Quarterly Planning Workshop

Most quarterly plans are written well and forgotten fast. They live in a slide deck, cut off from the week everyone is actually living. By week three the urgent has eaten the important, and the plan is a document nobody opens.

The fix is not a better template. It is a plan that is clear all the way from your purpose down to this week — and one that lives where the work happens, in front of you and your team every day.

We build on the Rockefeller Habits One-Page Strategic Plan. It connects the long view to Monday morning: each layer answers one question and points the layer below it in the right direction.

Purpose — why does the business exist, beyond making money?

The foundation every other decision is tested against. When it is clear, trade-offs get easier and your team knows what it is protecting.

BHAG — what summit are you climbing?

Your Big Hairy Audacious Goal is the 10–25 year ambition that makes the business worth building. It rarely changes. The workshop checks that it still holds.

3–5 year thrusts — who does the business have to become?

Thrusts are the few big shifts — in capability, market or model — that close the gap between today and your BHAG, with revenue, profit and cash targets that make them measurable.

1-year initiatives — what has to be true by the end of this year?

Initiatives turn each thrust into a handful of moves for the next twelve months. Fewer than you would like, which is the point.

Quarterly rocks — what gets done in the next 90 days?

Three to five specific commitments that move this year's initiatives forward, each with one owner and a clear finish line. You also set the quarter's theme, the critical number you steer by, and the reward your team earns when it lands.

Every rock you write traces back up to your purpose, so everyone knows why it matters.

One day, four segments, and you write your own plan as we go.

Review the quarter that just ended. What you committed to, what actually happened, and what that tells you. Wins and misses are equally useful — both are information about how your business really behaves.

Check the long view. Is your purpose still true? Is your BHAG still the summit? Most quarters it holds. Some quarters it has quietly stopped being true, and finding that out is worth the day on its own.

Set your thrusts and this year's initiatives. Confirm the shifts the business is making, and choose the few moves this year that advance them.

Write three to five rocks. List everything the quarter could hold, rank it, cut it to the few that matter, and give each one an owner. Then set your theme, your critical number, and the scoreboard that keeps the rocks alive past week three.

We break for lunch. You leave with a finished plan.

You do not fill in a worksheet. You build your plan in Telos — the operating system our Accelerator clients run their companies on — with Sapience, its AI, working alongside you.

• A connected plan, not a document. Your purpose, BHAG, thrusts, initiatives and rocks live in Telos as real, linked objects. Every rock shows the initiative it serves.
• Sharper rocks, faster. Describe a rock in plain language and Sapience helps you turn it into a specific, measurable commitment with an owner and a finish line.
• An AI that knows your plan. Sapience works from the plan you actually wrote, so its answers are about your business, not generic advice.

Your Telos workspace opens the morning of the workshop and stays open for 10 days, for you and your team. That is where the plan turns into work.

1. Bring your team in. Invite your leadership team and the people who own the rocks, so everyone works from the same plan.
2. Turn each rock into a project. Ask Sapience to plan a project for a rock. It asks you a few questions, drafts the milestones and tasks, and nothing is created until you have reviewed it.
3. Hand the work to the people doing it. Assign tasks to your team, so every rock has people and dates behind it — not just a name.
4. Keep it moving. Ask Sapience what needs your attention this week, and it answers from your rocks, projects and tasks.

If Accelerator OS is right for you, your plan carries straight over.

A plan written in a day is good. A plan someone has pressure-tested is better.

With Workshop + Plan Review, you book a 45-minute one-on-one with Everett in the two weeks after the workshop. Bring the plan you built in Telos. Together you challenge your rocks, tighten your critical number, and make sure the plan holds up once your team gets hold of it.

Everett Bellingham is Measurable Genius's COO. He runs our own strategic planning every quarter, teaches the Rockefeller Habits to our Accelerator clients, and leads the strategic planning day at The Choice.

Plan Review is for new clients. If you are already in one of our programs, your program includes the workshop.

Owners of established service businesses, roughly 3 to 20 people, who are still the person everything routes through. You have run a few quarters on instinct and know what it costs: the important work keeps losing to the urgent work.

It is not a lecture, a framework PDF, or a recording to watch later. You build your own plan in the room, which means the day only works if you are in it.

Bring your current numbers — revenue, your key metric, where last quarter actually landed. Open last quarter's plan if you have one. You do not need any of it figured out; that is the day's job. But walking in with your numbers means we spend the day planning instead of gathering.

Block the whole day. Close the extra tabs. The owners who get the most out of this are the ones who give themselves permission to step out of the business for one day and work on it.