Our leadership team routinely sets quarterly Rocks that look like ongoing job descriptions rather than discrete milestones, leaving us arguing at quarter-end over whether they are truly done. How do we define verifiable completion criteria during quarterly planning?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

If your team spends time debating whether a Rock is complete at the end of ninety days, the Rock was poorly written during quarterly planning. Rocks fail when they are framed as ongoing responsibilities, such as improve client retention or optimize warehouse processes. Those are seat accountabilities, not 90-day projects.

A quarterly Rock must be binary. When the quarter ends, the answer to the question of whether it is done must be an unqualified yes or no. To achieve this clarity, mandate that every Rock include specific definition-of-done criteria before the session concludes. The owner of the Rock must articulate what physical evidence will exist on day ninety to prove completion.

Use clear milestones rather than vague intentions. For example, instead of setting a Rock to fix our onboarding process, write the Rock as: Document and publish the 5-step client onboarding standard operating procedure, train four account managers, and execute the new flow with three live clients. That definition leaves zero room for subjective debate.

During your quarterly session, the Integrator must stress-test every proposed Rock. If a Rock description contains words like review, evaluate, research, or improve without an explicit deliverable, push back. Force the owner to describe the exact final output, whether that is a signed agreement, a live software integration, or a board-approved policy. Specificity at day one prevents excuses at day ninety.