WorkBoard: Driving Strategic Clarity and Execution at Scale
If you’re leading a game or software development organization in 2025, there’s a good chance you’re feeling the tension: you need to move fast, adapt to change, and deliver results—but you also need to keep your teams aligned, engaged, and focused on what actually matters.
That’s where WorkBoard fits in.
Tool Link: https://www.workboard.com
WorkBoard is a strategy execution platform purpose-built to help organizations define outcomes, align teams, track progress, and accelerate results. It’s used by companies like Microsoft, Cisco, and Workday—not because it’s flashy, but because it solves one of the hardest problems in leadership: connecting ambition to execution.
For leaders in game and software development, where teams span functions, time zones, and product lines, WorkBoard provides a structured way to turn strategy into weekly action, without slowing the team down.
Where WorkBoard Came From
Founded by Deidre Paknad—a serial entrepreneur who previously led successful startups and innovation at IBM—WorkBoard was born from a simple but painful insight: most companies have a strategy, but they lack a system to execute that strategy with precision and transparency.
Paknad saw that OKRs and dashboards weren’t enough on their own. Teams needed a consistent rhythm, shared context, and a way to keep goals visible and progress measurable across a dynamic, distributed workforce.
Since its founding, WorkBoard has become the backbone of execution for organizations looking to scale alignment without scaling overhead. It’s more than a tool—it’s a system for closing the gap between goals and outcomes.
What WorkBoard Is For
WorkBoard is designed for strategy execution at scale. Its core purpose is to:
- Define and cascade OKRs across departments and teams
- Align weekly work to strategic outcomes
- Track and visualize progress in real-time
- Create accountability across functions and levels
- Drive transparency and ownership across the org
Whether you’re launching a new game, scaling a backend infrastructure, or transforming your go-to-market strategy, WorkBoard helps you make sure everyone knows where you’re going, how you're doing, and who’s doing what.
It’s not a replacement for your project management or product tools. It’s the layer above the execution platforms—focused on outcomes, alignment, and decision-making.
How It Works
- Set and Cascade OKRs
WorkBoard is built around Objectives and Key Results (OKRs)—the same goal-setting framework championed by John Doerr in Measure What Matters. In WorkBoard, OKRs aren’t just written once and forgotten—they’re living, breathing targets updated weekly and visible to everyone.
- Company-level objectives define top-line outcomes (e.g., “Grow global MAU by 25%”).
- Team-level objectives align to those outcomes (e.g., “Improve onboarding flow to reduce Day 1 drop-off by 15%”).
- Cross-functional dependencies are tracked clearly, so teams don’t drift in silos.
WorkBoard lets you create, link, and manage OKRs across the org, while maintaining visibility into progress and blockers.
- Align Work to Outcomes
Unlike other OKR tools that stop at goal-setting, WorkBoard integrates OKRs into the weekly work rhythm. You can link goals to:
- Projects
- Initiatives
- Tasks
- Metrics
- Meetings
This lets every team member see how their work ties to the company’s mission, and lets leaders track whether the work being done is actually moving the needle.
- Run Weekly Check-ins and Business Reviews
WorkBoard structures a rhythm of accountability through regular check-ins. Each week, teams update their key results, flag risks, and note dependencies. This turns strategy execution into a cadence—not a fire drill.
For leadership, WorkBoard replaces static QBR decks with live, data-driven reviews that pull from the same system teams use day-to-day. No more spending two weeks building slides for what should be a weekly conversation.
You get one version of the truth, continuously updated and fully traceable.
- Track KPIs and Strategic Initiatives
Beyond OKRs, WorkBoard helps you monitor operational KPIs and longer-term initiatives in the same interface. You can:
- Visualize milestone progress
- Set initiative owners
- Connect deliverables to metrics
- Flag risks before they derail launches
This gives you a single strategic cockpit—perfect for exec teams, studio leads, or department heads managing multiple bets simultaneously.
Why It Works for Game and Software Development
Let’s get specific. If you’re running a game studio or software product org, WorkBoard helps in several ways:
- Strategy Clarity: When you say “we’re focusing on player retention,” WorkBoard lets every team see what that means for their work—engineering, art, design, support.
- Cross-Functional Sync: Instead of trading status updates in Slack or Notion, teams can see dependencies and blockers across functions in real time.
- Weekly Cadence: From sprint reviews to leadership syncs, WorkBoard structures updates around what’s moving—and what’s not.
- Outcome Focus: Instead of measuring ticket velocity or test cases, you track the results that matter: crash rate reduction, D30 retention, conversion lift, etc.
In short, WorkBoard replaces disjointed reports and static plans with a live, transparent system for driving progress.
How It’s Different from Other Tools
What separates WorkBoard from tools like Notion, Jira, or Asana isn’t features—it’s purpose. WorkBoard isn’t about managing tasks. It’s about driving alignment and outcomes.
- Built for Leaders: The platform is optimized for executives, directors, and cross-functional leads who need to align teams and make decisions—not manage to-dos.
- OKRs + Metrics + Initiatives: You don’t have to choose between tracking goals and tracking projects. You can do both—together.
- Enterprise-Grade, but Scalable: Used by Fortune 500s, but works for 100-person teams too. Especially useful when your org is past the “everyone just talks it out” stage.
Where to Learn More
- Main site: https://www.workboard.com
- OKR Resources: https://www.workboard.com/okr
- Blog: https://www.workboard.com/blog
- Product tour video: https://www.workboard.com/product-tour
Final Thought: Execution Is the Edge
In a market where delivery speed, product innovation, and operational clarity are your levers for differentiation, execution is your competitive edge. And strategy only matters if it becomes real in the day-to-day work of your teams.
WorkBoard helps you operationalize that reality. Not with more meetings, more reports, or more dashboards—but with a shared system that connects strategy to execution, ambition to action, goals to outcomes.
It’s a tool for leaders who want to stop asking, “Are we aligned?” and start seeing the answer every day—in the work itself.
