We run a quarterly business review internally. Not for a client, not for a board — for us. Eighteen people, three hours, one Tuesday afternoon at the end of each quarter. I've tried longer versions and shorter versions. This is what stuck.
The meeting has four parts and nothing else. First, the numbers: revenue, gross margin, cash on hand, and headcount. Ten minutes. Alexander walks the room through it and I don't let anyone editorialize until he's done. Second, what we said we'd do last quarter and whether we did it. We keep a running list of six to eight commitments. Green, yellow, red. No paragraphs. Third, what broke — one incident per department, the honest one, not the flattering one. Fourth, what we're committing to for the next 90 days. Same six-to-eight format. If a proposed commitment doesn't have an owner and a date, it doesn't go on the list. I've killed good ideas at 2:55 PM for that reason.
I removed three things that used to live on the agenda. Individual project updates went first — those belong in weekly standups, and hearing them again quarterly turned the room into a queue of people waiting to talk about themselves. Slide decks went second. We use one shared doc, updated live. When someone builds a 22-slide deck for an internal meeting, I know they spent Monday on formatting instead of the work. Third, I cut the "wins and shoutouts" section. It sounds mean. It isn't. Recognition that only shows up on a quarterly cadence is worth nothing. We do that weekly, in the moment, by name. Putting it in the QBR made it feel scheduled, which made it feel fake, which made it worse than not doing it.
Two weeks before the QBR, I send every manager the same three questions in writing. What's a process that's costing us time and we've stopped noticing? Who on your team has grown this quarter, and how do you know? What would you stop doing if I told you that you could? I read the answers before the meeting. I don't read them aloud in the meeting. But they shape which yellow items I push on and which red items I let sit for anohter quarter. The questions matter more than the meeting does. The meeting is where decisions get made public. The questions are where I find out what's actually happening on the floor between weeks six and eleven, when nobody's performing for anyone.
If your internal QBR has drifted into a status-update parade and you want to rebuild it into something your team doesn't dread, send us a note — this is the sort of operating cadence we help other small shops tighten up.
— Amanda @ SBATC
