Creating a Quarterly Plan

Agree on the right handful of priorities to drive your team forward and get aligned for a successful 13-week race

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Why Quarterly Planning Matters

If you don’t plan for a great quarter, how can you expect to have a great quarter or a great year? Here are some specific reasons why Quarterly Planning is important:

• Ensure alignment and build momentum to achieve your annual and long-term goals
• Focus your team's energy on the most important priorities 
• Surface the right discussions in your weekly team meetings

Building Your Team's Quarter Plan

Most companies meet for a 1 or 2 day planning session to build an execution plan for the quarter. Here's what we recommend before, during and after your session:

1. Prepare for your session
   1. Set up your Planning Meeting: Go to Team Quarter Plan and choose the Planning Meetings tab. Create a meeting record, invite the team, and customize the agenda. You can also download a slide deck to use in your session from here.
   2. Send out prep work: We recommend asking participants to use the Idea Board for a Start, Stop, Keep exercise. You can also ask the team to update the current status of any Annual Priorities they own and come prepared with any data or insights to have the right discussions during planning based on your agenda.
2. Run the session. You can follow the detailed best practice agenda in the Quarter Planning Meeting you created. Here are the key elements of the Quarter Plan you need to determine as a team:
   1. Quarter Focus: Go to Team Quarter Plan and choose the Quarter Focus tab to record your Main Thing, describe success, and how you will celebrate.
   2. Top 3-5 Quarter Priorities for the Team: Agree on the most important priorities together and record them with Red Yellow Green success criteria. Link them to relevant Company Team Priorities, Annual Priorities or Winning Moves they support. You can also check the box to add the new Team goal to the Quarter Plan Dashboard before you hit save.
   3. Top 3-5 Individual Priorities: Each person should identify and share their top priorities as an individual along with Red Yellow Green success criteria. Link them to the team's quarter priorities, and record 3-5 milestone Tasks for each.
   4. Review KPIs: Ensure you are measuring the right things to support your plan. Add an end date to any KPIs that are no longer relevant for your team, and adjust the Red Yellow Green success criteria as needed for the new quarter.
3. Test the Plan. Use the Plan Tests tab under Team Quarter Plan to review your plan before sharing it with the rest of the company and cascading it to other teams and departments.