Communication Essentials for Every Team: The Quarterly Plan

The quarterly off-site is where the annual strategy meets reality. It is where you check whether you are still building the right thing, set the three to five priorities that matter most in the next 90 days, and leave with a team that is pointed in the same direction.

Keep in Mind

Ideally, have an external facilitator host the session, so that you, as the leader, can participate as a participant, rather than a leader who may (inadvertently) encourage the authority bias and bandwagon effect.
As the leader, consider offering your input last, after everyone else has had a chance to contribute and be heard.
Resist the pull to fill every moment with answers. Some of the most useful work happens when a team sits with a hard question long enough to find the honest one underneath it.
If you don’t have one or two days or can’t get off-site or external facilitator, do the best you can with the resources you have. Even half a day, hosted in a boardroom with catering, is worth doing. Progress over perfection!
Below is a generic agenda. Edit/amend/delete to suit your organisation, team, priorities, metrics and language.
You may not yet have some of the elements in place (core purpose, values, big hairy, audacious goal (BHAG), three-to-five-year targets) before the session. Let this session be a catalyst to start getting them in place, but don’t let that stop you starting the annual planning process. Again, progress over perfection.
Rocks = priorities you want to progress. Make them clear, specific and measurable.
Allocate a time-keeper to ensure you keep moving and don’t get stuck.

Before the Session

1. Prepare (1–2 weeks prior)

Gather the data. Financials, KPIs, quarterly metrics, customer feedback, employee feedback. Everyone should arrive having read these, not hearing them for the first time.
Review your rocks. Which quarterly priorities from last quarter were completed? Which were not? What got in the way?
Send pre-work questions. Ask each participant to reflect on: What went well? What did not? What is the one thing we most need to address?
Set the agenda. Circulate it in advance. People do better thinking when they know what is coming.

During the Session

2. Review (Morning – approx. 2 hrs)

Last quarter scorecard. Walk through results honestly. Which rocks were completed? Where did performance land against targets?
What worked. Name it specifically. What decisions, behaviours, or conditions drove the wins?
What did not work. No blame, but honest. What slowed you down? What would you do differently?
Customer and employee pulse. What are you hearing? Any patterns worth paying attention to before you plan forward?

3. Orientate (Late morning – approx. 1.5 hrs)

Annual plan check. You are one quarter further in. Is the annual plan still the right plan? What has changed in the market, the team, or the context?
SWOT refresh. Keep it brief and honest. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats. What has shifted since you last looked?
One critical question. What is the single most important thing we need to figure out or decide before we set priorities?

4. Set Priorities (Afternoon – approx. 2 hrs)

Identify quarterly rocks. Three to five priorities that, if completed, move the annual plan forward meaningfully. (Note: focus on outcomes, not tasks.)
Assign ownership. Every rock has one person accountable for it.
Define success. What does done look like? How will you know each rock is complete?
Set the quarterly theme. One unifying phrase or idea that captures the spirit of the quarter. Something the whole organisation can understand and feel.

5. Cascade Plan (End of session – 1 hr)

Agree the communication. How will you share the priorities with the wider team? Who will say what, and when?
Identify blockers. What could get in the way? Name them now, while you are all in the room.
Confirm the weekly rhythm. How will you track the rocks week by week? When is the first check-in?
Close with energy. End the session with something that reconnects people to why their work matters.

After the Session

6. Follow Through (Within 48 hours)

Circulate the summary. Rocks, owners, and the quarterly theme in writing. Brevity matters. One page if possible – even if it’s A3! You might like to try/edit a version from Scaling Up.
Share with the team. Communicate the priorities to the broader organisation within the week. People work better when they understand the direction.
Enter rocks into your tracking system. Weekly huddles and meetings then become the mechanism for keeping them visible.

Three Outputs Every Quarterly Session Should Produce

The Rocks: Three to five priorities. Each with a single owner and a clear definition of done.
The Theme: One unifying idea for the quarter that the whole team can understand and connect to.
The Cascade: A clear plan for how the priorities are communicated to the people who need to act on them.

Examples of Quarterly Themes

Quarterly themes tend to be more targeted than annual themes. They answer the question: what does this 90 days need from us?

Themes can be bought to life with custom scoreboards, desktop wallpapers, morning tea launches and symbols/artefacts. At the end of the 90 days, you might have a team get-together based on the theme, for example if your quarterly theme is ‘Clean the Engine’, you might take the team to do laps with a professional race car driver, if it’s Record the Recipe, take a cooking class together.

Fix the Leaky Bucket – a quarter focused on retention, whether customers or people
Know the Customer – deep listening, research, getting closer to who you serve
Clean the Engine – internal systems, processes, and things that have been too long ignored
Record the Recipe – focus on documentation and documenting processes
Ship It – a quarter where the priority is finishing things, not starting them
Win the Room – sales focus, pitching, new business
The Quiet Quarter – fewer priorities, more depth, protect the team’s focus
Build the Bench – people development, succession, hiring
Make It Repeatable – turning one-off wins into systems and processes