Quarterly Planning Meeting

This sample agenda for having effective quarterly planning meetings balances discussion of your day-to-day needs with the planning required for a successful long term strategy.

In the opening session, the executive team will look at past results and compare them with the plan. When productive, this discussion will reveal what is going well, but also what needs to be changed.

Following a brief break, it’s time to move on from the past and into the future. First, the leadership team will decide what the focus will be for the upcoming quarter. Then the discussion turns to how each individual executive can contribute to success by aligning their main priorities to the company focus. While this is a somewhat short section on the sample agenda, it will usually require the most time as part of the broader quarterly planning meeting.

Once priorities and actions have been decided, you must consider how the content of this meeting should be shared with the rest of the company. This is usually good material for an All Hands type of meeting, but that doesn’t mean that should be the only way information is disseminated. What information must be shared ASAP? What can wait?

Finally, summarize the key decisions made in the meeting, and together, commit to them. Because quarterly planning meetings can be mentally rigorous, this moment for reflection is to stop and say, “Wait a minute, what did we just agree on?” Doing this will help everyone leave the meeting with as clear a picture as possible on what will come next.