How to get your team laser-focused for the year ahead
A planning framework for early-stage startup leaders to align their organizations on the right work at the right time
Q4 is the time for annual planning. It’s when startup leaders in nearly every industry spend their time setting goals for the upcoming year, and working with their teams to establish a plan to achieve them.
That sounds doable, right? It’s actually incredibly challenging, and here’s why: In every startup, there is never a shortage of good ideas, and always a shortage of resources. Saying no to good ideas is tough, no doubt. But if those good ideas aren’t the right ideas for this particular moment in time – if they aren’t the most likely ideas to help the business achieve the right outcomes right now – then saying no is imperative.
This blog post proposes a simple planning framework for early-stage startup leaders to say yes to right work to achieve the right outcomes for their business. This framework is informed by years of practical experience in startup leadership, as well as supporting a significant number of highly accomplished CEOs, founders, and leadership teams in our executive coaching practice. It utilizes foundational concepts from methodologies like Design Thinking, Double Diamond, OKRs, and Lean Startup.
Please keep in mind that the planning framework is not linear. As in Design Thinking methodology, for example, each step may produce new understanding that may affect the previous step. This is an ongoing process of iteration, triangulation, and refinement.
Determine your north star for the next year
At the heart of this planning framework is Pracademic Coaching’s unique approach of thinking ahead to act now. We combine psychology and practical management expertise to help our clients envision the desired future state for their organizations, communicate that vision effectively to ensure alignment, and unlock their teams to act with conviction in the present.
In the context of annual planning, we encourage our clients to continuously iterate on their multi-year company roadmap. A clearly documented roadmap depicts the current state, and the desired future state – and therefore illuminates the delta between where you are and where you need to be.
The delta defines where you need to focus. Let’s consider an example where you’re an early-stage startup that has raised pre-seed funding via angel investment. If one year from now, you will be raising your seed round of funding, then your efforts in the next year should align to demonstrating the right progress to your target investors to get the most favorable terms. The outcome you’re trying to drive is to achieve proper funding to pursue the longer-term goals on your roadmap.
Make it that simple (which is harder than it seems). Be certain that this is the most important thing to do in the next year to advance your company’s roadmap. Consider alternate possibilities. Pressure-test them, gather data, validate assumptions, and come back with conviction to the most important next milestone.
This is your north star for the next year. Your entire organization should say yes to things that will help you get there, and say no to things that won’t, even if they’re great ideas.
Define what success looks like and how you will measure it
In our example company, the key results at the highest level are the ideal parameters of the seed round: $X raised, at Y valuation, from Z sources, plus any other important terms.
The next level down is where the rubber meets the road. It will require a bit of iteration to understand the minimum viable product progress (an alternate interpretation of MVP) that is needed to achieve the desired fundraising outcome.
If you’re working on a three-track approach involving direct-to-consumer sales, retail distribution, and community engagement, you might triangulate your goals by exploring the following questions:
Is progress in all three areas needed to achieve the desired fundraising outcome?
For each track, what is the single most important success metric?
Is it reasonably possible to achieve success given current staff and time allotment?
Does your hiring plan account for increasing staff accordingly?
If you’re stretched too thin (and every startup is stretched too thin), would it be more advantageous to do well at two tracks, and use the next round of funding to advance the third?
The work of exploring these questions and refining your goals is difficult, and necessary to reach alignment on the most important areas of focus for the next year and how you’ll measure success.
Identify quarterly milestones
The overall business strategy of the company comprises the steps above. Accordingly, this work is usually led by the CEO and conducted by the founders/executive leaders.
Your entire company needs to be laser-focused on implementing the strategy. Here’s how to do it. As we move from an annual to a quarterly view, your staff should be driving the planning process. Each track should have one leader. That person may or may not be a founder/executive. However, it’s important to recognize the hat being worn during each part of the planning process.
The leader of each track receives as input the success metric they are asked to drive. They are also assigned a team whose sole focus should be making their track succeed. Let there be no ambiguity as to how the team’s success will be measured.
The leader is responsible for creating a plan to achieve the success metric. This typically starts by identifying quarterly milestones to reach the annual goal, and probably some rough idea of the initiatives to be conducted in each quarter.
Sanity-checking is important here. Is this leader’s track staffed appropriately to reach these quarterly milestones? Is there sufficient budget allocated to succeed? Are there any blockers or dependencies on other parts of the organization?
The answers to these questions will feed back from the track level to the executive leadership level, and the strategy should be refined accordingly.
Plan and conduct the initiatives for the next quarter
On a quarterly basis, the leader and staff of each track should be able to identify the initiatives and projects that are most likely to achieve the quarterly milestones, and plan them at a more detailed level.
We caution against falling into the trap of Agile development, where only the next sprint is planned. It’s simply not possible to achieve audacious goals by working only on the thing in front you for the next two weeks.
Plans for specific initiatives should include timelines and estimates of effort. Project leaders should be accountable to tracking progress, and reporting accurate status in comparison to the plan. It’s normal and acceptable for there to be some adjustment needed. Issues should be expected. It’s how the team addresses them and adjusts that makes the biggest difference in a company’s success.
Measure progress against quarterly milestones and repeat
As each quarter comes to an end, the leader and staff assigned to each track should assess their progress against the quarterly milestones. Progress should be visible and transparent along the way. There should be no surprises.
It’s important for each team to take the time to learn from their successes and failures, and factor these lessons into the next quarter’s plans. This is true for every team member at every level, from individual contributors to the CEO. This is akin to testing and learning described in methodologies like Design Thinking.
Use your plans as a prioritization tool
The framework described above should provide visibility into every team member’s work at any given time. You’ll know who’s working on what – and more importantly, what outcome they are trying to achieve.
Executive leadership might have a weekly meeting with each track’s leader, for example, to review staff progress and allocation. And when new requests come in – and they always do – you should use this information as a prioritization tool.
Before asking team members to take on new requests, you can view that request in comparison to what they’re already doing. Is it higher or lower priority? If they take on the new request, what will be the impact to their planned work? To their team? To the company’s quarterly goals? To the annual plan?
It may sound crazy that asking a content producer to create a few previously unplanned posts in collaboration with a potential partner could affect your annual fundraising goals – but if it comes at the expense of creating content that was planned to drive a certain amount of sales, then it’s a no-brainer to say no.
But let’s say that potential partnership opportunity promises reaching an audience of 1,000 new users, and you estimate it will drive more sales than the previously planned posts on the content producer’s docket, thereby increasing chances of hitting the quarterly goal – then it’s a no-brainer to say yes. The tradeoffs are understood and worthwhile.
Making the right decisions for your organization’s goals starts and ends with thinking ahead to act now.
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At Pracademic Coaching, our executive coaching practice specializes in helping CEOs, founders, and leadership teams navigate complex challenges and achieve peak performance. Our unique blend of practical and theoretical knowledge can empower you to make informed decisions that drive your startup's success.
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