Quarterly goal setting can feel like a big waste of time.
At Google, Facebook, and other companies I’ve worked at – people hated the planning process.
But why? It sounds simple in theory, right?
- Kick off planning weeks in advance
- Align on quarterly goals with leadership
- Execute against the plan, checking in frequently
Here’s the problem with planning.
There’s the theory, and then there is the practice.
How Quarterly Planning Really Goes
Let’s be honest – here’s what usually happens:
- Kick off planning waaaaaay too late
- Everybody scrambles to define goals
- Roll over most goals from last quarter
- Some teams define 5 goals; some define 50
- Rushed goal review by leadership
- Uncomfortable pressure to commit to more
- Everybody forgets about goals weeks later
- Near end of quarter – “Oh $#%! Our goals!”
- Heated team debates over goal grading
- Leadership never looks at final grades
- Do it all over again for next quarter
Is it any surprise most product teams hate this process?
Quarterly Planning Done Right
So should you give up on quarterly planning?
No.
Planning is a tool. And tools are useful if used in the right way.
I’m going to share 3 strategies you can use to make quarterly planning a success:
- Optimize for predictability
- Introduce tactics to drive consistency
- Use Top 10 lists to run reviews efficiently
1) Optimize for Predictability
Which team helps you run your business effectively?
If I told you Team 1 has 2x the number of goals – does it change your mind?
Probably not.
As a Product Leader – you must synchronize multiple roadmaps, marketing campaigns, stakeholder updates, resource allocation, budgets, and more against a single timeline.
You need to optimize for predictability.
The Strategy
Typically – leadership uses quarterly planning for accountability.
“Are my teams working hard enough?”
This results in leaders pushing teams to commit to more. They value volume over consistency.
Don’t make this mistake. Assume your teams are working hard. There are other tools better suited to improve accountability (e.g. performance reviews).
Instead, during your next quarterly planning – ask your teams “How can we be more predictable next quarter?”
The Benefits
If you build a culture that values consistency of delivery over volume:
- Teams will feel less pressure to overcommit
- Goals stop rolling over quarter-to-quarter
- Grading becomes much less contentious
- Dependencies become much easier to manage
The Advice
For this to work – it is critical teams believe they are being graded on the quality of their predictions, and not the quality of their efforts.
Be a broken record. Keep emphasizing quarterly planning is about achieving consistent results, quarter after quarter.
And I know what you may be thinking.
“Hey – my teams can be predictable if they commit to very little work!”
The goal is not to do as little work as possible in the name of consistency.
But focus on consistency first.
Then you can focus on improving throughput.
2) Introduce Tactics to Drive Consistency
How would you grade these quarterly goals?
✔ Objective: Improve KPI by 20%
✘ Key result: Create new KPI dashboard
✔ Key result: Launch KPI improvement #1
✘ Key result: Launch KPI improvement #2
It’s not clear. Only 1 out of 3 key results were achieved – but the overall objective was achieved.
Was the team successful? Half successful?
Also – is the objective to improve the KPI for the sake of improving? Or is that a key result, in service of a bigger objective?
We can solve all this by introducing the concept of tactics.
The Strategy
Tactics separate the why and the what from the how.
They make each part of the goal clear and of the right granularity.
If we rewrite the quarterly goals, grading becomes straightforward:
✔ Objective: Become market leader in Europe
✔ Key result: Improve KPI by 20%
Tactic: Create new KPI dashboard
Tactic: Launch KPI improvement #1
Tactic: Launch KPI improvement #2
The overall objective is to become market leader in Europe.
The key result – the milestone this quarter in service of that bigger objective – is to improve a KPI by 20%.
How to improve the KPI – those are the tactics. Tactics can change. The team is predicting they can achieve the key result this quarter. How they achieve it – that is up to them.
Remember – don’t grade tactics!
The Benefits
By introducing the concept of tactics:
- Teams will have fewer, more meaningful goals (key results)
- Comparing goals across teams becomes easier
- Reviews are faster – focus on the why and what, not how
The Advice
- Don’t limit the number of tactics. Team members want to feel represented – they want their projects highlighted during planning. Tactics are only discussed if time permits, so it won’t slow you down.
3) Use Top 10 Lists to Run Reviews Efficiently
Quarterly goal reviews are often rushed or skipped for the following reasons:
- Fear of reporting bad results
- Poorly defined, hard-to-review goals
- Too many goals to discuss
We’ve solved #1 – optimize for predictability, not accountability.
We’ve solved #2 – introduce the concept of tactics.
We can solve #3 – time crunch – by introducing Top 10 lists.
The Strategy
Each team nominates their top 10 goals. If 10 is too much – go with top 3, or top 5.
These top goals will be discussed, at every review, on a consistent basis.
Time-permitting – sure, discuss the remaining goals. But if time runs out – it’s okay.
Ultimately, for reviews to be useful, they have to be consistent. Otherwise, you end up talking about too few goals deeply, or too many goals superficially.
To make this even more powerful – every layer of the org should pick its own top 10. If you lead two teams – each team should have their top 10 goals, but pick 10 total to report upwards. Otherwise – it just doesn’t scale.
The Benefits
By introducing the concept of Top 10 goals:
- Reviews are easier to prep for
- Reviews yield useful discussions
- Reviews finish on time
The Advice
- This strategy requires deep trust by you that your teams are working hard on all goals. They are.
- This strategy requires deep trust by your teams that all goals matter, not just the ones discussed. They do. Remind them, frequently.
- Review top goals in most-to-least risky order to front-load important discussions.
When Quarterly Planning Works
Quarterly planning is useful. But it has to be done right.
Invest the time to fix the tool, and you will reap the benefits.
Imagine leading teams that plan their work, then work their plans – quarter after quarter.
You inform your end users, stakeholders, and company exactly when you will deliver them value. And then you do it.
Driving value, time and time again – that is the mark of a great Product Leader.
