and horizontally across the organization.
- Faster Alignment and Gap Identification:
With real-time alignment views and supporting OKRs, Denise could immediately identify missing ownership, misalignment, or gaps—without weeks of manual synthesis.
- Operationalized OKRs Embedded in Daily Work:
WorkBoard enabled OKRs to be woven directly into existing operating rhythms—staff meetings, sprint reviews, check-ins, and one-on-ones—eliminating the sense of “extra process.”
- Scalable Support for Change, Acquisitions, and Growth:
The platform supported onboarding new leaders and acquired teams, helped them understand Cisco’s operating model quickly, and allowed them to tell a clear performance story using their OKRs.
Conclusion
By using WorkBoardAI, Cisco Security significantly improved strategic clarity and execution during a period of intense change. Employee understanding of strategy increased from 36% to 76%, alignment time decreased, and accountability sharpened across teams. These improvements supported faster execution, enabled the successful integration of newly acquired companies, and contributed to double-digit growth announced in annual earnings.
