Top 7 Tips for Effective Quarterly Reviews

Progress reviews are a vital component of the strategic planning review phase and essential in order to maintain course towards your goals and vision.

Rather than being an arduous and stressful experience as many are, how do you make them a productive, positive experience that all, on both sides of the table and at all management levels, benefit from?

Here are my top 7 tips for holding effective, positive and mutually beneficial quarterly reviews.

1. Change the attitude

As a manager running the quarterly review meeting not only do you need to have a positive attitude towards them you also need to instil that positive attitude into your team. Quarterly reviews need to be seen in a positive light. If your people view it as a necessary evil and a burden which they would rather do without then it is down to you to change that attitude.

Highlight the purpose and benefits of having the review meetings both for you and for your team. Why do you have them? Why do you want the information you ask for? What do you do with the information? How will the person presenting to you benefit? What can be discussed? They might work for you but their job is important and they deserve to know that their time is being used productively.

If you struggle to answer these questions then why do you hold these meetings? Spend time to establish positive reasons in your own mind before you try and convince your people. Having established the reasons for having the meetings set the expectations.

Outline how the person or team presenting will benefit. It is not just an opportunity for you to receive the information you need; it is also an opportunity for your team to raise any issues or concerns or to ask any questions about the strategic direction of the company.

2. Preparation is everything

If the preparation of the quarterly review is onerous then it is already viewed in a negative light before it has even been held. Create an agenda of the information you need. If it is not obvious, make sure your people understand why you need the information and how it relates to the strategy plan. (If it doesn’t then it shouldn’t be on the agenda.)

Ideally, the quarterly review will be a summary of the key findings of the quarter which will have been highlighted in weekly and monthly meetings. You have your strategy plan, business plan, planning tables and your scorecards, hence the bulk of the material needed for the meeting should already exist.

With these documents there should be little further material to prepare. When I was working in component distribution my quarterly review preparation with a semiconductor manufacturer comprised completing nearly 40 pages of tables. It took days to prepare and took me and a colleague away from the business. This increased workload and stress and set the tone for the meeting itself.

Don’t request information that can be gleaned from your ERP or CRM systems. Your systems should tell you who bought what, when and how many. Have that in place and use the meeting to discuss key opportunities, projects, goals and objectives in the strategy plan.

Involve your team in the preparation process. Once you’ve drafted the agenda, put it to your team and give them the opportunity to add subjects they wish to discuss. If the subject is not relevant for the quarterly review then discuss it separately. Either way, you have given your people an opportunity to highlight things they would like to discuss which they will appreciate see quarterly reviews in a more positive light.

3. Have an effective meeting

Everyone is extremely busy, you included. Create a tight agenda and stick to it. If someone asks a question or raises a subject that isn’t on the agenda then make a note of it to discuss on another occasion.

Your weekly and monthly meetings should keep your business on track so use the quarterly review meetings to discuss any major issues that these interim meetings have highlighted or new opportunities that have come to light. If your company has strayed off course discuss why and debate whether the fault lies with a goal or target in the strategy plan or with the implementation of the plan. Has a new opportunity come up that wasn’t planned for but is too good to ignore? Has a new threat been brought to your attention that you have no mitigating plan for?

If you need to change the strategy plan then this is the time to do it (not at the end of the year) but make sure the impact this will have on the rest of the plan and the company is well understood and managed.

The quarterly and monthly meetings should be lively, positive meetings that engage everyone. Share ideas, brainstorm, learn, support each other and make decisions that continue to drive the company towards its vision.

4. Learn and Adapt

If the plan needs to be changed then change it. A strategy plan needs to be a living, breathing entity and not a document that hides in a draw until year-end. Changing the priorities in the plan is not necessarily a sign of a weak plan (although it can be) but a reflection of the flexibility of your company to be able to exploit a new opportunity when one is presented.

Ensure that any changes to the plan are communicated throughout the company giving the reasons why. Those that are affected by the change in the plan need to understand the reasons and ideally agree with them. If someone is being taken off something he or she has been working for months on then it is important that they understand why so that their motivation and drive is not dented.

5. Give feedback

Too many reviews are completed and the information passed up the management chain without any communication back down. Those that have spent hours in preparation for the meeting and in being grilled during it, go on with their jobs relieved that the experience is over for another quarter. They hear nothing as to the decisions that have been made based on the information that they provided.

Tell your people what has been learned and the decisions that have been taken based on that information. If information or issues raised have resulted in a change in the strategy plan then explain that. Show that the information was well received and used for the good of the company. Even if no major change was implemented, highlight that the information and reviews have shown that all is well and that the company is on course to achieving the goals set.

Your people will be far more motivated if they know that the information they provide is valued and helps keep the company on course.

6. Be in the room

Day-to-day work pressures have a habit of invading quarterly review meetings. If it is a small regional team review meeting then you and your team may appear focused but minds can wonder. Again, make sure the importance of the meeting is well understood and that everyone needs to “stay in the room”. If necessary take the meeting off-site to reduce the chances of interruption.

The more they’re involved with the agenda, the more feedback given which highlights how their information has helped keep the company on course the more everyone will appreciate their worth and the need to give it the attention it deserves.

The higher up the corporate management chain the bigger the meetings tend to be. Decisions at this level can affect the direction of the company and yet ironically it is often harder to keep minds focused and in the room. Laptops are open, phones are on silent but still communicating and people are thinking about what’s going on back in the office.

Rather than dive straight into the meeting, begin with a summary of where the company should be according to the strategy plan, remind your team of the goals and milestones that were set, present where the company actually is with respect to the plan, highlight issues that have been raised that could knock the company off course and new opportunities that the company could exploit. This should focus everyone in the room and be a strong prelude for a productive meeting. Everyone needs to be focused and if that means banning laptops and phones then so be it.

7. Have a system

Weekly, monthly and quarterly reviews are part of the Review phase of the strategic planning system. If this system works well then the goals, objectives and means for achieving them are well known and documented and tracked by scorecards.

With an effective system in place, reviews don’t need to be the dreaded trials that they often are. They can be positive, informative, thought-provoking experiences that are not only essential to keeping the company on track but which can give birth to new and exciting ideas that can contribute to the long-term success of a company.

Last word...

Build a positive culture around review meetings. Make sure everyone knows how important they are and the affect the information has on the success of the company.

Have a system in place that keeps the preparation down to a minimum so the focus can be on resolving issues, discussing new ideas and adapting the plan to stay on course.