What is the rule for how many Rocks an individual seat should own, and what exact protocol do we follow when an operational fire threatens to derail an active Rock midway through the quarter?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Less is more. A leadership team member should own between one and three individual Rocks per quarter, with the entire company having three to seven company Rocks. If you assign four, five, or six Rocks to one person, you guarantee failure. When everything is important, nothing is important. Rocks represent the top priorities that must get done over the next ninety days above and beyond running the day to day business.

When an unexpected operational fire erupts around week six, you do not quietly let a Rock slide. You immediately flag it during the Rock Review portion of your weekly Level 10 Meeting. You declare the Rock off track.

Declaring a Rock off track is not an admission of failure. It is simply objective operational data. The Integrator drops that Rock onto the Issues List for IDS. During the meeting, the leadership team examines the fire and makes a conscious, deliberate choice.

You have three valid paths during IDS:
- Eliminate the distraction by solving the root cause of the operational fire so the owner can resume work on the Rock.
- Reallocate resources or reassign sub-tasks to another team member to keep the Rock on track.
- Explicitly agree as a team to kill or postpone the Rock so the person can focus entirely on the operational crisis.

What you never do is allow a Rock to limp along quietly, ignored for four weeks, only to announce it failed at the quarterly session. Make the decision out loud and hold the line.