How to set quarterly priorities

The drivers’ goal had four features that a typical quarterly plan lacks. It was a single number. It was difficult but possible, because the trucks were built to carry a legal load. It described a finished state, a fuller load, instead of an activity such as loading more carefully. And the drivers found out how they were doing each time a load was weighed.

Most quarterly plans break these conditions in four ways. They contain more priorities than a team can work on at once. They are sized by optimism instead of by the team’s own record. They describe activity instead of an end state that someone else could check. And they are reviewed too rarely, and too privately, for anyone to act while there is still time. Each of these can be fixed, and there is evidence for each fix. The fixes also have side effects, which chapter seven covers.

In 1994 Roger Buehler, Dale Griffin, and Michael Ross asked psychology students writing honours theses when they expected to hand them in. On average the students said 33.9 days. They took 55.5. Fewer than a third (29.7%) finished by their own best estimate. The researchers also asked for a worst case, the date by which each student would finish if everything went as badly as possible. The average worst case was 48.6 days, which was still a week too early, and fewer than half of the students met it⁴4. Buehler, R., Griffin, D., and Ross, M. (1994). Exploring the 'planning fallacy': Why people underestimate their task completion times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(3), 366–381. doi.org.

A second study looked at ordinary tasks that students planned to finish within a week. On average they were 74% sure they would finish their academic tasks by the time they named. They did so 37% of the time⁴4. Buehler, R., Griffin, D., and Ross, M. (1994). Exploring the 'planning fallacy': Why people underestimate their task completion times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(3), 366–381. doi.org.

This is called the planning fallacy, and it also affects businesses. In a study of 1,471 IT projects, Bent Flyvbjerg and Alexander Budzier found an average cost overrun of 27%. One project in six overran its budget by 200% on average, and its schedule by almost 70%⁵5. Flyvbjerg, B., and Budzier, A. (2011). Why your IT project may be riskier than you think. Harvard Business Review, 89(9), 23–25. hbr.org.

Daniel Kahneman and Dan Lovallo explain this with what they call the inside view. When people forecast their own work, they base the forecast on the plan and its steps, and ignore what happened to similar plans before⁶6. Kahneman, D., and Lovallo, D. (1993). Timid choices and bold forecasts: A cognitive perspective on risk taking. Management Science, 39(1), 17–31. doi.org. Buehler’s students did this. In a later study, when students listed their thoughts while making a prediction, 93% mentioned their plans for the task and none mentioned a past problem with similar work⁴4. Buehler, R., Griffin, D., and Ross, M. (1994). Exploring the 'planning fallacy': Why people underestimate their task completion times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(3), 366–381. doi.org.

Kahneman describes a project of his own. He worked with a team writing a new school curriculum in Israel, and at one meeting each member estimated how many months the project would take. The estimates ranged from 18 to 30. One member, an expert in curriculum development, was then asked how long similar teams had taken. He said that about 40% had never finished, and that he knew of none that had finished in less than seven years. The team continued anyway. It finished eight years later, and the curriculum was rarely used⁷7. Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). From Nobel Prize to project management: Getting risks right. Project Management Journal, 37(3), 5–15. doi.org.

The fix is to take the outside view. Flyvbjerg’s reference class forecasting turns it into a method. You find a set of similar past projects, look at how they turned out, and place your own project within that range before adjusting for anything that is different⁷7. Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). From Nobel Prize to project management: Getting risks right. Project Management Journal, 37(3), 5–15. doi.org. A leadership team already has its reference class in its own records, which show what share of last quarter’s priorities were finished, and the quarter before. Buehler’s fourth study shows how much this helps. Students who were only reminded of past assignments predicted no better than anyone else. Students who were asked to connect those experiences to the task in front of them finished by their predicted date 60% of the time, against 29% in the control group, because their predictions were more realistic⁴4. Buehler, R., Griffin, D., and Ross, M. (1994). Exploring the 'planning fallacy': Why people underestimate their task completion times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(3), 366–381. doi.org.

The second fix is to break the work into parts before estimating it. Justin Kruger and Matt Evans found that people who listed the parts of a task before estimating how long it would take gave longer and more accurate estimates⁸8. Kruger, J., and Evans, M. (2004). If you don't want to be late, enumerate: Unpacking reduces the planning fallacy. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40(5), 586–598. doi.org. Later research adds a caution. Listing parts lengthens estimates when it reveals long steps that are easy to forget, and can shorten them when the listed parts are quick⁹9. Hadjichristidis, C., Summers, B., and Thomas, K. (2014). Unpacking estimates of task duration: The role of typicality and temporality. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 51, 45–50. doi.org. The parts worth listing are the slow ones that plans leave out, such as approvals, purchasing, legal review, and holidays.

In practice, plan next quarter from last quarter’s finish rate. If your leadership team finished four of the seven priorities it set, plan for about four. Plan for more only if something important has changed.

Take two jobs that each need ten days of full attention. If you do them one after the other, the first is finished on day 10 and the second on day 20, an average of 15 days. If you alternate between them each day, they finish on days 19 and 20, an average of 19.5. The second job finishes no sooner, and the first finishes nine days later. Decio Coviello, Andrea Ichino, and Nicola Persico use this example in their research on what they call task juggling¹⁰10. Coviello, D., Ichino, A., and Persico, N. (2014). Time allocation and task juggling. American Economic Review, 104(2), 609–623. doi.org.

They then studied judges. In an Italian labour court, new cases were assigned by lottery, so judges received similar workloads. The judges who worked on more trials at the same time took longer to complete their cases, and their decisions were no better, judged by how often they were appealed¹¹11. Coviello, D., Ichino, A., and Persico, N. (2015). The inefficiency of worker time use. Journal of the European Economic Association, 13(5), 906–947. doi.org.

The reason is arithmetic. Little’s law, a result from queuing theory, states that the average number of items in a system equals the rate at which items pass through it multiplied by the average time each one spends there¹²12. Little, J. D. C. (2011). Little's Law as viewed on its 50th anniversary. Operations Research, 59(3), 536–549. doi.org. If a team finishes work at a fixed rate, doubling the number of open priorities doubles the time each one takes. A quarter has a fixed length, so a longer list leaves more work unfinished on the last day.

Moving between tasks has a further cost. Sophie Leroy found that when people move from an unfinished task to a new one, part of their attention stays on the first task, and their performance on the second suffers. She calls this attention residue¹³13. Leroy, S. (2009). Why is it so hard to do my work? The challenge of attention residue when switching between work tasks. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 109(2), 168–181. doi.org. A manager with seven priorities spends part of every week thinking about the six they are not working on.

No study has established how many priorities a leadership team should set, so treat any precise number as a guess. The closest evidence is a 2011 survey of more than 2,350 executives by Booz & Company. Of these, 64% said they had too many conflicting priorities. Executives who reported one to three company-wide priorities were the most likely to report revenue growth above their industry’s average¹⁴14. Booz & Company (2011). Most executives lack confidence in their companies' growth and strategy efforts, according to Booz & Company survey. Booz & Company press release (GlobeNewswire), Press release, 7 June 2011; survey of more than 2,350 executives. globenewswire.com. The data is self-reported and correlational, and successful companies may find it easier to say no.

Based on this evidence, we recommend three to five priorities for the company in a quarter, and no more than three for any one person, including those that come from their team. The test matters more than the number. If a priority cannot get real attention in most weeks of the quarter, move it to next quarter’s list, because keeping it on this one slows everything else down.

Keep the priorities you cut on a separate list for next quarter’s planning, where they can be considered again alongside anything new.

Many quarterly priorities describe activities, such as improve onboarding, work on pricing, drive referrals, and review the CRM. An activity has no point at which it is either finished or failed. At the end of the quarter you can always say you worked on pricing.

Locke and Latham’s explanation of why “do your best” produces worse results applies to activities too. A vague goal has no external reference point, so the person holding it decides what success means, and a wide range of results counts as acceptable. Specific goals reduce that range because they make clear what is to be achieved¹1. Locke, E. A., and Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717. doi.org.

Write each priority as the state of things on the last day of the quarter, in terms that someone outside the team could check without asking the owner. “Work on pricing” becomes “New price list used on every quote from 1 June, approved by the board”. “Improve onboarding” becomes “Every starter from May has a laptop, logins, and a named buddy on their first morning”. The test is whether two people could look at the business on the last day and agree on whether it happened.

There is an important exception. When a task is new and complex for the people doing it, a hard performance target can make results worse, because people switch between methods without learning which ones work. For these tasks Locke and Latham recommend a specific learning goal, such as finding a set number of workable methods, instead of a performance target¹1. Locke, E. A., and Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717. doi.org^,22. Locke, E. A., and Latham, G. P. (2019). The development of goal setting theory: A half century retrospective. Motivation Science, 5(2), 93–105. doi.org. Goals have smaller effects on complex tasks in general. In the meta-analysis they cite, the advantage of specific difficult goals over “do your best” fell from 0.77 standard deviations on the simplest tasks to 0.41 on the most complex¹1. Locke, E. A., and Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717. doi.org.

This gives three kinds of end state for a quarterly priority, and each can be checked. The first is a result, such as stock accuracy above 98% in the April and May counts. The second is a decision, such as the board choosing between leasing and buying the van fleet, with costed options in front of it. The third is a finding, such as knowing whether small builders will pay for next-day delivery, based on 20 customer conversations and a two-week trial. Findings are the kind most companies do not use. They let a team take on something uncertain in a quarter without claiming at the start that it knows the answer.

Keep each end state to one line. If it needs a paragraph, it usually contains two priorities, and one of them should wait.

A priority that is due in 90 days can seem urgent at the start of the quarter and optional a few weeks later. Albert Bandura and Dale Schunk showed the effect of goal distance in a small experiment. Forty children aged seven to ten, all well behind in subtraction and not interested in it, worked through 42 pages of self-paced material over seven sessions. Some were encouraged to aim for at least six pages each session. Others were encouraged to aim for all 42 pages by the end of the seventh session, which is the same goal set at a distance. A third group had no goal¹⁵15. Bandura, A., and Schunk, D. H. (1981). Cultivating competence, self-efficacy, and intrinsic interest through proximal self-motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41(3), 586–598. doi.org.

The children with the six-page goal took 21 minutes a lesson, against 29 for the distant goal and 30 for no goal. After four sessions they had completed 74% of the material, against 55% and 53%. Their persistence on difficult problems rose by 90%, and when they were later given free time, 90% of them chose to do subtraction problems, against about 40% of the other children. The distant goal made no measurable difference compared with no goal¹⁵15. Bandura, A., and Schunk, D. H. (1981). Cultivating competence, self-efficacy, and intrinsic interest through proximal self-motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41(3), 586–598. doi.org.

This was a small study of children. The same pattern appears in a study of adults playing a business game. A distant profit goal on its own produced worse results than an instruction to do one’s best, and adding near-term goals to the distant one raised both confidence and profits above either¹1. Locke, E. A., and Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717. doi.org.

For a quarterly priority, this means milestones that fall due within the next few weeks, instead of being spread evenly across 13. In our experience three to six milestones are enough, with the first due within two weeks. Each milestone should itself be an end state, such as “supplier shortlist agreed” instead of “look at suppliers”. Writing milestones also shows up the slow parts of the work before you commit to a date, as chapter two describes.

Two other findings are useful. The first concerns planning when to act. Implementation intentions are plans in the form “if situation X arises, I will do Y”. Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran’s 2006 meta-analysis of 94 tests found a medium to large effect on reaching goals, of 0.65 standard deviations¹⁶16. Gollwitzer, P. M., and Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119. doi.org. A larger meta-analysis of 642 tests by Sheeran and colleagues puts the average effect at about 0.36, and at about 0.15 after a stricter correction for publication bias, which is small¹⁷17. Sheeran, P., Listrom, O., and Gollwitzer, P. M. (2025). The when and how of planning: Meta-analysis of the scope and components of implementation intentions in 642 tests. European Review of Social Psychology, 36(1), 162–194 (published online 27 March 2024). doi.org. A workplace field experiment shows that the detail matters. When a firm asked employees to write down the date and time they planned to get a flu jab, vaccination rose by 4.2 percentage points from a base of 33.1%. Writing down only the date made no significant difference¹⁸18. Milkman, K. L., Beshears, J., Choi, J. J., Laibson, D., and Madrian, B. C. (2011). Using implementation intentions prompts to enhance influenza vaccination rates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(26), 10415–10420. doi.org. For a milestone, the equivalent is an owner and a date, and for the first step, a time in someone’s diary.

The second concerns the effect of progress on the people making it. In Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer’s diary study of project teams in seven companies, setbacks appeared on only 13% of people’s best days, and progress appeared on only 25% of their worst. Many of the steps forward people recorded were small, and they still produced strong positive reactions¹⁹19. Amabile, T. M., and Kramer, S. J. (2011). The power of small wins. Harvard Business Review, 89(5), 70–80. hbr.org. The guide to 1:1s uses the same research to argue for putting obstacles at the top of a manager’s agenda. For a quarterly priority, it means a team should have something to finish every couple of weeks, which near-term milestones provide.

The strongest evidence in this guide is about checking progress. Harkin and colleagues analysed 138 randomised experiments in which one group was prompted to monitor its progress towards a goal and another was not. Monitoring improved goal attainment by 0.40 standard deviations²⁰20. Harkin, B., Webb, T. L., Chang, B. P. I., Prestwich, A., Conner, M., Kellar, I., Benn, Y., and Sheeran, P. (2016). Does monitoring goal progress promote goal attainment? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 142(2), 198–229. doi.org. By a standard conversion, that means the average person who monitored did better than about two-thirds of those who did not.

The details matter more than the overall figure. Monitoring had larger effects when progress was reported to someone else or made public, and when it was recorded. When people monitored privately and told nobody, the effect was 0.19. When they reported their progress to at least one other person, it was 0.47. When progress was written down, the effect was 0.43, against 0.29 when it was not. Tracking results and tracking actions worked about equally well, so both milestones and result measures are worth tracking²⁰20. Harkin, B., Webb, T. L., Chang, B. P. I., Prestwich, A., Conner, M., Kellar, I., Benn, Y., and Sheeran, P. (2016). Does monitoring goal progress promote goal attainment? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 142(2), 198–229. doi.org. Two cautions apply. Most of the studies concern health behaviours such as diet, exercise, and blood pressure, and the authors note that there is little evidence from other areas. Only three studies tested fully public monitoring, which is too few to rely on alone²⁰20. Harkin, B., Webb, T. L., Chang, B. P. I., Prestwich, A., Conner, M., Kellar, I., Benn, Y., and Sheeran, P. (2016). Does monitoring goal progress promote goal attainment? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 142(2), 198–229. doi.org.

This makes the weekly check-in the best-supported part of the approach in this guide, as long as the status is written down and other people can see it.

Feedback can make performance worse, particularly when it moves attention from the task to the person, as the guide to 1:1s explains²¹21. Kluger, A. N., and DeNisi, A. (1996). The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), 254–284. doi.org. A weekly check-in should therefore cover the work, meaning what has moved, what is stuck, and what needs deciding. It should not be a weekly judgement of the owner.

How often you check also matters. Connie Gersick followed eight project teams in six organisations from start to finish. Whether they had days or months, every team kept its first approach until almost exactly halfway through its time. It then went through a short period of intense activity in which it dropped old habits, went back to its sponsors, and made rapid progress²²22. Gersick, C. J. G. (1989). Marking time: Predictable transitions in task groups. Academy of Management Journal, 32(2), 274–309. doi.org. Gersick’s samples were small, with eight teams in the field and eight more in a laboratory follow-up, so treat the exact timing with care.

Suppose a priority stalls in week five. If the leadership team reviews priorities properly only at the end of the quarter, it finds out in week 13, with no time left. With monthly reviews it finds out in week eight, with five weeks left and the halfway point already passed. With a weekly check-in it finds out in week five, with eight weeks left.

Two things follow for how status is recorded. The status of each priority should be the owner’s honest judgement, on track or off track, recorded every week, because only the owner knows whether the remaining milestones are realistic. It should appear next to a measure that does not depend on anyone’s judgement, such as progress compared with the share of the quarter gone. When the two disagree, that is worth discussing. A priority marked on track with a third of the quarter gone and no milestones ticked should prompt a question.

Goals work partly by directing attention towards some things and away from others. When the goal measures the wrong thing, the same effect causes harm. In an early study cited by Locke and Latham, drivers who received feedback on several aspects of their driving improved on the aspects they had goals for and not on the others¹1. Locke, E. A., and Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717. doi.org.

In 2009 Lisa Ordóñez, Maurice Schweitzer, Adam Galinsky, and Max Bazerman published “Goals gone wild”, which argued that the benefits of goal setting had been overstated and its harms largely ignored. They listed several harms, including a narrow focus that neglects everything outside the goal, riskier behaviour, more unethical behaviour, less learning, damage to culture, and less intrinsic motivation²³23. Ordóñez, L. D., Schweitzer, M. E., Galinsky, A. D., and Bazerman, M. H. (2009). Goals gone wild: The systematic side effects of overprescribing goal setting. Academy of Management Perspectives, 23(1), 6–16. doi.org. Their best-known example is Sears, which in the early 1990s set its car repair staff a sales goal of $147 an hour and found them overcharging customers and carrying out unnecessary repairs²³23. Ordóñez, L. D., Schweitzer, M. E., Galinsky, A. D., and Bazerman, M. H. (2009). Goals gone wild: The systematic side effects of overprescribing goal setting. Academy of Management Perspectives, 23(1), 6–16. doi.org. Locke and Latham replied in the same journal that the critique relied on anecdotes against a large body of experimental evidence²⁴24. Locke, E. A., and Latham, G. P. (2009). Has goal setting gone wild, or have its attackers abandoned good scholarship?. Academy of Management Perspectives, 23(1), 17–23. doi.org. Both sides agree on the central point, which is that specific goals narrow attention and can have unintended but predictable consequences²⁵25. Ordóñez, L. D., Schweitzer, M. E., Galinsky, A. D., and Bazerman, M. H. (2009). On good scholarship, goal setting, and scholars gone wild. Academy of Management Perspectives, 23(3), 82–87. doi.org.

There is less experimental evidence for the harms than for the benefits, but it exists. In a laboratory study by Schweitzer, Ordóñez, and Douma, people with unmet specific goals were more likely than people told to do their best to overstate their performance, whether or not money was at stake. They were most likely to do so when they had just missed the goal²⁶26. Schweitzer, M. E., Ordóñez, L., and Douma, B. (2004). Goal setting as a motivator of unethical behavior. Academy of Management Journal, 47(3), 422–432. doi.org. In an earlier experiment by Staw and Boettger, students proofreading a passage corrected more of both its grammar and its obvious errors of content when told to do their best than when given a specific goal for one kind of error²⁷27. Staw, B. M., and Boettger, R. D. (1990). Task revision: A neglected form of work performance. Academy of Management Journal, 33(3), 534–559. doi.org.

The NHS used targets widely in the 2000s, and Gwyn Bevan and Christopher Hood studied the results. Ambulance trusts were asked to reach 75% of life-threatening calls within eight minutes. They tended to aim for 75% and no higher, and there were strong allegations that some had moved ambulance stations from rural to urban areas to meet the target. One major hospital met its target for new eye outpatient appointments by cancelling and delaying follow-up appointments, which were not measured. A parliamentary select committee reported that 25 patients lost their sight over two years as a result. In 2002 to 2003, 139 of 158 acute trusts officially saw 90% of A&E patients within four hours, but in a patient survey only 69% of patients said they had been seen that quickly²⁸28. Bevan, G., and Hood, C. (2006). What's measured is what matters: Targets and gaming in the English public health care system. Public Administration, 84(3), 517–538. doi.org. Bevan and Hood describe this as “hitting the target and missing the point”²⁸28. Bevan, G., and Hood, C. (2006). What's measured is what matters: Targets and gaming in the English public health care system. Public Administration, 84(3), 517–538. doi.org.

Businesses have the same problem. In 2016 the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined Wells Fargo $100 million after employees, under pressure from sales targets and incentive pay, opened roughly 1.5 million deposit accounts and applied for roughly 565,000 credit cards that customers may not have authorised²⁹29. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (2016). Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fines Wells Fargo $100 million for widespread illegal practice of secretly opening unauthorized accounts. CFPB press release, 8 September 2016. consumerfinance.gov.

Stretch goals carry a particular risk. In two experiments by Michael Shayne Gary and colleagues, participants ran a simulated airline with either a moderate profit goal or a stretch goal set at the 90th percentile of earlier performance. The stretch goal did not improve performance on average, and it spread the results out. The top 20% found strategies that worked. The other 80% did not, and many of them abandoned the goal for a lower one or for survival³⁰30. Gary, M. S., Yang, M. M., Yetton, P. W., and Sterman, J. D. (2017). Stretch goals and the distribution of organizational performance. Organization Science, 28(3), 395–410. doi.org. Sim Sitkin and colleagues argue that stretch goals are most attractive to the organisations least able to afford the risk, which are those with weak recent performance and few spare resources³¹31. Sitkin, S. B., See, K. E., Miller, C. C., Lawless, M. W., and Carton, A. M. (2011). The paradox of stretch goals: Organizations in pursuit of the seemingly impossible. Academy of Management Review, 36(3), 544–566. doi.org^,3030. Gary, M. S., Yang, M. M., Yetton, P. W., and Sterman, J. D. (2017). Stretch goals and the distribution of organizational performance. Organization Science, 28(3), 395–410. doi.org.

For each priority, write down what must not get worse while you pursue it. We call this a guardrail. Four practices keep side effects small. Pair every numerical target with a limit in the area it could damage, such as quality, safety, or customers’ interests. Keep quarterly priorities out of bonus calculations. Schweitzer’s participants overstated their results even with no money involved, so removing pay will not remove the temptation, and there is no reason to add to it²⁶26. Schweitzer, M. E., Ordóñez, L., and Douma, B. (2004). Goal setting as a motivator of unethical behavior. Academy of Management Journal, 47(3), 422–432. doi.org. Treat an honest “off track” in week five as a sign of good management. If you want ambition beyond what you expect to deliver, state it separately from the commitment. In Locke and Latham’s account, General Electric set stretch goals alongside minimum goals and did not penalise anyone for missing the stretch²2. Locke, E. A., and Latham, G. P. (2019). The development of goal setting theory: A half century retrospective. Motivation Science, 5(2), 93–105. doi.org.

Most of the research in this guide can be applied in a single planning session before the next quarter starts.

1. Start with your own record. For the leadership team and each team below it, count the priorities set last quarter and the number finished. That finish rate is your reference class. Next quarter’s list should be about that long, or one longer if you have removed a known obstacle.
2. Write the list of candidates, then cut it to what can get attention in most weeks. The company list should have three to five priorities, and nobody should own more than three, including team priorities. Put everything you cut on a list for the next planning session.
3. Write each remaining priority as a one-line end state that someone else could check. Decide whether it is a result, a decision, or a finding, and use a finding wherever you do not yet know how to do the work. Give it one owner. If it is a team priority, say which company priority it supports, or say that it supports none.
4. Break each priority into three to six milestones, each an end state in its own right, with the first due within two weeks. List the slow parts, such as approvals and suppliers, and make them milestones. Add a guardrail to every numerical target.
5. Set the weekly routine now. Every Monday, each owner records in writing, where the team can see it, whether each priority is on track or off track and what is in the way. The weekly team meeting then spends its time on the priorities that are off track or behind pace.
6. Book a proper review for week six or seven, with explicit permission to change the plan, cut a priority, or reduce its scope. That is when Gersick’s teams changed their approach.
7. At the end of the quarter, close every priority as done or not done, with one line on why, before you set any new ones. Next quarter’s finish rate depends on this.

Headwater is built around the approach this guide describes, with a short list of quarterly priorities that each have a clear end state, a Monday check-in, and a weekly team meeting that starts with what is stuck. It sits above the tools people use for their day-to-day work and holds the plan they share. The method does not depend on software, and the first step needs only last quarter’s list. Count how many of its priorities you finished, and plan from that.