We are great at setting ambitious quarterly Rocks, but we consistently find ourselves scrambling in the final two weeks of the quarter to complete them because we have no line of sight during the first ten weeks. How do we use our weekly scorecard to track the daily activities required to keep our Rocks on pace so we do not suffer from the eleventh-week panic?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A quarterly Rock is a major priority that takes ninety days to complete, but you cannot wait until week eleven to discover that a Rock is failing. If you do, you will suffer from the eleventh-week panic, scrambling to finish work that should have been spread out over the quarter. To ensure your team hits their quarterly targets, you must break your Rocks down into weekly, activity-based numbers on your scorecard.

Every Rock has a set of predictable activities that must occur to ensure its success. If your Rock is to implement a new CRM system, your weekly scorecard metrics might track:

- The number of data records cleaned and migrated each week.
- The percentage of team members trained on the new system.
- The number of testing hours completed by your project team.

If these weekly activity-based metrics are green, your Rock will naturally be on track. If these numbers turn red, you have an early warning that your Rock is in danger of failing.

By connecting your Rocks to your weekly scorecard, you turn a long-term strategic priority into manageable weekly actions. Your team will have absolute clarity on what they need to achieve each week to stay on track. This eliminates the end-of-quarter scramble and ensures that your strategic initiatives are delivered on time, every time.