Quarterly planning
“Every team plans its own quarter, and the plans don’t add up.”
Your teams plan the quarter together, from the company’s goals, so the plans fit and the trade-offs are made before the quarter starts.
Sound familiar?
“We don’t plan, we’re Agile.”
Then the quarter fills up with surprises.
“Our plan is 20 pages, and nobody reads it.”
It never changes, and the person who wrote it takes every comment as an attack.
“We find out about the dependency in week eight.”
Another team was counting on you, and nobody said so.
What we do
Your teams plan the quarter together, from the company’s goals. Each team writes a short plan, one or two pages, and reviews it with the teams it depends on, so the plans fit and the trade-offs are made before the quarter starts. Then you keep the plan alive: when a conflict shows up mid-quarter, you change the plan and fix it.
What it looks like when it works
Each team’s plan fits on a page, and people read it.
Dependencies show up in planning, not in week eight.
When a conflict shows up, you fix it in days, because the plan is easy to change.
How it runs
1
Before: the leadership team agrees the company’s goals for the quarter, and each team drafts its plan.
2
The workshop: the teams bring their plans together, find where they clash or depend on each other, and make the trade-offs.
3
After: I follow up when we agree, to see what’s working and what isn’t, and support you as much or as little as you need.
You leave with
One plan for the quarter that every team can explain, and the trade-offs already made.
Formats
A planning workshop for the leadership team, or for every team lead
Reviews of each team’s One Page Plan before the workshop
In person or online, flexible from a couple of hours to a day
Case studies
From the founders' circle to one leadership team
Series C B2B SaaS scale-up, a few hundred people
A Series C B2B SaaS scale-up got its leadership team deciding together, and one OKR session cut a six-month project for 20 people to two months for three.
Read more
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OKRs that worked after a failed first attempt
Series D SaaS startup
A Series D SaaS startup whose own OKRs had failed got them working, then used them to break the bottleneck stopping it scaling.
Read more
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A strategy reset that broke a risky dependency
Seed-stage SaaS startup, about 30 people
A seed-stage SaaS startup of about 30 people reset its strategy in a one-day offsite, broke its dependence on a single platform, and pivoted fast when that platform changed.
Read more
+
Try it yourself first
Execution
The One Page Plan: your team’s quarter on one page
How to write a short plan for your quarter, review it with the people it affects, and keep it alive until the work is done.
Read →
OKRs
How to set OKRs with your team in a week
A day-by-day process for setting OKRs with your team: strategy on Monday, final OKRs on Friday.
Read →
Who you’ll be working with
I spent six years at Google, then two at Amazon, where I led a 100-person organisation. Since then I’ve worked with 16 startup leadership teams, as a facilitator, trainer and coach.
I run every session myself.
What usually comes next: Quarterly kick-off · Mid-quarter review
Know someone this would help?
Richard runs quarterly planning where the teams plan together, so the plans add up and the trade-offs are made up front.
Next steps
Start with a free, 20-minute Clarity Call. Confidential, and no preparation needed.