Intuitive Surgical Replaces Smartsheet with Profit.co’s OKRs, Achieving a 75% Reduction in Review Time and an 84% Reduction in PPT Prep for Executives

Intuitive Surgical creates products and services born of inspiration and intelligence, from robotic-assisted surgical systems to data generation that unlocks the potential to benefit care systems worldwide. Intuitive India, the India arm of Intuitive, is a global technology leader in minimally invasive care and the pioneer of robotic-assisted surgery (RAS). Intuitive Surgical works closely and collaboratively with its customers to help achieve better outcomes, care team experiences, and patient experiences, as well as lower care costs.

By providing advanced instruments for robotic surgery, Intuitive Surgical enables faster recovery times and less impact on patients, allowing them to quickly return to the activities that matter most to them. This technology has revolutionized the quality of life for countless patients, significantly improving surgical outcomes and making a profound difference in healthcare.

Today, we are honored to have Gerardo Haro, the Continuous Improvement (CI) Manager at Intuitive Surgical in Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico, with us. Gerardo is an operations excellence expert with extensive experience in continuous improvement and management philosophies like Hoshin Kanri. He has developed the Kaizen Leader Program, preparing over 65 team leaders and managers to execute strategic improvements within their functional areas. Gerardo coaches project leaders from project charter completion to execution and closing/verification of their projects. His role focuses on ensuring that the company has the mechanisms for effective, efficient, and aligned operations to achieve strategic objectives.

Join us for a fireside chat with Gerardo Haro, where we will explore how Intuitive Surgical fosters high-performing teams and drives continuous improvement.

Given your rich experience in continuous improvement, you must have been exposed to other management frameworks. What are the other management frameworks that you are familiar with apart from OKRs?

Gerardo Haro “Yes, indeed. I have been using Hoshin Kanri for eight years. We have also been mixing in other frameworks, like OGSM or OGST, in cases where tactics or measures are used. Additionally, we have used the balanced scorecard as well. Of course, the very well-known MBO, or Managing by Objectives, is where we started. We then moved to something more structured, like Hoshin Kanri for the long term. We have been looking for something that helps us in the short term with execution, and that’s how we connected with OKRs.”

What is the history of OKRs at Intuitive Surgical, and how did you decide to implement them? How long have you been using OKRs?

Gerardo Haro elaborated, “That was a challenge for me in 2022. We started looking around to see what was available for short-term strategy execution and found that most of the software available used OKRs. We were initially using just Hoshin Kanri with action plans and all of that.

It became clear that we would be using something based on OKRs. This necessitated a change management process with the rest of the leadership team. So, I started mixing Hoshin Kanri and OKRs, finding a great way to make it easier internally by naming the X2’s objectives, or site objectives, as objectives in the OKRs and the X3’s as key results. Initially, we used spreadsheets or Smartsheets, naming one column ‘objective’ for the X2s and the other ‘key results’ for the X3s.

We started using the nomenclature for OKRs in 2023, but it wasn’t as solid as it is now until we adopted the Profit.co application. This transition provided valuable resources from Profit.co, including OKR University and website materials that are available to everyone. We could share the link with everyone and educate them about OKRs, strengthening our change management process. Now, everyone is talking about OKRs.”

What exactly did you want to achieve through OKRs? What is the purpose of using OKRs?”

Gerardo Haro replied, “It was about finding an easier way to communicate to my teams internally what an objective and a key result are. The terminology itself ‘objective’ and ‘key result’ is more intuitive. When using X2 and X3, it was difficult to explain what an X3 is and how it fits into the overall strategy.

With OKRs, the objective is strategic, and the key results are measurable efforts that help achieve that objective. This clarity made it easier for teams to understand that if an activity is part of their day-to-day tasks, it should be included as a key result only if it directly impacts the objective. We often ask, ‘Is it a key result or just a task?’ It doesn’t need to be included as a key result if it’s just a task. This approach helps us avoid having too many key results under one objective, keeping the focus on what truly impacts the objective.

Overall, OKRs were effective in improving communication, and they complemented Hoshin Kanri well. Together, they provided a clear and structured framework that helped our teams focus on what matters and drives strategic success.”

How did you decide on Profit.co and what was the selection process like? Did you consider other products as well?

Gerardo Haro: “Yes, we started the process by Googling ‘strategy execution software,’ and a list of software options came up. We began reaching out to the vendors on that list. Profit.co was one of the first to respond to our request for a demonstration.

Your team was really helpful in providing live demonstrations online. Some other vendors shared videos or links to explore, but Profit.co provided live-action demonstrations, which made a big difference for us. After evaluating all the options, we identified our current challenges with our existing method, which was using Smartsheet. Identifying who was involved, aligning objectives, and achieving the desired cascade approach took a lot of work.

During the demonstrations, we listed our opportunities for improvement and asked specific questions. Profit.co’s team showed us how to seamlessly align objectives and initiatives, which addressed our needs. We compared this with other applications and found that Profit.co met our requirements better than the others.

Another significant factor in choosing Profit.co was its user-friendly interface. Once we saw the platform and how information was integrated and displayed. It didn’t require extensive training or explanation, which is really helpful for us as program managers at Intuitive Surgical. The ease of use allowed us to get started quickly and efficiently.”

What else did you particularly like about Profit.co compared to other products?

Gerardo Haro added, “Yes, absolutely. The platform’s user-friendliness was a major plus. It was easy to understand and use immediately, without much training. This made it much easier for us to implement and start seeing the benefits immediately. It was a crucial factor in our decision.”

How many people did you start using the platform with?

Gerardo Haro: “We started with a very small group in the beginning. Initially, we had about 11 people involved in the process, primarily staff managers, along with a couple of people from my team working on the management of the initiatives. We planned to empower them to upload information and manage tasks for the next cycle. As we moved forward, we gradually expanded the number of users, and now we have a broader team working together on the platform.”

What was your experience with the implementation and onboarding process with Profit.co? How did the users feel about starting to use the product?

Gerardo Haro: “The implementation was really challenging because it was the first time we moved from something everyone knew well. When we transitioned from spreadsheets in Excel to Smartsheet, it was simpler because everyone was familiar with it. It was just another Smartsheet document. But with Profit.co, it was a completely different platform.

In the beginning, this small group of users had some ideas and were just barely clicking on the options available. The implementation team from Profit.co was incredibly helpful, even during the Christmas season. They provided training sessions that made our users feel more comfortable exploring the platform and understanding what views and types of information they could upload.

Having an expert from Profit.co available to answer questions was invaluable. They showed us how to use the platform effectively, explaining that we could generate useful reports if we input specific data. This support was crucial. Initially, it was challenging, but once users started using the platform and saw that nothing was highly complicated, they found it easier to navigate. They began exploring more and felt confident in reaching out for help if needed.

The Profit.co team was always ready to assist, helping us realign or correct any issues that arose. The implementation process was ultimately very successful with the proper training, communication, and change management.”

Apart from the initial implementation, have you faced any challenges with users adopting OKRs and using the system for check-ins?

Gerardo Haro, “The challenges have evolved over time. Initially, the challenge was getting people to engage with the platform encouraging them to click, explore, write, assign tasks, and change the type of tracking they used. It was about reducing the fear of using a new system.

Now, as more people use the platform and are in the execution phase, the main challenge is ensuring the information is available when needed. Specifically, check-ins have become a challenge. The check-in discipline is crucial, and it’s not always easy for teams to consistently provide updates on how things are progressing.

However, we use the check-in discipline dashboard to communicate how we perform in this area. The team must understand the impact of timely information and the risks of not updating the platform. We emphasize that it’s not just a nice-to-have feature but something that drives decisions.

As a program manager on this platform at Intuitive Surgical, I provide value by ensuring that my team has the right, objective information to make informed decisions. Whether they need to make a movement or change, it’s based on accurate data. This aligns with our focus on data-driven decision-making, ensuring that executive leadership has the right data through OKRs and the Profit.co platform to guide their strategies.”

As a continuous improvement manager and a very number-oriented individual, what are the benefits and advantages that you have seen so far?

Gerardo Haro, “One of the main benefits I’ve found in adopting the OKR framework is that it helps people, including myself, express objectives more clearly and specifically. Often, we talk about needing to improve a process or decrease something, but having the OKR framework makes it easier to articulate these goals in a way that is specific and measurable.

The platform drives us to create clear objectives. The framework makes it easier to structure these objectives by providing sections to specify the period, who is involved, and the type of tracking. This makes the objectives assignable and clear regarding how we will measure success.

It is also beneficial that the platform allows us to mix OKRs with the Hoshin Kanri approach. This combination is helpful for short-term strategy execution, providing a clear and structured way to manage and achieve our goals. The OKR framework and the Profit.co platform have made writing and managing objectives much easier, ensuring they are well-defined and aligned with our overall strategy.”

And in terms of using Profit.co as a tool, do you see any benefits or advantages?

Gerardo Haro, “One of the significant benefits we found, evident during our first quarterly review, was the reduction in time spent on reviews. Instead of having 14 sessions every quarter and spending around 30 hours, we now spend just one session of eight hours for the review. This translates to a 75% improvement in the time invested in reviews. Additionally, people spent a lot of time preparing information for these reviews. Previously, we used PowerPoint slides, which required everyone involved to create or update slides, spending over 90 hours. With Profit.co, we spend less than 14 hours on check-ins and use the same platform to provide all the necessary information on progress, problems, and plans. This has been a huge improvement. During our first review session with Profit.co, we asked the team for feedback, and they overwhelmingly preferred the new system over the old spreadsheets or PowerPoint method. People are thankful for the time saved and the efficiency gained with this change. It’s been a remarkable improvement, and we’re very happy with the platform.”

What is the future of your OKR program? What are your plans for the coming quarters? Are you planning any scaling up or specific initiatives?

Gerardo Haro, “This implementation was actually a pilot for us. Given the current success and adoption, our plan is to scale this to other sites as well. Our current site is located in Mexicali, Mexico, but we have many other manufacturing sites across the world. There’s growing interest from these sites in our strategy execution platform, and I’m receiving a lot of inquiries about Profit.co. I’m happy to show them how we are using the platform.

In the upcoming quarters, we plan to continue learning and refine our process. We intend to empower our teams to write their own objectives and key results and to assign tasks more independently. This will allow us to focus on other challenges while providing support and sharing our lessons learned with other teams interested in adopting the platform.

The idea is to scale the use of Profit.co across all Intuitive Surgical teams globally, leveraging the successes and experiences we’ve gained here in Mexicali.”

The chat ended with Profit.co thanking Gerardo for sharing his experience and expressing our excitement about the future and the continued success of Intuitive Surgical with Profit.co. Gerardo expressed his happiness with the Profit.co sales team, especially Vell and Aby, highlighting their key role in this success.