Quarterly reviews help keep plans up to date and reinforce synchronization. They also give a leader a good idea about which people are on top of their businesses, which ones aren’t, and what the latter need to do.

LARRY: I’ll go with my HR person to a business, especially one I don’t know well, and before starting on the business plan, we’ll meet with the general manager and his HR person to go over the people- and organizationdevelopment plans. I’ll also try to make the point that the
strategy is appropriate and is being translated into the business plan. Then we’ll go through the operating plans in terms of most recent quarter: sales, market growth, exogenous factors, margins, levels of expense. I like to do it with a lot of people where I can get dialogue from a large constituency. The better the people, I find, the more they like these reviews. Later I hold a public forum, assembling a group of people in an auditorium, on a loading dock, or whatever, to talk about what the company is trying to do and take questions. On the plane home, I write a note about what we agreed to in the quarterly review.

The review itself is a basis to compare how the general manager has done against the first quarter plan. I might learn that we need to adjust the plan. Maybe he says to me, “I missed my sales in the first quarter because it’s a slow season.” I’d say, “Well, wait a minute, it was a slow season last year in the first quarter too. So what does that have to do with anything?” And perhaps he’ll say, “But I know I’m going to pick up my sales in the second quarter. I’ll be on plan by the end of the second or third quarter.” I then have to ask, “Let’s assume you’re not. That means I don’t do anything about it until the fourth quarter after you don’t make it in the third quarter. Well, let’s not do that. Let’s start doing something now as though you’re not going to make the sales budget. If you do, all the better and you’re ahead of your plan and that’s great, but if you don’t you’re protected.” Same thing with productivity. If someone says, “I didn’t have a good first quarter, but I will have in the second,” again I have to say, “Well, let’s assume you
don’t. What are you going to do now about that?”

Taken from: Execution The discipline of Getting things Done