Meet The Architects Partisans
The Architects Partisans is an innovative architecture firm, with around 50 employees. The OKR Institute worked with the firm to help its leadership team draft Objectives and Key Results at the management level. The coaching was led by Dirk Schmellenkamp. The aim was to strengthen strategic planning, bring the leadership team into closer alignment, and push the firm's performance forward. For a creative studio, where ideas flow freely but priorities can blur, a clear way to set and agree on goals can bring welcome focus without dampening the creativity that makes the firm what it is.
When Instinct Needs Structure
The Architects Partisans faced three challenges. The first was strategic alignment. The leadership team needed to agree more clearly on strategic priorities and then turn those into clear, actionable OKRs. The second was experience. There was a notable gap in the leadership team's experience with writing effective, measurable OKRs. The third was engagement. For the OKR process to succeed, the whole leadership team had to be genuinely on board with it. In a small, creative firm, buy-in from the people at the top makes or breaks any new way of working.
Creative firms often run on instinct and shared taste rather than formal goals, which has its strengths. But it can also leave priorities unspoken. The work had to bring more structure without making the studio feel rigid or bureaucratic.
Focused Leadership Workshops
The OKR Institute crafted a tailored approach for a small leadership team.
- Specialized leadership workshops: We delivered training workshops to give the leadership team the knowledge and tools to draft and implement OKRs successfully.
- Strategic alignment sessions: We ran focused sessions to deepen the team's shared understanding of the firm's strategic vision and connect it to their OKRs.
- Ongoing support and coaching: We provided continued coaching to help refine their OKRs, work through implementation challenges, and build a habit of improvement.
Because the firm is small, the leadership team is the firm in many ways. Getting those few people aligned around clear goals had an outsized effect, since their agreement set the direction for everyone else.
What Made it Work
- Small-team leverage: In a firm of 50, aligning the leadership team had an outsized effect, setting clear direction for the entire studio.
- Structure without rigidity: OKRs brought focus and shared priorities without dampening the creative energy that defines the firm.
- Genuine buy-in: The entire leadership team engaged with the process, turning loose priorities into clear, agreed goals.
- Ongoing coaching: Continued support helped the team refine OKRs through real challenges rather than abandoning them after the first attempt.
What Changed at The Architects Partisans
Clear strategic direction
The leadership team reached greater clarity and agreement on the firm's strategic objectives, and turned them into aligned, actionable OKRs.
Stronger cohesion
The initiative built tighter alignment and collaboration among the leaders, with a unified approach to the firm's goals.
More commitment and accountability
Engagement and ownership of the OKR process rose noticeably, driving a culture of accountability across the leadership team.
What This Shows
The Architects Partisans shows that OKRs are just as useful for a small creative firm as for a large company. In fact, in a small studio, getting the leadership team aligned can change everything, because those few people set the direction for the whole firm. By focusing on leadership alignment, shared understanding, and real buy-in, the firm turned a loose set of priorities into clear, agreed goals. The lesson is that size is no barrier. When the people at the top align around clear OKRs, the rest of the organization can follow with confidence. Structure, used well, gave the creativity somewhere to point.
