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VMOKRs:
STRATEGIC
direction set

Whether you're bringing businesses together, entering a new stage of growth, or becoming a different kind of organisation, clarity of direction matters.

We help senior leadership teams define their Vision, Mission, Objectives and Key Results (VMOKRs) — creating a shared understanding of where the business is heading, what matters most and how success will be measured.

GET IN TOUCH

see the moments of change

MOMENTS OF CHANGE THAT CALL FOR A new direction

When the business changes, everyone needs to understand what comes next. Not just where you’re heading, but what success looks like, what matters most and how everyone contributes to making it happen.

1: BRINGING TWO BUSINESSES together…

Creating one organisation, with a shared purpose, ambition and direction, following an acquisition or merger.

2: A NEW CHAPTER OF growth…

The business is scaling beyond what its current approach was designed to support.

3: ENTERING NEW markets…

Expansion into new geographies, sectors or customer markets changes what success requires.

4: LAUNCHING A NEW proposition…

A major new offering or value proposition demands strategic focus and alignment.

5: MAKING A STEP-CHANGE IN service & capability…

A business-critical function must transform its purpose, scale or service model.

6: EMBARKING ON A MAJOR transformation…

A significant programme of modernisation or business transformation requires a shared vision of the future, clear priorities and measurable outcomes.

7: REDEFINING YOUR EMPLOYEE value proposition…

Leadership wants to fundamentally change its culture, identity or organisational capabilities.

8: BECOMING A DIFFERENT KIND OF organisation…

The Leadership teams knows it needs to fundamentally change its culture, identity or organisational capabilities..

9: A NEW STRATEGIC mandate…

A new leader, owner or board brings a different ambition for the business, requiring a new direction and shared priorities.

10: CROSSING A NEW regulatory threshold…

New authorisation, regulatory responsibilities or heightened scrutiny require a fundamental step-change in organisational capabilities and accountability.

THE BUSINESS
you want to become...

Moments of change create new ambitions, opportunities and expectations. But knowing that something needs to change is not the same as knowing what you’re trying to become. Before an organisation can move forward together, its leaders need to establish a shared understanding of the future they’re working towards, the choices that matter most and what success will look like.

But direction alone isn’t enough. People need to understand it, believe in it and recognise the part they play in bringing it to life.

Four fundamental questions need answering:

01

WHERE ARE WE HEADING?

What is our ambition for the future, and what does the organisation we want to become look like?

02

WHY DO WE EXIST?

What is our purpose and guiding principle, who do we serve and what value are we here to create?

03

WHAT MUST WE ACHIEVE?

What are the most important outcomes we need to deliver to make that future possible?

04

HOW WILL WE MEASURE IT?

What tangible, measurable results will demonstrate that we’re making meaningful progress?

Symptoms

WHEN DIRECTION
isn't shared

Defining direction is only the beginning. Unless it’s understood, embraced and translated into meaningful priorities and decisions across the organisation, even the most capable teams can find themselves pulling in different directions.

The signs are often quite familiar:

1

Symptom 1

Too many initiatives compete for the same people, budget and leadership attention, with no clear mechanism for deciding what matters most.

2

Symptom 2

The executive team may agree on the ambition, but hold different views of what success looks like and how it should be achieved.

3

Symptom 3

The organisation has a strategy, but colleagues cannot easily describe it, connect their work to it or use it to guide day-to-day decisions.

4

Symptoms 4

Teams report what they have delivered or launched, but there is little visibility of whether it creates meaningful business outcomes.

5

Symptom 5

Projects launched in isolation create duplication, competing dependencies that don't clearly support wider business direction.

6

Symptom 6

Without agreed outcomes and measures, priorities are repeatedly debated, challenged or changed, creating delay, rework and false starts.

7

Symptom 7

Disconnected KPIs, status updates and project measures, but no clear view of whether the organisation is moving closer to its goals.

8

Symptom 8

Objectives remain concentrated at the top of the organisation and are not translated into meaningful departmental, team or individual priorities.

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A Progressive Transformation Journey

DIRECTION IS WHERE
change begins

A clear, shared direction is the foundation of meaningful organisational change. It establishes what we’re trying to become, why it matters and the outcomes that will define success. But setting direction is only the beginning. Bringing that ambition to life requires us to think about the experience we wish to create for colleagues and customers, the organisation we need to be capable of delivering them, and the people who will make it happen.

Our Customer Success Journey connects these critical dimensions of change, providing a progressive transformation journey for translating strategic ambition into measurable outcomes.

01

THE BUSINESS
YOU WANT TO BECOME.

Establish a clear, shared and measurable direction through Vision, Mission, Objectives and Key Results (VMOKRs), aligning leadership teams around the outcomes that matter most.

02

THE EXPERIENCE
YOU NEED TO DELIVER.

Translate strategic ambition into the experiences the organisation needs to create for its customers, colleagues and partners.

03

THE ORGANISATION
YOU NEED TO DELIVER IT.

Define the capabilities, processes, structures and operating model required to deliver those experiences consistently and at scale.

04

THE AWARENESS, DESIRE
AND READINESS FOR CHANGE.

Underpinning all of the above, is our people-centred change approach. Build understanding, belief and readiness throughout the journey, helping people embrace change and recognise the part they play in making it happen.

Scale Up or Down

DIRECTION AT
any level

Defining strategic direction isn’t always a whole-business exercise. Sometimes it’s about aligning an entire organisation around a new ambition. Other times, it’s helping a critical function evolve or establishing the outcomes that will guide a major transformation.

Our VMOKR approach brings the same clarity, focus and accountability to each.

1

Company Direction

Aligning the organisation around a shared future. We help leadership teams define or reset the direction of their business, establishing a clear ambition, strategic priorities and measurable outcomes that guide decisions, investment and collective effort.

2

Transformation Direction

Establishing what meaningful change must achieve. We help organisations define the ambition, strategic objectives and measurable outcomes of major transformation programmes, creating a shared understanding of what success looks like and a foundation for prioritising and delivering change.

3

Functional Direction

Defining the future of a business-critical function. When a function needs to make a significant step-change in its purpose, capabilities or service, we help its leaders establish a clear direction, aligned to the wider business strategy, with defined outcomes and accountabilities.

Starling

GROUP TECH
TRANSFORMATION

We helped Group Technology define its Vision, Mission and OKRs, then translated them into a strategic change roadmap and wider Target Operating Model. Map Room is now supporting delivery of that roadmap as Group Technology evolves into a global, 24/7 service across Starling Bank and Engine.

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Aldermore

COLLECTIONS
TRANSFORMATION

We worked with Aldermore’s Collections leadership to define the transformation vision, future-state Target Operating Model and the outcomes required to move from a fragmented, high-cost operation to a single, scalable and customer-centric Collections model. A clear design principles, OKRs, key risks and a roadmap for change.

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Panda

TARGET OPERATING
MODEL DESIGN

We helped Beauparc define the Target Operating Model and measurable OKRs for its One Beauparc transformation, then translated them into business design blueprints and roadmaps across Colleague, Customer and Finance. The work also established the governance, process architecture and design standards needed to guide consistent delivery across the organisation.

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Yorkshire Water

A LEARNING
ORGANISATION

We helped Yorkshire Water define what a true learning organisation should mean for the business, translating that ambition into a clear Learning Vision, measurable OKRs and a future-state learning experience. We then ran our unique insight-led diagnostic process to identify pain points across key colleague learning journeys, and developed a prioritised change roadmap.

CURIOUS?

Here’s what people usually want to know.

Vision, Mission, OKRs - What's the difference?

Your Vision is the ultimate destination: the big, inspiring future you are heading towards.

Your Mission explains why the journey matters. It is the purpose and meaning behind your direction.

Your Objectives describe the key outcomes that will make the journey successful, while your Key Results are the clear, measurable signals that prove you are on track. Together, they give teams a shared North Star and a practical definition of success.

Finally underneath them sit your KPIs. These represent live feedback from the dashboard. They help you monitor performance, spot warning signs and make real-time adjustments along the way — but they are not goals in themselves. Put simply: Vision and Mission set the direction. Objectives and Key Results define success. KPIs help you stay on track.

Vision, Mission, OKRs - Why start here?

Without a clear view of the end state, teams can charge into delivery and fix the wrong things. Effort gets spent on symptoms rather than root causes, projects become disconnected and progress is made in the wrong direction.

Setting direction creates the space to pause, zoom out and answer the big questions: What are we trying to achieve? Why does it matter? What does success look like? And how will we know when we have achieved it?

A great trigger question to get your teams thinking is this: Imagine we’re sitting down having a drink in our favourite coffee-spot 3-years from now.We’re all really happy with the progress >we’ve made as a business/function/team. What’s changed in those 3 years that is making us feel so happy?

How do OKRs help prioritise a strategic change roadmap?

OKRs give leaders a clear basis for deciding which change matters most.

Insights, opportunities and proposed initiatives can be assessed against the outcomes the organisation has agreed upfront. This helps leadership teams identify the critical few initiatives most likely to create customer, colleague and business value — rather than allowing the loudest voice, latest idea or most urgent symptom to determine what gets delivered.

This is the Pareto Principle in practice: the idea that 80% of outcomes often come from 20% of causes. For leaders of change, the challenge is to find the critical few high-impact levers that will unlock the greatest measurable business value for a reasonable level of effort.

Too much change, all at once, kills outcomes. So, prioritise the critical few that will make a difference, and protect them like your growth depends on it.

How does it work if we want to move forward with Map Room?

We bring together a cross-functional leadership group to agree the future the organisation is trying to create, why it matters and what success should look like.

We start with the Vision and Mission, then translate them into a focused set of Objectives and measurable Key Results. To avoid creating a narrow or unbalanced set of priorities, we use our own unique approach - the Value Equation [also known internally as the Beyoncé Equation] as an anchor:

V = A × Q × R ÷ max(D, 1)

The framework encourages leaders to consider value from many connected perspectives:

V — Value: The measurable outcomes and enterprise value the organisation creates.
A — Attraction: The ability to attract customers, talent, attention and opportunity.
Q — Quality: The standard of delivery, experience and outcomes the organisation consistently creates.
R — Respect: The trust, credibility, reputation and commercial confidence earned over time.
D — Discipline: The operational control, focus, consistency and accountability needed to turn ambition into sustained performance.

This helps stress-test the proposed OKRs and ensure they reflect a balanced view of value rather than over-prioritising one area of the business.

Once agreed, we use the OKRs to assess existing change activity, identify gaps and shape a focused strategic change roadmap — creating a clear line of sight from ambition to priorities, investment and delivery.

The result is not simply a Vision, Mission and set of OKRs on a page. It is a shared North Star, a measurable definition of success and a practical basis for deciding what the organisation should do next.