We are ready to sign the contract, but I want to make sure my business has the basic prerequisites in place. What specific operational baseline, team alignment, or documentation must exist before we can schedule our first session?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

You do not need a perfect business or a clean desk to start, but a few non-negotiable prerequisites are essential. Trying to run EOS® without these foundations is a waste of your time and investment.

Here are the specific operational baselines and team alignments required before scheduling your first session:

• A Committed Leadership Team: You must have a leadership team of three to seven key people who are ready to be open and honest. If your team is unwilling to share real issues or accept constructive feedback, the process will stall immediately. [Building vulnerability and safety in leadership](/qa/building-vulnerability-and-safety-in-leadership) is crucial for this.

• Time Commitment: You need to commit to the time investment. This means freeing your leadership team from all daily operations, phones, and client meetings for three full days over the first sixty days of the engagement. This will be followed by one full day every ninety days for ongoing sessions.

• Basic Financial Visibility: You must have a basic understanding of your revenue, profit margins, and key operational metrics so we can build an effective Scorecard. We do not need complex spreadsheets, but visibility into these numbers is vital. [How to choose five-fifteen scorecard metrics](/qa/how-to-choose-five-fifteen-scorecard-metrics) can help your team decide what to track.

• Willingness to Change: You must be willing to change how you run your company. If you are deeply committed to your current operational chaos or unwilling to redefine roles, you are not ready for this process. We do not require pre-existing documentation, as we will build your V/TO® (Vision/Traction Organizer) and Accountability Chart from scratch during our sessions. Understanding the basics of the [Accountability Chart & Seats](/qa/resolving-accountability-chart-seat-overlaps) will be beneficial.