Set yourself up to win
How to create a quarterly plan for your product
This is a detailed walk through for product managers and leads to create a quarterly plan around approx 1-8 Goals. There is an advanced guide if you have many more Goals or multiple teams.
At the time I’m writing this, the next quarter – Q3 2018 — is just around the corner. I’m guessing I’m not the only one thinking about what’s next. Something about a new quarter combined with a new FY (for my Aussie peeps at least) brings out the Nir Eyal in all of us.
One way product managers stay on top of their game is to plan quarterly then consistently communicate what we’ve done, how it went – what we’re doing now & why & what’s next & why. One way product managers fall behind is by drowning in admin overhead. Your quarterly planning, strategy execution & communications should be clear, effective, easy to maintain & update.
Ready?
Step 1 – Create your Friyay.com account
Increase your chances of success, a quarter is just 90 days but still, there’s still plenty of scope to get side tracked, lose focus, lose track of initiatives and under resource some goals inadvertently. Friyay.com is a purpose built tool to drive visibility and transparency around Goals and their Initiatives helping you sharpen your strategy execution.
Step 2 – Log in and head to the ‘Goals’ screen
This screen is about to be the source of truth, what’re the metrics and milestones that matter this quarter and what’ll we do to acheive them. There is a from which will allow you to create three goals in one go – fill it in.
Using OKRs? enter your KRs here. Using NCTs – enter your commitments
If you’re using neither – no worries, add in the goals or milestones you’re looking to achieve.
If your goal is not measureable leave the ‘start’ and ‘goal’ value input fields blank. You can edit these goals, and add more – later.
Step 3 – Add Initiatives for each Goal
Initiatives are where the rubber meets the road. These are the streams, programs of work, lines of enquiry and broadly development work that’ll happen to acheive the goal or milestone.
By writing down (into the app) how we’re going after our goals – we’re giving ourselves a place to journal progress and next steps – if we’ve invited colleagues to collaborate in friyay.com – this drives transparency which can keep folks accountable – also, reduce teams working in opposing directions.
Keep going till all your goals have Initiatives, and all your Initiatives have their first update. Your Goal screen would end up looking something like this.
Step 4 – Add progress & status regularly
Click your last update to get started. When you press edit, you see the text from your last update. Updates are editable for 24hrs – after 24hrs your update will be saved as a new update. This means less clutter when you’re looking back through your notes – you’ll only see one update per day.
The act of writing your updates is very important. It will help organize your thoughts and clarify your actions. It will give you a sense of progress and accomplishment. If you’re not feeling that sense of progress – pick an Initiative, make some progress!
Previous updates can be seen by clicking on the Initiative title:
If you’ve followed these steps, you have the basic groundwork to win this quarter. To realise this potential, adopt the following daily habits:
- Scan the daily email from friyay.com or log straight in and pick an initiative to work on
- Make an update declaring what you’ll try to get done today
- Once complete, or partially complete log back in and update your progress and next steps
- Repeat, because “Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out – Robert Collier”
You may be able to work on several initiatives in a day, just one or two – the important thing is to make progress each day – and log that progress!
Friyay.com
Friyay.com is a lightweight framework to connect your day to day activities with your goals.
If you use Friyay.com as intended, you’ll increase your clarity of thought & quality of execution.
This is because Friyay.com underpins key activities required to achieve goals.
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