Rocks - Explained

Biggest Rocks First (c) Andrea Jones Consulting, LLC 2019

If you are familiar with the Entrepreneur’s Operating System (EOS), you probably have heard of Rocks.  In Rocket Fuel and Traction, Gino Wickman credits the concept to Stephen Covey in his 1994 time-management book First Things First.

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. 

A helpful analogy is that of a marathon.  We are not Olympians, sprinting a full marathon at a 4-5-minute pace; however, we are not walking either!  The team is running at a clipped, and sustainable, 8-9-minute mile pace – fast enough to get us there quickly, but not so fast that we risk burnout.  If the Rocks, or high priority activities, get done well, I believe that the place for stretching the boundaries is in the numbers.  Eric Kish, author of From 5 to 50 to 500: How to Build and Run Scalable Organizations, describes establishing a “Balanced Scorecard” with demarcations for “Threshold” results (below which is failure), “Target” results (up to which is expected/passable), and “Stretch” results – above which would be phenomenal.  If the goal is to increase revenue, set up Rocks that represent controllable activities aimed at increasing sales, and measure it with financial thresholds in these buckets.

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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What is Your 2019 Word of the Year?

"Growth in Gravel" - (copyright 2019 andrea jones)

The Wall Street Journal tells us this week that the “Global Boom, Barely Begun, May be Over.”  Very motivational headline to start the new year.

Articles like this highlight fast transitions and short-lived trends.  How does this pertain to you personally, professionally, internally and with others?  What should you do to succeed with volatile stock market and consumer sentiment trends, and an increasing cultural value of immediate gratification (1)? 

The first chart below show the last month of the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s 4-hour high/low point spread,, and the second depicts decades of the Consumer Sentiment Index, with an 8-point drop in the past month from December 2018 to January 2019.

Figure 1:Reference: Trading Economics with the last month of the Dow Jones Industrial Average Wednesday 1/23/2019

Figure 2: Reference: University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment report with 90.7 in January 2019 versus 98.3 in December 2018 as reported in Advisor Perspectives January 18, 2019

In light of all this - What is your Word of the Year?

Last January, I published AJC’s Word of the Year for 2018 (Learn).  We have had a Word of the Year since 2015 and find that it focuses our year on a theme.  We’ve asked the question of you as well – with the underlying assumption that every person and/or organization will have a different focus. 

This year we’re going to challenge that.

AJC’s Word of the Year – personally and professionally, internally and with others is: PERSEVERE.  

Could this word be yours too?

Persevere (verb) according to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary is: to persist in a state, enterprise, or undertaking in spite of counterinfluences, opposition, or discouragement.

In this world of turmoil; the ups and downs, the reactionary sentiments, cultural phenomenon of immediate gratification, to persevere is not fast, sexy, interesting, or cool.  Yet it stoically remains.  There is one way to get things done in this world – things that are consistently meaningful over time.  Persevere.  Keep going, don’t give up, try again, maintain discipline, execute and adjust.  Anything worth having is something worth fighting for, and rarely will come easily.

What do you think?  Will you Persevere this year?

(1)  Wertrz, Jia. “Why Instant Gratification Is The One Marketing Tactic Companies Should Focus On Right Now.”  Forbes, April 30, 2018. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jiawertz/2018/04/30/why-instant-gratification-is-the-one-marketing-tactic-companies-should-focus-on-right-now/#7b9e04f8e91b

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Saved by “Plan B:” The Importance of an Effective Project Manager

Saved by “Plan B”
The Importance of an Effective Project Manager

By: Jessica Foote

As the saying goes, “A stitch in time saves nine.” This story from one of AJC’s clients shows how an effective project manager can save more than nine stitches in time, particularly when Plan A doesn’t go according to plan.

A client with a rapidly growing business engaged AJC’s Julie Bryan to help with a new technology upgrade to their order fulfilment system. The client had already selected a vendor for the new system, so they urgently needed a project manager to help phase out the old system while also making sure their facilities and employees were prepared for the new system.

Anticipating and effectively preparing contingency plans

The original plan had a short four-month timeline for completion.  Within a few weeks of starting the project, however, vendor testing proved to not be as smooth as anticipated, resulting in a projected two-month delay. 

As Julie assessed the situation with the technology vendor, she realized that the client needed to consider the possibility that the delay would very likely be more than two months. Meanwhile, sales were increasing, and the old system was straining to keep up with the orders.

“We didn’t know when- or if- we would get the new system,” explained Julie. “We needed to go to Plan B. We needed to help our client use their existing system to meet customer demand, particularly as they faced the upcoming increase in sales volumes.”

Julie interviewed employees at the company to seek input and she outlined her recommendations regarding the steps the client needed to take to continue for several more months with their existing order fulfilment system.

“Companies need to understand the risks of timelines slipping, and what the backup plans would be if they don’t meet that timeline,” Julie cautions. “At what point do we hit a date when the project absolutely must be complete? A project manager needs to determine that deadline, and work backwards from that date to determine when a company would need to reevaluate and potentially switch gears or start putting Plan B in place.” 

Keeping project budgets on track, even when timelines shift

After Julie delivered her recommendation, AJC offered to pause Julie’s engagement for a few months while the vendor fixed the technology.  This helped the client avoid incurring costs for a project manager during this window of time.  Upon re-engaging on the project, AJC budgeted a 20% buffer on PM work up front to cover any additional unexpected needs.  Ultimately, this buffer allowed Julie to provide an additional six weeks of support at the end of the project to ensure a smooth transition.  Even with the increased duration of the project, AJC did not need to use the entire buffer budget.

Maintaining objectivity amidst competing options

When Julie returned to the project, the new technology was ready to be delivered. However, the company still needed to ensure that operations could continue during cut-over to the new system. As new information came to light with the vendor, the entire team was considering changes to the installation plan at the client’s site.

Julie explained that at this critical point, her task as the project manager was to evaluate different layout options for how the current system could be replaced within the existing warehouse footprint. Julie worked with points of contact from each team in the company to go through the status of the project, taking into account any concerns they had about how the transition would impact their department.  In her recommendations, she provided pros and cons and cost estimates for each of the four scenarios.

In the end, the transition to the new technology was successful, thanks to Julie’s careful planning and flexibility.

Three Reasons to Hire an External Project Manger

1. Experience anticipating and preparing for contingencies: While an internal project manager may be immersed in the weeds of daily operations, an external project manager brings a high-level view to anticipate potential outcomes and prepare for contingencies. An external project manager can determine hard deadlines to trigger a shift in plans for Plan B when necessary.

2. Objectivity: An external project manager isn’t influenced by internal politics, giving them the ability to provide an impartial perspective that can be critical when organizations are planning systems that will fundamentally change their business processes.

3. Saving time and costs: An external project manager will save time and keep budgets on track, particularly when timelines shift due to external factors and flexibility is required.

What Work Gets Done in the “Down” Season?

What Work Gets Done in the “Down” Season?
by AJC Senior Consultant Janell Hosch

Many companies experience seasonality in their industries.  Upon conclusion of that peak time, do you ever take the opportunity to reflect on what could be improved before the next peak occurs? 

Project Prioritization:

The first step is to gather your key team members and collect everyone’s thoughts about issues or inefficiencies they have encountered.  Then, discuss specific projects that could be done to address these issues.  This list may be too long to reasonably tackle in the amount of time or with the resources available, and that is where Project Prioritization comes in.  We recommend using the AJC Project Prioritization Matrix.  When performing your own Project Prioritization, you can easily customize the approach to fit your specific needs.  Determine which evaluation categories are most applicable to your current situation, (e.g., cost impact, production volume impact, time line for implementation).  You can further modify the method for your specific situation by applying the appropriate weight to each category.  If reducing costs is your primary concern, give that category a higher weight that the others.  This is a very objective approach to determining which projects will benefit your particular situation the most.

AJC Case Study – Project Prioritization & Execution

The following is the story of a client who AJC helped guide through the Project Prioritization process from concept to implementation. These efforts resulted in vast cost and efficiency improvements during their next seasonal peak. After you have prioritized the projects and determined which ones to execute, how do you begin to tackle these projects? Develop a project team for each one and get started by laying out all of the milestones necessary to get from where you are today to full implementation. A dedicated project manager to oversee all of the projects works well to ensure continuity and resource balancing. The project teams can then create detailed schedules for their projects, assign owners for each task and associated timelines. Task owners can get started immediately on project execution. 

We encountered some challenges during the implementation phase, as is common with efforts such as this.  One issue was that many of the projects required IT support, and this additional work overloaded the IT department.  They were unable to support their daily obligations and the additional workload from the projects.  This required specific priority and timeline setting within the IT department to ensure they were providing reasonable and achievable timeline commitments to the project teams.  We were also working with project team members across multiple geographic locations.  This required a structured approach to file sharing and communication, as well as video conferencing for effective team meetings.

The AJC client that was going through this process also wanted to develop in-house project management expertise.  As part of this project, AJC provided project management training to an internal employee while actively managing the projects.  As the project teams were making progress, the AJC consultant slowly transitioned PM responsibilities to the internal PM and was able to phase out of the project over time.  Getting the PM fully trained and all of the teams executing per the project plans was the end point of the project for AJC.  The internal PM carried the project through to completion and the next peak season was vastly improved over the previous one.

Our advice to you is, after the peak season has concluded, take the time to brainstorm with your team about what didn’t go well and any possible fixes to improve your processes before the next peak occurs.  If this list is too long to tackle all at once, use a Project Prioritization Matrix to determine which projects will have the biggest impact and can be implemented the quickest.  If the team collectively rates the projects, the best projects will rise to the top of the list.

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What is Your 2018 Word of the Year?

Three years ago, a colleague suggested that each member of our professional advisory group announce a “Word of the Year” to help focus and embody their primary goal for the New Year.  That year and each since, I have announced a word.

How about you?  What is your word of the year?  What is it that you want to do, accomplish, effect, see, or try this year?  Are there new opportunities you can already predict, or some that you hope will materialize?  Are there challenges that must be overcome, or is it merely change that you are looking for?  Perhaps the goal for the year is for *less* change!  (Here is an article with 5 tips to choose your word of the year!)

Another consideration is whether your word has more to do with you personally, or with your business.  The first year I articulated my word, it was personal.  The next year was about the business.  Last year I thought it was about the business, but it ended up being more personal.  This year my word is “Learn,” and it is intentionally personal.  Time will tell how that pans out.

Whether the word matches your personal or professional life, and is something that will truly last the year or not, reflecting on what this year’s word should be will undoubtedly bring insight and spark innovation.  And both throughout and at the end of the year, reflecting again on how progress is being made to that word will most likely lead to some kind of learning, and hopefully satisfaction.

Happy New Year from all of us at AJC.

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Why the Accountability Chart is First

In Gino Wickman’s book Traction on the Entrepreneur’s Operating System, toward the end of the book, the EOS tools are described in the order of recommended implementation, and they are *not* in the same order of layout in the book itself.  Specifically, before even considering the Vision Traction Organizer, Wickman advises implementing four other steps, the first of which is the Accountability Chart.

Why this order?  Why not start with the Vision Traction Organizer, which should align everyone toward the same common goals with the same common values? 

The key to that answer is hidden within the question.  Specifically “align everyone,” emphasis on the “everyone.”

If you don’t have the right people in the right seats before you start the work of alignment, what exactly are you going to accomplish?  Basically you’re setting yourself up for rework, which fellow lean thinkers would agree is not advisable.

In this case, the “rework” will be that once you do get the right people in the right seats, you’ll have to redefine the vision, values, core focus, market niche, 10-year, 3-year, 1-year plan; all the aspects of the V/TO.  So the right people have to be there first.  To quote Wickman, “The reason we start here with every client is that the chart goes to the root of most issues.  First, you need to take a big step back and determine the right structure for your organization.”

In practice, I will say, this is definitely more challenging than it sounds.  The greatest challenge that arises in many companies is whether the current personnel can or should be the ones to take the organization to the next level.  Specifically, who goes and who stays.

One company with whom AJC engaged with several quarters back knew they needed to make some drastic changes in one of their core functional groups.  They had work in progress, but it seemed to be stalling, and the leader of the group always had a ready explanation.  Unfortunately, “explanations” become less convincing the more frequently they are given; at some point work actually has to get done.  After running a “blitz” style project to identify how to get out of this rut, the organization armed the leader with specific action items and was even prepared to provide outsourced assistance to accomplish them.  Unfortunately, the leader did not quite “get it” – as in, did not fully understand why moving forward in this fashion was important, and ultimately the CEO of the company was forced to make a change.  Unfortunately, it took several months to get to this point even after the blitz project work was done, and that was time wasted toward real progress for the company.

How could this type delay be avoided?  One piece of advice that seems to work well when considering whether current personnel are in the right seats is to create the Accountability Chart *without* names at all – and consider what the roles/responsibilities need to be for the next 2-3 years of desired growth.  Once this is done, assessments of current personnel with respect to skillsets and GWC (Get it, Want It, Capacity to do it) can be created.  Finally, pair up the people to the roles and determine where these match well, where there needs to be shifts to other seats, as well as who is not going to be a fit for the organization moving forward.

All of this does take time, however, and as human beings, we seem to naturally want to “give people a chance to prove themselves.”  However, it is very difficult to move forward to the Vision/Traction Organizer if this has not yet been done because 1) the right people are not going to be involved and it will need to be redone or at least revisited, and 2) the *wrong* people may be around to adversely affect the V/TO, which could steer the company in an undesirable direction.   

The thing that Traction as a stand-alone book does not address very well is just how gut-wrenching this process can be.  While it is definitely the right thing to do, and moving forward without the right team in place does not make sense, prepare to spend some sleepless nights figuring out how to do this with team members that are good people, but just not the right people for the organization at this time.  One truly needs to believe that, in the long run, even a complete separation will be best for everyone.

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Five Lessons from the Road: L10 Weekly Meeting

Traction warned that it would take a few quarters to get the Rocks right, but I was unprepared for ambiguity in the L10 meeting.  After all, it is basically an accountability meeting which also resolves issues, and I’ve been facilitating those for the past 17+ years.  This article offers Five Lessons from the Road 5 weeks in to holding L10 meetings as part of a “DIY” EOS Implementation initiative offering learnings worth sharing for others who may also be just starting out in implementing Traction, Rocks, and L10 meetings.

1.       Start On Time – First, my laptop was 2 minutes fast, then we had some technical difficulty getting the one remote person online and deciding if the Facilitator or Note Taker was going to project the computer screen.  A third time I scheduled myself into work that went right up to the meeting start time. 

a.     Learning: Get to the meeting location 10 minutes early to get setup, projector working, and have Facilitator project; Note Taker do the copy/paste of Rocks to Issues List and type up Action Items in background – we use an Excel Online spreadsheet for tracking everything, though I have heard of success with Google Sheets as well.

2.       Meeting feels “choppy” – this on/off “no discussion” thing and truncating “rabbit hole” discussions – we are just getting used to this now.  In fact, I literally had to cut the CEO off this morning to stick to On/Off during Rock Review and re-bring up the topic he started to discuss at the Headlines/New Issues agenda item to ask if he wanted to add a new issue to the list for that day (he did)

a.     Learning: This seems to come with time, but amazingly our L10 meeting is only 60 minutes (instead of the 90 recommended) and we get through all of our High priority issues each week, and most of the Mediums; sometimes all.  If discussion seems redundant, I’ll try to summarize or call out for an action item and ask if there is anything else new or material to discuss, and if not; we close out the issue or punt to more information needed via Action Item and move on.  We are getting used to each other and the style of the meeting; it may take a while longer to really hit our stride here.

3.       Scoring – originally we allowed this to be completely subjective – “10 for the best meeting ever” and “1 for a complete waste of time.”  We did this for 2 meetings, then I spoke with a colleague, EOS Implementor Eric Albertson, who advised to score objectively.  I also read “What the Heckis EOS?” and found that it actually gives the same advice, including suggestions of how to score. 

a.     Learning: Develop an objective Scorecard.  We maintained 1 point for “Overall Subjective” because I want interpersonal and intuition to still have a small piece; and the “Everyone Aligned” really is subjective to each individual, but the rest should be fairly black and white.  Here is our scoring checklist:

4.     What are “Issues?” – We have had some “Issues” that really felt more like Headlines.  In other words, there was no decision to be made, but more of an update possibly with some Q&A to clarify what was going on. 

a.      Learning: We decided that these could stick with the “Headlines” portion of the Agenda, just following Rock Review and just prior to To-Dos (Action Item review).  This is the first week we are doing that, but it was well received.  We also are okay to add Issues with a partnering To Do that represent a decision making meeting offline if the topic is important for L10 Leadership Team but will be worked offline with a future decision.  Still working out the kinks with this one, but recognizing that sometimes a Status Update is still important, and recall that Headlines can be internal or external, that seemed the place to put it.

5.       Parking Lot – We put a To-Do on for something which really is not “move the needle” important in the next 2 weeks, but no one wanted to drop.  We gave it a 4 week due date, but then I re-read Traction and that To Dos should be completed in 1 week, 2 at most.  What to do with these small-ish things that aren’t Rock-worthy, but also shouldn’t be lost?

a.    Learning:  Add“Parking Lot” for this type of thing.  We are now collecting all the Issues which didn’t make it as this quarter’s Rocks, as well as possible Issues for next quarter that come up whenever, and we will put Parking Lot actions on it.  The idea is that some of the Parking Lot actions may be grouped into a single Rock if there is a theme, or that when we are “less busy” or when the time seems more appropriate, we will return to the Lot to pick up those Actions.  Since we just started that today, it’s unclear how well it will work, but it does seem logical to document those items but not necessarily spend calories on them today if there are bigger rocks to get in our jar first.

Hope these lessons help others in their journey to implement EOS!

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