How to run a monthly review of actuals against plan

The weekly meeting is where a leadership team keeps the business running. It's tight by design, and it should stay that way. But it isn't the right place to ask whether the year is on track. That question needs a different meeting, once a month.

Here's a simple agenda we use with leadership teams that run on EOS®. It takes about an hour.

Before the meeting

Close the month's books, or at least have revenue, gross margin and the Growth Plan drivers updated. Send the Dashboard a day ahead so people come in having read it. If the numbers aren't ready, move the meeting. Reviewing half the data creates more questions than it answers.

The agenda

1. Where we are (10 minutes)

Revenue and profit for the month and year to date, against the Growth Plan. Read the numbers; don't debate them yet.

2. The gap (10 minutes)

How far ahead or behind are we, in dollars? Is the gap bigger or smaller than last month? At this pace, where do we land at year end?

3. The drivers (15 minutes)

Walk through each driver against its target. Each owner says, in a sentence or two, what moved it and what they expect next month. The goal is to find which one or two drivers explain most of the gap.

4. Decide (20 minutes)

Pick the one or two things that will move those drivers before the next review. Some become Scorecard changes. Some become issues for the weekly meeting. Some become Rock candidates for next quarter. Write each one down with an owner.

5. Confirm (5 minutes)

Read back the decisions and owners. Agree on what you'll look at first next month.

Keep it disciplined

• Same day each month, same order, same Dashboard.
• Talk about the plan, not about whether the plan was a good idea. Save that for the annual session.
• If a topic needs more than five minutes, drop it to the Issues List.

What changes

After three or four months, the team stops being surprised by the quarter. Small gaps get caught while they're still small, and Rocks start coming from the plan as well as from the Issues List.

This monthly review is built into how we work with clients: we update the Dashboard from your data each month and review it with your leadership team on a call. See how it works.