Most quarterly reviews are retrospectives disguised as strategy sessions. They spend 80% of the time reviewing what happened and 20% of the time agreeing that the same plan will work better this quarter if everyone just executes a bit harder. Nothing changes. The cycle repeats.
A quarterly strategic review that drives change looks different. Here’s how to run one.
Pre-Work (Week Before)
Send three questions to all participants in advance:
- Which of our strategic objectives made meaningful progress this quarter, and what drove it?
- Which made insufficient progress, and what was the root cause?
- What assumption has changed that should affect our strategy or priorities?
Require written answers — not slides, not bullet points in Slack. Written pre-work forces synthesis and reveals where there is genuine alignment versus polite agreement.
The Agenda
Opening (20 min): Review the strategic objective scorecard — not a deep dive, just the RAG status and headline results for each objective. Everyone should already know the details from the pre-work.
Deep dives (60 min): Focus on two to three objectives — one that’s going well (to understand what’s replicable) and one or two that are struggling. For each, root-cause the performance rather than accepting surface explanations.
Strategic assumptions review (30 min): Which assumptions underlying the strategy have changed? Market conditions, competitive landscape, internal capacity, technology availability — what’s different from when the plan was set?
Priority adjustments (20 min): Based on the above, what — if anything — should change in the next quarter’s priorities? This should result in at least one explicit decision, even if the decision is to stay the course.
Close (10 min): Assign owners to any actions arising. Every action needs a person and a date — not a team, not “we.”
What Makes It Drive Change
The difference between a review that drives change and one that doesn’t is the willingness to surface and act on uncomfortable truths. That requires psychological safety — leaders who won’t penalise honesty about what’s not working — and structural mechanisms that force the conversation, like the written pre-work and the strategic assumptions review.
COOs who run reviews this way consistently report better strategic adaptation and better team engagement. The format is not complicated. The discipline required to maintain it is.
