With Q1 2015 wrapped up, now’s a great time to reflect on the previous quarter. Did anything dramatic happen? Why, yes, there were some serious ups and downs. From a rhythm, data, and priorities perspective, there are several items to review:
- Simplified One Page Strategic Plan – The one pager is the overall business alignment doc. Priorities change every quarter, along with the basic metrics, but much of the document stays the same.
- Quarterly Check-ins – Whether it’s monthly sit-downs or quarterly, it’s critical to spend time with team members and constantly calibrate. With tiny startups, it’s more ad hoc and formalizes as the business grows.
- Monthly SaaS Metrics – While the one pager has great high-level info, the monthly SaaS metrics sheet breaks it down into dozens of data points and provides a fine-grained view into the performance of the business.
- Start, Stop, Continue – What’s working well, not working, and needs to change in the business? Just like a scrum meeting, it’s important to evaluate the overall business functions as well.
The quarterly review of rhythm, data, and priorities feels frequent enough to be useful and infrequent enough to not be burdensome. Entrepreneurs would do well to implement a personal quarterly process whereby key aspects of the startup are reviewed.
What else? What are some more thoughts on a review of the previous quarter?
David Cummings on Startups 