Effective Quarterly Planning Process
Know Your Purpose
Quarterly Planning Meeting Preparation
Quarterly Planning Agenda
Three months prior you should set the date, place and time. Determine who should come and secure a facilitator for the quarterly alignment meeting. The facilitator can be the CEO or any team member. We strongly advise companies larger than $10mm in revenue with 50 or more employees to use an outside facilitator, your team will have a more successful session with an impartial view at the helm. If you are going to do-it-yourself, Download this step-by-step Meeting Facilitation Guide
One month prior, you should hold a pre-planning meeting with a core group to review your Annual Plan and determine the meeting objectives. Discuss strategic and operational topics that might be useful during the session and gather as much employee and customer feedback as possible.
You need to send out the agenda for the quarterly team meeting one week prior. Also, give the team homework and create a place for them to state what they think the company should Start Doing, Keep Doing, and Stop Doing to be successful. Make sure the meeting room is stocked with all your facilitation tools.
We have done some of the pre-session work for you!
Download the Pre-Quarterly Planning Agenda and Planning Bundle:
- Quarterly Meeting Planning Checklist
- Quarterly Planning Agenda
- Start-Stop-Keep Tool w/Directions
Appoint a Professional Quarterly Planning Meeting Facilitator
Preferably not the CEO or an executive team member.
When designating a facilitator, consider this: when senior team members facilitate your important planning meetings, it can cause participants to withhold agendas or thoughts, to resist challenging others, not to be challenged in their thinking, and not to be fully engaged.
If you are a company with over 50 employees and $10mm in revenue, we suggest hiring an outside facilitator to bring out the best in your team and you. We have an excellent resource on the Value of Outside Facilitation for Quarterly and Annual Planning for you to read and determine if that is the best for your organization.
If you are the CEO, it is almost impossible to participate and facilitate your own planning session simultaneously. Your team is already used to giving your opinions. Couple the power of being the CEO with the power of being the facilitator, and your opportunity to listen, learn, and get the best ideas from your team falls dramatically. Instead, pass the facilitation duties to someone else and immerse yourself in the meeting. Your ideas and contribution to the talks will be much more than you're facilitating the meeting.
If
Welcome(15 min)
- Confirm Objectives
- Review Agenda
Quarter Planning Opening Session
Set a great tone for the day. Start by having each member share good news or victories and then share learnings. Make sure to remind the team of your Annual Plan so you can confirm that Quarterly Goals are helping to move the Annual Plan forward.
• Check-In and Good News (15 min)
• Review the Ending Quarter (1 hour)
- Results
- Bright Spots
- Lessons Learned
• Review Prep Work (1 hour)
- Review Start, Stop, Keep
• Review Annual Plan (1 hour)
- YTD Progress
- Opportunities
- Threats
Lunch (1 hour)
Quarterly Execution Plan
It’s time to get the detailed work. Focus on being effective, not efficient. Take the proper time to get your team involved by discussing, debating, and agreeing on decisions. Make sure to test that your Quarterly Plan is helping you drive your Annual Plan forward.
• Main Thing and Critical Numbers (30 min)
• Company Top 3-5 Priorities (1 hour)
- Determine Top Priorities
- Assign an Owner to Each
- Set Red-Yellow-Green Success Criteria
• Individual Top 3-5 Priorities (1 hour)
- Determine Top Priorities
- Assign an Owner to Each
- Set Red-Yellow-Green Success Criteria
Test the Plan (15 min)
Communication Plan for the Rest of the Firm (15 min)
Wrap Up (15 min)
Cascade Quarterly Plan Across the Company
Communicate the executive plan so each department can align to the goals.
For each department to align its goals for the quarter to the company's, they need to know the plan. Sharing plans across all departments can be challenging, especially when you have ten or more groups, geographic disbursement and/or the inability to pull a whole team at once (like a 24-hour support team). For CEOs to close the strategy execution gap, they need to take this step to get everyone on the same page.
Here are some ideas that work:
Quarterly Planning Town Hall
This is a great format if your company has five or fewer Groups and everyone is located in the same office. In this example, the Executive Team and each of the Groups have already completed their plans. The next step is to have a Town Hall-style meeting where the Company Plan is shared and then Group Plans are shared, which we call cascade planning. Have an open discussion on cross-functional priorities and finalize things as a team.
Cascade Planning Offsite
This is a great format for companies with people spread out over multiple locations. It accomplishes quarterly planning and gets everyone face time with one another once a quarter. In this example, the Executive Team has finalized the Company Plan, but the Groups haven’t planned yet. Depending on the number of groups, it can take one or two days. From a high level, the agenda is: CEO shares the Company Plan with everyone; Groups go into breakout sessions to complete their plans; Groups get back together to share plans across departments and negotiate cross-functional quarterly priorities. Remember that a 90-day plan is a fixed amount of time - don't overload your team! Having fewer priorities done right is better than having an overextended team that doesn't execute against its plan.
Zoom Quarterly Planning
Teams are connected via web conferencing software like Skype, Zoom or Microsoft Teams. This format requires a facilitator to lead the call and some advanced preparation to identify conflicts ahead of time. Make sure that all of the participants use the video feed so that you can better communicate with each other and get the most out of your time together.
Virtual in Software
Rhythm strategy execution software is a great format for companies that cannot travel to meet in person or cannot pull everyone off the front lines at once. For example, the Executive Team has finalized the Company Plan, and the Groups have the first draft of their plans in Rhythm. Next, Group Leaders use their team’s regular Weekly Meeting time to review the other Group plans. If they see priorities that raise a question or concern, the Group Leader records a Comment on that priority and notifies the necessary people immediately. Negotiations and finalizing of the plans
