Pilot with Your Best Team

Roll out new processes by starting with your highest-performing team first

Christina Wodtke
The ultimate guide to OKRs

Pilot with Your Best Team

"Give my book to your best team and say, 'We're thinking about OKRs. Can you guys see if it works?' And then three months later, check in with them. 'What did you figure out, guys?'" - Christina Wodtke

What It Is

When rolling out new processes or methodologies (like OKRs), start with your highest-performing team instead of struggling teams or a company-wide launch. Your best team will figure out how to make the new process work within your company's culture and return with a customized template you can scale.

This approach prevents the common failure mode where new processes get blamed for pre-existing problems, poisoning adoption across the organization.

How It Works

The Logic:

  1. Best teams want to improve - They're already successful and seeking ways to get better, making them eager to experiment

  2. They're capable of adaptation - Smart, capable people will figure out where the methodology fits and doesn't fit with your culture

  3. They're imbued in your culture - Unlike an outside consultant, they understand your company's specific context

  4. Failure won't kill momentum - If OKRs "fail" on a struggling team, everyone blames OKRs. If they work on a great team, you have proof and a template.

The Process:

  1. Give the methodology to your best multidisciplinary team
  2. Let them run a 3-month pilot
  3. Check in: What worked? What didn't? What did they change?
  4. Take their template to 2 more teams
  5. Repeat, scaling gradually

How to Apply It

  1. Identify your best team - Look for:

    • Strong results
    • Good team dynamics
    • Hunger to improve
    • Multidisciplinary makeup (not just engineering)

  2. Give them resources, not mandates - "Here's a book/methodology. See if you can make it work for us." Not "Implement this by Friday."

  3. Let them adapt - They might change what you recommend. That's fine—they're fitting it to your culture.

  4. Learn from their learnings - After one quarter, gather what they discovered:

    • "Our standup's like this, so we added OKR review to it"
    • "Instead of emails, we use a brag channel on Slack"
    • "We meet every two weeks instead of weekly"

  5. Scale with their template - Their version becomes your company's version

  6. Avoid the broken team trap - Never use new processes to "fix" a dysfunctional team. You'll make everyone hate the process and make the team worse.

When to Use It

Ideal for:

  • OKR rollouts
  • New planning processes
  • Agile/Scrum adoption
  • Any methodology change affecting multiple teams

The warning signs you're doing it wrong:

  • Starting with a company-wide mandate
  • Choosing a struggling team because "they need it most"
  • Having HR implement something that affects product teams
  • Leaders implementing without reading/understanding the methodology

Why It Works

Selection effect: Great teams make anything work. If even they struggle, the process might genuinely be wrong for your company.

Adaptation: Outside methodologies always need customization. Your best team will do this intelligently.

Social proof: When other teams see the best team succeeding, they want in. This is far more powerful than a top-down mandate.

Risk containment: If it fails, you've only affected one team for one quarter. You haven't poisoned the whole company against the approach.

Source

  • Guest: Christina Wodtke
  • Episode: "The ultimate guide to OKRs"
  • Key Discussion: (00:38:13) - Why to pilot with your best team and scale gradually
  • YouTube: Watch on YouTube

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