We set our quarterly Rocks, but we frequently realize mid-quarter that multiple Rocks depend on the same bottlenecked resource. How do we identify and resolve these interdependencies during our quarterly planning sessions?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

It is highly common for a leadership team to leave a quarterly planning session feeling aligned, only to realize two weeks later that four major Rocks all require heavy involvement from your lead developer or head of operations. This resource bottlenecking is a failure of the prioritization process during your quarterly collaborative.

To prevent this, you must run a resource stress-test before you finalize your Rocks. Once the team has proposed their individual Rocks, write them all on a board and identify the key resources needed to execute each one.

Look for overlapping dependencies. If the same person or department is listed as a critical player on more than two Rocks, you have a bottleneck. You must immediately resolve this conflict during the session.

You have three choices to solve this issue:
- Delegate the work to someone else on the Accountability Chart.
- Push one of the dependent Rocks to a future quarter.
- Redefine the scope of the Rock so it requires less of the bottlenecked resource.

Never let a team member walk out of a quarterly session with more than three personal Rocks, and never allow a single department to be the critical path for the entire company's quarterly priorities. By proactively managing these dependencies during planning, you protect your execution rate and keep your operations moving forward smoothly.