Rhythm v5 - World's Best Business Strategy Execution Software Platform!

We are excited to announce the launch of Rhythm version 5!  This is our best version of the Rhythm platform ever.  It is a refinement of 15 years of design and innovation built on the input and feedback of thousands of great client users.  What started as a basic system to record your company's one page strategic plan and status goals has evolved into a powerful business execution platform that provides the world's best strategy execution, work management, goal dashboards, people performance management, and collaboration across the enterprise.  Here are some highlights of the new platform.

Redesigned User Experience

We redesigned the user experience to help you get right down to work.  You have a job to get done and you want to do that in a simple and effective way.  You want a simple system to manage your work so you can grow as an individual and with your team.  With Rhythm v5 we made everything easier while improving the power you need.  Rhythm makes it easy to create SMART goals, see all the relevant information about those goals, and work with your team to achieve success.  Our goals lists show everything you need, minimizing clicks and helping you to make better decisions faster.  In a glance you can know who is responsible for what and by when.  You can also see the specific and measurable result expected for each goal being worked.

New Home Screen

You can easily update your goals, manage your tasks, and prepare for weekly meetings from one simple home screen.  One screen, endless possibilities.

New Goal Dashboards

We created new Goal Dashboards to give leaders a simple and clean visual of how your team is performing to hit their numbers and complete their projects. Leaders no longer need to go from system to system, report to report, meeting to meeting, to understand your team's performance.

Our new Goal Dashboards will give you a single “Control Tower” view of the numbers and projects you care most about in one simple visual.

New People EnergyMap

We created a People EnergyMap to show you how each of your team members are performing right now.  Leaders also struggle to know how each team member is performing to hit their numbers and finish their projects. They often have a story in their head about how various team members are performing, but lack a clear visual to see the facts objectively.

You can easily see your team member’s focus and their workload. As a team leader, you can find invisible tasks that your team has that you may not know about. You can see who is making that request and work better with other team members across the company. You can see goal information for all your direct reports and for anyone else who is working on goals for your team that may not report to you directly.

This powerful visual helps you see individual team performance and cross functional team performance across the whole enterprise.

The EnergyMap visual is extremely difficult to create and track with Excel or Google Sheets.  And we have a patent on it.  :-)

New Annual Planning Canvas

You need an execution plan to hit your numbers for the year. These plans are complex to create and involve collaboration by many team members. Ideas need to be discussed, debated, and decided on.
Our Annual Planning Canvas gives you an online tool to have those discussions and create your Annual Execution Plan.

This type of tool is even more vital now that many work remotely and are not able to be in person when doing Annual Planning. You can easily brainstorm your Annual Priorities and the Quarter Goals to achieve them.

Once the team has discussed, debated, and decided on what will be actual execution goals for the year and quarter, you can easily create them right from this screen. This saves a lot of typing time and keeps everything organized. No need to transcribe the goal information from the white board or flip charts or copy and paste from a spreadsheet to create your KPIs or Priorities. You can do it directly from the Plan Breakdown tool and use the plan information you already recorded in your brainstorming work together.

New Meetings Capabilities

Our meetings capabilities have improved to help you organize and achieve more in your collaboration time together with your teams. Using our meetings features will help you understand your desired outcome, craft effective agendas, brainstorm ideas, and put those ideas into action.

Use our Best Practice Agenda Templates to guide your discussions to winning outcomes. Here is an example of our best practice agenda for a quarterly planning session. You can use these as a starting point and then customize them to what works best for your team.

Use our Idea Boards in your meetings to brainstorm solutions to problems and move from idea to execution in just one click!

New People Performance Management Capabilities

Unclear roles and unclear goals create stress, lack of accountability, and poor performance in an organization. Each person deserves to know exactly what they are responsible for and how success will be measured. Completing Job Scorecards will help you clarify each role in your company.

We’ve had this capability for years, but with version 5 you can now create Job Scorecards for current Rhythm users and also for open roles or positions you haven’t hired yet.

Easy Manager 1-1 Meetings

Managers often have 1-1 meetings with their direct reports and need an effective tool to organize and capture the outcomes of those discussions.

Many managers new to their role find these discussions difficult and awkward, so they put them off or don't even do them. With Rhythm you can easily create your Manager 1-1 meetings and use our best practice agendas and reports to help you achieve winning outcomes. This takes a lot of stress and anxiety out of the process for the manager and their staff members.

You can now log your discussion notes using our best practice templates and new rich text note taking capabilities.

These are just a few of the many innovations and improvements in Rhythm v5.  If you are a client jump into the new features head first!  We know you will love it.  If you aren't a client yet, contact us to talk about how Rhythm can help you gain better execution in your company. Not sure if it is right for you?  5 Signs You Need Strategy Software for Execution

-Ryan Walcott

Find more information in our 3-5 year strategic planning resource center.

Additional articles you might find useful:

5 Best Practices to Manage Remote Employees

How to Engage Remote Employees

How to Use Daily Huddles to Stay Aligned with Remote Teams

5 Steps to Having a Productive Virtual Monthly Meeting

The Anatomy of a Great Quarterly Plan (Infographic)

Rhythm Systems Quarterly Planning Resource Center

Rhythm Systems Annual Planning Resource Center