Why do our quarterly Rocks keep carrying over from quarter to quarter, and what needs to change during session day to ensure they finish?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Rocks carry over when they are written as open-ended ongoing responsibilities, when individuals commit to too many, or when leaders refuse to establish intermediate accountability checkpoints.

First, enforce the rule of three to five Rocks per person, and three to seven company Rocks total. When an executive takes on six or seven Rocks, they are confusing daily job responsibilities with quarterly strategic priorities. Rocks are the distinct, needle-moving projects that must get done above and beyond daily operational duties.

Second, require a concrete definition of done during the quarterly session. A Rock that says 'Improve customer retention workflow' will fail because there is no clear finish line. A Rock that says 'Document and publish the five-step renewal process in Notion and train account managers' has a verifiable result. If two people in the room can look at the output on day 90 and disagree on whether it is complete, the Rock was poorly scoped.

Third, break every 90-day Rock into three 30-day milestones before leaving session day. If an owner does not know what must be completed by day 30 and day 60, they will wait until day 70 to start real work. When that work collides with daily fires in month three, the Rock inevitably stalls. Build the 30-60-90 day milestone map on session day, track the Rock weekly as on track or off track in your Level 10 Meeting, and drop it down to IDS the second it falls behind.