How to run a quarterly planning session with a client

For most consultants, the quarterly session is the most valuable day of the engagement. It’s where the client steps back from the weekly grind, decides what matters for the next ninety days, and commits to it in front of each other. Your job is to make sure they leave with decisions, not just a good conversation.

The general method for quarterly planning is in running quarterly planning. This guide covers what’s different when you’re the outside facilitator, and how to use Clarion to prepare and run the day.

Prepare with data, not memory

Clients remember last quarter as a story. You should arrive with the facts. The week before, switch into the client company and gather:

• Last quarter’s milestones. Which finished, which didn’t. Completed ones carry the date they were done. For the ones that didn’t finish, look at their status history in your notes from the weekly syncs. Were they flagged off track early, or did they fall off a cliff in week twelve?
• The scorecard trend. Which metrics have been off target for most of the quarter? Those usually belong in the conversation about next quarter’s priorities.
• The challenge list. Which challenges are old, or escalated? Some are too big for a weekly meeting and should become milestones.
• The vision board. Is the 1 Year column still right? What did the 90 Days column say last quarter, and how much of it happened?
• Meeting health. The Last Sync on the client’s card in All Companies, and the average ratings in each sync’s past sessions, tell you whether the weekly rhythm held up.

Send the leadership team two questions in advance: what was last quarter’s biggest win, and what’s the one thing that has to happen next quarter? Their answers will tell you where the debate will be.

Build the session as a sync

Create a dedicated sync in the client’s Leadership team for the session, separate from their weekly one. A sync’s agenda can be shaped for one meeting: rename steps, reorder them, set time boxes, and add custom steps. Any step can carry briefing content, like a paragraph of context, an image or a checklist, which shows on screen when you reach that step. See customize the sync agenda.

A working agenda for a half-day session:

1. Last quarter in review (custom step, 30 min). Put the completed and missed milestones in the briefing.
2. Scorecard (15 min). The quarter’s trends, not this week’s numbers.
3. Vision check (custom step, 20 min). Revisit the 1 Year goals; agree the new 90 Days.
4. Candidate milestones (custom step, 30 min). Everything on the table.
5. Choose and commit (custom step, 60 min). Cut to three to seven, then owners, dates, definitions of done.
6. Challenge Discussion (30 min). Clear what can be cleared; turn the big ones into milestones.
7. Summary (10 min). Ratings and wrap-up.

Notes typed against custom steps are included in the recap that’s posted to the team’s Hub at the end, under each step’s heading. That gives the client a written record without anyone taking minutes.

Facilitate, don’t decide

When you start the sync, you’re the facilitator: you move the steps, and everyone who joins follows on their own screen. The header shows elapsed time against each step’s planned minutes, which helps you keep the day on track. See run a live sync.

The hard part of facilitating is staying out of the content. You’ll have opinions about what the client should prioritise. Use them as questions, not answers. “What happens if this one slips to next quarter?” moves a debate along without making it your plan. A milestone the client chose will get done. A milestone you chose will be politely ignored by week four.

Your other job is to push for specifics. Every milestone needs one owner, not “the team”; a due date; and a definition of done that the owner and the room agree on.

Get it into Clarion before you leave

Don’t let the milestones live on a whiteboard photo. Enter them during the session, or straight after while the room is still there. If the client worked them out in a spreadsheet, bring them in with import milestones, subtasks included. Otherwise see create a milestone.

Update the vision board’s 90 Days column at the same time, and tick off what was achieved in the 1 Year column.

After the session

• Week 1: sit in on the client’s weekly sync. Check every new milestone has a status and every owner knows they own it.
• Weeks 2 to 12: watch the client’s card in your weekly portfolio review. Milestones on track and a recent Last Sync are what you’re looking for.
• Mid-quarter: a short check-in with the client’s leader on anything off track.

Common mistakes

Arriving without the data. Without last quarter’s facts, the session becomes a debate about what happened, not what’s next.

Too many milestones. Clients always want ten. Hold them to seven at most.

Owning the plan yourself. If you write the milestones, you’ll be chasing them all quarter.

Ending without owners. Ten minutes before the end, read out each milestone and its owner. Anyone without a name doesn’t leave the room.

Skipping the challenge list. The big, old challenges are often the real priorities. Ignoring them in planning means they’ll still be there next quarter.

The goal over several quarters is a client who can run this session without you. Each quarter, hand them a little more of the facilitation.