Three Steps to a Successful Quarterly Offsite

How do you make a quarterly offsite workshop a success? After all, you do want to get something tangible out of an offsite. Don’t just go through the motions because you think you’re supposed to have a workshop every quarter. Every quarterly offsite should end with something tangible to take with you moving forward.

That’s why the one thing every startup needs to do during a quarterly offsite is to keep the end in mind. Don’t go into it blindly and hope for the best. There needs to be a plan for how the offsite will end. Ideally, the end of the quarterly offsite should be the leadership team having a clear understanding of the key goals for the following quarter.

It’s imperative that everyone on the leadership team is on the same page and in agreement regarding the company’s goals and priorities. Keep in mind, these should be company-wide goals. Don’t give finance, marketing, and engineering different goals. There should be no more than five goals, and they should all pertain to the entire company, not specific departments.

When the team is in agreement on the five key goals, it’s easier to identify the potential roadblocks stopping the business from reaching the next level of growth. This should be the end goal of every quarterly offsite. Keep this end goal in mind as you plan the steps and activities during the offsite that will get you to this conclusion.

The first step during a quarterly offsite is to do a full review of the previous quarter. Discuss what worked and what didn’t work. If there is a difference of opinion between members of the leadership team, make sure they get worked out. Everyone needs to be on the same page about what the company is doing well and what it could be doing better.

Next, conduct a deep dive into the company's problems and challenges. If there are multiple challenges, two or three sessions may be needed to address each one. This is when the leadership team can better understand the root of the problem and how it might be addressed.

The final step of the quarterly offsite is when the team makes decisions about the five things to focus on for the following quarter. Together, the leadership team sets the priorities and goals. This should always be the end goal of a quarterly off-site workshop. But to get there, you must have the end goal in mind from the start.

If your startup needs help with your next quarterly offsite, reach out to the Midstage Institute, and we can help guide you through the process. The Midstage Institute may also be able to help your leadership team become more accountable and get your flywheels spinning with our Execution Accelerator.