The execution compass: why your strategy fails between the boardroom and the backlog
A leadership team gathers for a quarterly review. On the screen is a dashboard, glowing red. The flagship initiative, meant to digitise customer interactions, is on time and on budget. Yet, customer acquisition metrics are down, and retention is flat. The team completed the tasks they set out to do, but the value never materialised. They followed the map perfectly, but it led them off a cliff.
This scenario is the quiet failure haunting most organisations. There isn’t a gap between strategy and execution; there’s a broken link. We create strategies as static maps, which are beautifully drawn documents filled with assumptions about the terrain ahead. But the market is not a fixed landscape; it’s a volatile ocean. What leaders need isn’t a better map, but a dynamic compass: a live, data driven system that connects high level intent to ground level action, allowing teams to navigate, learn, and adjust in real time.
Building this “Execution Compass” isn’t about more meetings or bureaucracy. It’s about creating clarity and discipline through three deliberate shifts in how you operate.
Define Your True North: From Initiatives to Vital Signs
Most strategies are lists of things to do: initiatives, projects, transformations. This is a critical error. It encourages teams to measure progress by task completion, not value creation. A strategy focused on “what we will do” is brittle. A strategy focused on “what success will look like” is resilient.
The first step is to form a vision or mission statement. This is the single statement that aligns all teams and individuals to a common high level outcome. From here, do the same for each relevant domain to your business; Customer, Product, Finance etc. These are your strategic goals. Then, translate these goals into “Metrics That Matter” (MTMs). These are not day to day KPIs; they are the high level, lagging indicators that prove the business is healthy and the strategy is working over the entire period of the strategy. For a SaaS company, this might be Net Revenue Retention in the Finance domain. For a logistics firm, it could be Cost Per Delivery in the Operations domain.
These MTMs, co-created and agreed upon by the leadership team, become the organisation’s True North. They replace opinion based debates about progress with evidence based conversations about performance.
Set Your Quarterly Bearing: From Annual Plans to Focused Objectives
With your True North defined, you can now set a clear, short term direction. This is the role of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). While your MTMs are stable, your OKRs are dynamic. Each quarter, the leadership team reviews the MTMs and asks: “Where is our single biggest drag or opportunity?”
If an MTM shows customer churn is rising, the quarter’s objective isn’t a vague goal like “improve customer service.” It’s a specific, focused mission: “Objective: Reverse churn in our enterprise segment. Key Result: Reduce enterprise logo churn from 4% to 2% by the end of Q3.”
This process transforms the MTMs from a passive dashboard into a trigger for focused action. It directs the entire organisation’s energy towards the one or two things that will make the most difference, right now.
A common objection to a quarterly cadence is some priorities take longer than a quarter. Just because they are reviewed every quarter doesn't mean they need to change. But it's an intentional review every quarter to make sure it's still a valid priority.
Navigate the Terrain: From Big Projects to Actions and Bets
Once an OKR is set, it cascades into the work itself. But not all work is created equal. The Execution Compass requires distinguishing between two types of activity: Actions and Bets.
Actions are initiatives where the path is known and the outcome is predictable. If you have clear evidence that running a certain marketing campaign yields a specific return, you take action. You invest, scale, and execute with confidence.
Bets are experiments designed for learning. When you’re facing uncertainty with a new market, an unproven technology, or a novel customer problem, you place a bet. You invest a small amount of time and resources to test a hypothesis and generate the data you currently lack.
This distinction is crucial. It stops teams from launching massive, high risk projects based on unproven assumptions. Instead, you systematically de-risk your strategy by learning through small, fast, intelligent bets, turning uncertainty into evidence that informs your next big action.
The Reality Check: Isn’t This Over-engineering?
A common objection is that this framework creates more processes. The opposite is true. It replaces the endless, circular, low value meetings spent debating whose numbers are right and what the priority should be. It installs a clear, evidence based rhythm where consensus is built by design, not by argument.
It eliminates countless weeks spent on data requests for ad-hoc, out of the blue questions or "topics du jour" or massive board packs that need hours to read and hence don't get read.
The world’s most powerful AI models run on data, not opinions. As organisations increasingly look to leverage AI for a competitive edge, those without a clean, reliable data feedback loop connecting their strategy to their operations won’t just be left behind; they’ll be flying blind. Building your Execution Compass is no longer a strategic option; it’s the foundational work required to compete and win.
Deep dive one
The Metric Tree: How to Map Your Strategy to Real World Results
A CEO once told us, “I know our strategy, and my teams know their metrics. The problem is, I have no idea if their metrics are driving my strategy.”
This is the core disconnect that the “Execution Compass” is designed to fix. The foundation of that compass is a tool we call the Metric Tree, a visual model that creates an unbroken, logical link from your highest level financial outcomes down to the specific actions your teams take. It’s the mechanism that ensures everyone is pulling in the same direction.
Building a Metric Tree is a structured, collaborative process, not an academic exercise. It involves three key components:
1) The Trunk: Vision and Value Drivers
The base of the tree is your ultimate destination. This starts with the organisation's mission but quickly translates into the primary financial drivers that your board or investors care about (e.g., Return on Capital Employed, EBITDA). These are the non-negotiable outcomes that anchor the entire structure.
2) The Main Branches: Strategic Goals
Flowing from the trunk are your 3 to 5 core strategic goals. These are qualitative statements that describe what you must achieve in key domains (Customer, Product, Operations, People) to deliver on your value drivers. For example, a Customer goal might be: “We will acquire and retain more high value customers by understanding their needs and meeting them where they are.” This is measurable and specific about the desired future state.
3) The Leaves: Metrics, Drivers, and Actions
This is where the tree comes alive. Each strategic goal branches into:
Metrics That Matter (MTMs): The lag indicators that prove the goal is being achieved (e.g., customer acquisition cost, retention rate, lifetime value).
Drivers: The lead indicators that you hypothesise and test that will influence the MTMs. These are the levers you can actually pull (e.g., product engagement, support ticket resolution time, new feature adoption). Initially, these are assumptions but can be tested with bets and statistical analysis.
Actions and Bets: The specific initiatives, projects, or experiments designed to move the drivers and, in turn, influence the MTMs.
Data reliability: the quality and completeness of the data that sits behind every component of the tree, so that users can quickly see to what extent they can trust what they see (same as dashboards) and where to target data management activities.
The power of the Metric Tree is its ability to be mapped in collaborative workshops with leaders from across the organisation. The process forces clarity, exposes logical leaps in the strategy, and builds consensus around what truly matters and how to measure it. The result isn't just a diagram; it's a shared understanding of how day to day work connects to the bottom line.
Check out DoubleLoop for a great tool and some more great information on this topic.
Deep dive two
Beyond the Plan: The Quarterly Rhythm That Drives Real Execution
A brilliant strategy, mapped perfectly in a Metric Tree, is useless if it doesn’t change what people do on Monday morning. The link between your long term map and your short term action is a disciplined quarterly rhythm, a series of "ceremonies" that turn your data into decisions.
This rhythm intentionally separates the enduring strategy from the flexible execution. The strategy (your MTMs and goals) is stable. The execution (your priorities and work) is adaptable. This cadence is what allows you to stay the course while responding to a changing market.
The quarterly execution loop has two primary phases.
Phase one - The Consensus Forum
Setting Focus with OKRs Once a quarter, leadership convenes not to debate the strategy, but to interpret what the data is telling them. By reviewing the MTMs, they identify the single biggest bottleneck or opportunity facing the organisation right now. Is a key metric trending the wrong way? Is a leading indicator showing unexpected promise?
Based on this evidence, the team agrees on a focused, qualitative Objective for the coming quarter. This is then paired with a quantitative Key Result, a target that will prove the objective was met. For example:
MTM Observation: Reworks in the operations department are driving up costs and delaying delivery.
Objective: Reduce process waste in the XYZ business area.
Key Result: Decrease the rework rate in XYZ by 20% within 90 days.
This OKR becomes the organisation’s or the team’s priority. It doesn't replace the overall strategy; it sharpens its focus onto the most critical leverage point for the next quarter.
Phase two - Quarterly Planning
Defining the Work The OKR directly informs the quarterly planning and prioritisation (QPP) process. With a clear, measurable goal, teams can now define the backlog of work needed to achieve it. This is where the distinction between Actions and Bets becomes critical.
If the team is confident a specific automation project will reduce reworks, it becomes a prioritised Action.
If they are unsure which of three process changes will be most effective, they scope them as small, parallel Bets to gather data quickly.
This rhythm of reviewing MTMs, setting OKRs, and planning Actions and Bets transforms strategy from an annual document into a living, breathing operational process. It creates a continuous loop of focus, execution, and learning that builds momentum, quarter after quarter.
If the MTMs indicate the OKR is still valid, then it remains for another quarter until priorities change. The goal is to prioritise action for as long as it’s needed and to provide off ramps if the OKR has either had the desired effect, its failing to have an effect or another more critical priority has presented itself in the data.
Deep dive three
Action or Bet? The Two Modes of Execution Your Strategy Needs
Not all execution is created equal. The riskiest thing a company can do is launch a large-scale “Action” based on an unproven assumption. It’s how millions are wasted on initiatives that don’t work or products that nobody wants.
A modern execution framework must differentiate between situations of relative certainty and high uncertainty. This is the difference between an Action and a Bet, and knowing which mode to be in is critical for managing risk and accelerating learning.
Actions: Executing with Confidence An Action is a task or initiative where the outcome is reasonably predictable. You are acting on validated learning. You have strong evidence from past experience, pilot programmes, or market data that if you do X, you will get Y result.
When you take an Action, you are targeting an outcome. The goal is efficient and effective delivery. This is where you invest significant resources, assign dedicated teams, and manage towards a clear delivery plan. You are exploiting a known advantage.
Example: Data shows a 15% uplift in sales from customers who receive a call to follow up within 24 hours. The Action is to fully resource the sales team to make that happen at scale.
Bets: Investing for Learning. A Bet is an experiment undertaken when the outcome is uncertain. You are operating in a novel situation, data is lacking, or a new approach needs to be tested.
When you place a Bet, you are targeting learning. The goal is to generate data and validate a hypothesis as cheaply and quickly as possible. Bets are small, time boxed, and designed to answer a specific question. They are not expected to deliver a major ROI; their return is the knowledge that de risks a future Action.
Example: You hypothesise that a new AI chatbot could reduce customer service tickets, but you’re not sure. The Bet is a one month pilot with 5% of your user base to measure its impact on ticket volume and customer satisfaction.
By deliberately framing work as either an Action or a Bet, you change the conversation. Instead of asking, “Is this project guaranteed to succeed?” the question becomes, “Is this an Action we should scale or a Bet we should test?” This simple distinction separates execution from exploration, creating a portfolio of initiatives that balances confident delivery with intelligent discovery. It is the engine of both performance and innovation.
