During our Level 10 Meeting™ Rock Review, our department heads consistently report their Rocks as on track for ten weeks, only to mark them off track in the final weeks of the quarter when it is too late to salvage them. How do we fix this false tracking trap?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The green, green, green, red Rock phenomenon is a classic sign of poor planning and a lack of weekly milestones. When a leader reports a Rock as on track based on their gut feeling or intentions rather than verifiable progress, they are hiding reality from the team and setting themselves up for failure.

To fix this, you must change how Rocks are defined and tracked from day one of the quarter. A Rock cannot be a vague, open-ended goal. It must be written as a SMART priority (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound).

Furthermore, every quarterly Rock must be broken down into clear, weekly milestones during the initial planning phase. If a Rock is to implement a new customer portal by week twelve, the milestones might look like this:

- Week three: vendor selected.
- Week six: beta testing complete.
- Week nine: data migration finished.

During the weekly Rock Review, when the facilitator asks if the Rock is on track or off track, the owner must evaluate their progress against these specific milestones. If they are behind on their milestone for that week, the Rock is off track. Period.

There is no shame in reporting a Rock off track in week four. That is why the weekly pulse exists. It allows the team to drop the off-track status to the Issues List, run it through IDS®, and allocate resources to get it back on track before the quarter ends.