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| Biggest Rocks First (c) Andrea Jones Consulting, LLC 2019 |
In the EOS world, Rocks are the “Most
Important Things” that a business needs to accomplish in the next 90 days. I think of them as prioritized activities that “absolutely,
positively, HAVE to get done” in the quarter.
Rocks should not only be articulated as a specific activity, but also
given an “As Measured By” result – a concrete means to ascertain whether or not
the Rock is actually done. That way, ambiguity
on Rock completion will be minimized, and owners will know exactly how they
will be evaluated in regards to Rock Closure.
As I’ve now implemented Rocks in a few
businesses to date, here are some of the more frequent concerns that arise in
the “real world.” (Disclaimer: These are my opinions based on my actual
experience, and may or may not represent what a Certified EOS expert would
say!)
1.
Do Rocks
need to be set to align with the company’s actual fiscal quarters, or should
they just be 90 days from whenever you decide to start them?
Rocks should
be aligned to your company’s fiscal year quarters – especially as they are part
of the weekly L10 meetings with the Scorecard, and this is typically how companies
evaluate progress (i.e. on a fiscal quarterly and annual basis). My recommendation is to create your first set
of Rocks to either:
a.
Be shorter than the quarter, just ensure they are
realistic for that shorter period; good idea if you have 11-5 weeks left in the
quarter
b. Stretch to the
end of the next quarter; likely only a good idea if you have 4 or fewer weeks
left in your quarter so that the 90-day mental cadence is maintained
c. Use the time in
the current quarter to establish L10 cadence, To-Dos, Scorecard, and V/TO
values, waiting until the next fiscal quarter to actually set Rocks
2.
What
about bigger projects that really just cannot be accomplished in 90 days? (i.e.
ERP, major customer or supplier negotiations, implementation of a capex
project, etc.)
Just like any
good Milestone-based Project, these Rocks can be broken into chunks that are
manageable in the next 90 days. Often, the
group will have a feel for approximately how many overall quarters the project
will take, and can ascertain the “As Measured By” completion point for the end
of each quarter to set as Rocks.
3.
How
many Rocks is “too many?”
This is the million-dollar
question; and the answer is (unsatisfyingly) “It depends.” It really depends on the magnitude of the
Rock and the normal workload of the Owner during that quarter. For example, I worked on an all-important tight-timeline
ERP implementation project over 2 quarters.
In order to ensure this project happened in addition to everyone’s “day
jobs,” the ERP Core Team had only ONE Rock each – to implement the ERP to the
next milestone step for their area of responsibility by the end of the
quarter. That said, 3-7 is the rule of
thumb in Traction, and acting as an Integrator, I’ve exercised a lot of “realistic
optimism” to pressure Leadership Team members to focus on lower quantity, but more
value-add Rocks for the company, to ensure that these things actually get
completed.
4.
Can
you set some “stretch goals” that everyone knows may not be able to get done in
the quarter?
Yes… and
No. In his book Measure
what Matters, John Doerr describes how some companies such as Intel
and Google, would set “Objectives” (highly akin to Rocks) in a way that only
70% of them were anticipated to complete in the time frame allowed. At the outset of setting the Objectives, leaders
did not know *which* of the goals would not be accomplished, they only
recognized that about 30% would not. This was a way to get everyone to “stretch”
themselves in the period, and if they missed their goal, they would have to articulate
to the Executive Team *why* they missed it, which apparently is not pleasant. My philosophy is to set challenging, yet
realistic Rocks. They also should be
around things that align to the company’s strategy, vision, and values – and that
really truly NEED to get done in 90 days in order to continue growing / improving. The idea is to live constantly pushing the boundaries
of the “Learning” zone, but not to jump into the “Fear” zone.
5.
How
do you know if you are “On” or “Off” each week for sure?
Great question! If you feel that you can still get the Rock
done by the end of the quarter in any given L10 meeting, you are ON! Certified EOS Implementer Eric
Albertson, told me that he allows people a one sentence update on
their Rocks if needed (either they want to give one, or others want to hear
it); when we implemented this, the meeting felt a little more comfortable. However, as Integrator, if the sentence
turned into a paragraph, or there were questions; I dropped the Rock to the IDS
and allowed for a more thorough update and ensuing discussion there.
6.
What
if something comes up mid-quarter that is more important than the Rock?
The first
thing to do is add the “something” to the IDS list, and Issue Discuss it in the
next L10 meeting. If the Solve execution
is a 1-2-week action item, or few action items, then the issue will be resolved
that way practically immediately. If it
is bigger than that, the team needs to determine if it can wait until the next
quarter or not. If so, put it on the
Parking Lot so it doesn’t get lost, and make a note that it is a STRONG
candidate for a next quarter Rock. If
not, then the next part of the IDS needs to be around ownership and how/what that
means to the current Rock list. Ideally,
people are pretty well loaded with their normal “day-to-day” activities and
their current Rocks. I have found that
it is helpful to leave the Leadership Team a 10-15% bandwidth in their average
utilization during the quarter for the “gravel, sand, and water,” so sometimes
the new “URGENT” Rock can be absorbed. However,
more often than not, adding a new mid-quarter Rock means displacing another
Rock that was already agreed on for execution – and my advice is to avoid this unless
the whatever it is might shut down your business before the quarter ends. (Note: There are some legitimate items for
Rock displacement such as Safety, a major Recall or customer compliant, bad
publicity or new tariffs, vendors going out of business, etc. Use your
discretion.)
7. What
if a supervisor, leadership team member, or Executive team member asks for
additional work to be completed in the quarter that would take away from time
spent on Rock completion?
Put it on the
IDS list in the next L10 and see the previous response. Theoretically, any team member who has “Rock”
accountability will be in an L10. If the
L10 in question is a Departmental L10, the Manager in that L10 who also sits on
the Leadership Team can escalate the concern, if it truly could affect company-wide
Rocks. Hopefully, however, the issue can
be resolved in the L10 for which the priority concern arises.
8.
What
if the Rock does not actually get done (to the “As Measured By” objective) by
the end of the quarter?
There are
three options for Rocks which do not get done.
1. Turn into Action
Item(s) if there is not much left to do (i.e. 90% done, only a few 1-2-week
actions left).
2. Reassign the
Rock to a different owner and carry it over (sometimes can be the same owner,
but he or she had better have a plausible plan for getting it done this quarter
when he or she couldn’t last quarter; Integrator needs to play arbiter here and
call BS if necessary.)
3. Close it
anyway – if it is no longer one of the most important things for the business,
it should be closed. Don’t fall into the
trap of finishing “for the sake of finishing.”
I used to do this when reading books; even super boring books that I
could barely stand to read, I tried to finish just to say I did. This is ridiculous if the book is terrible or
doesn’t hold my interest; it just keeps me from reading something more valuable. Drop it if it needs to be dropped, and have
the courage to admit that either the window of opportunity has passed, or the
Rock is not the most important thing any more.
Use it as a learning experience for next time.
9.
Should
Rock completion be tied to financial compensation?
I tried searching
for this one on the official EOS Blog, and could not find an answer. My personal opinion is NO. If you tie Rock Completion, as in “You have
to get X% of your assigned Rocks completed each Compensation Review period or
your pay (up, down, same) will be affected,” this is a recipe for disaster. It sounds good – after all, why wouldn’t you
reward people for completing the most important things to do each quarter? However, my strong feeling is that this will
lead to gaming in the long run. People
will naturally gravitate towards setting “lob Rocks” (my term); things that they
know they can accomplish easily. This is
not to be confused with setting challenging, yet realistic Rocks as described
before; no one wants to feel they are being set up for failure. However, there are always possibilities of “stuff”
coming up outside of one’s control which may prevent Rock completion. If someone is consistently worried that his
or her compensation may be negatively affected based on situations over which they
have little control, they can easily lose motivation. Rather, use the People Analyzer to assess
performance – this is much more flexible as it takes into account the whole
picture of the business, the person’s behaviors, and his or her capacity to do
the job he or she is accountable for as per the Accountability Chart.
Do you have any other questions about
Rocks? Feel free to leave a comment and
I will address them in a future article!
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