How to Run a Quarterly Planning Meeting in Ninety
A Quarterly Planning Meeting (QPM) is the half- or full-day meeting your team holds every 90 days to review the previous quarter and plan the next one. Ninety gives you a pre-built Quarterly Planning Meeting agenda that guides your team from reviewing last quarter's goals through setting new Rocks (your 90-day priorities) and resolving long-term Issues.
Quarterly Planning Meetings are available on the Accelerate and Thrive plans.
What a quarterly planning meeting is
A Quarterly Planning Meeting keeps your 90-day operating rhythm on track. Around the 90-day mark, even focused, aligned teams begin to drift, so the QPM is a scheduled chance to reconnect, celebrate, and assess the last quarter, and plan the next one. Teams hold three Quarterly Planning Meetings each year; once a year, the quarterly meeting becomes the longer Annual Planning Meeting.
The quarterly planning meeting agenda
Ninety's pre-built "Quarterly Planning Meeting" agenda has nine segments, meant to run in order over a full or half day. The times below are the defaults; your team can adjust them.
Objectives (5 minutes). The facilitator aligns the team on what the meeting will accomplish and in what order.
Check-In (15 minutes). Each person shares two wins, what's working and what's not, and what they hope to get out of the meeting.
Review Prior Quarter (30 minutes). Report each Numerical Goal and Rock from last quarter as done or not done, then grade the quarter.
Vision + Goals Review (60 minutes). Revisit your Vision and long-term goals to confirm the team is still aligned before planning the next quarter.
Mastery (60 minutes). Review how well your team has implemented the concepts, tools, and disciplines in the OS Toolbox, and identify areas for improvement.
Rocks (120 minutes). Set the coming quarter's Numerical Goals and Rocks, and make each Rock SMART.
RDR (180 minutes). Raise, Discuss, and Resolve your Long-Term Issues list.
Next Steps (7 minutes). Review every new To-Do so that each owner knows what they're responsible for.
Conclude (8 minutes). Each person shares takeaways, says whether the meeting met expectations, and rates it from 1 to 10.
What the Mastery segment is for
The Mastery segment is the part of the quarterly planning meeting where your team reviews how well it has adopted the concepts, tools, and disciplines (CTDs) that make up your operating system, and decides where to strengthen them. When you reach this segment, Ninety opens the OS Toolbox — the tool that tracks your team's mastery of its operating system across competencies such as Vision, Goals, Structure, People, Customer, Meetings, Data, Process, and Exit.
To guide the discussion, the facilitator presents three options:
Cascade. Push concepts, tools, and disciplines the leadership team already uses out to the rest of the organization.
Mastery. Rather than adding anything new, deepen the team's use of the CTDs it already has.
Expansion. Add a new concept, tool, or discipline to address a new challenge or support growth.
For a full walkthrough of the tool this segment opens, read OS Toolbox.
How to prepare for a quarterly planning meeting
Prepare for a quarterly planning meeting by ensuring your team's information in Ninety is up to date.
A fast way to prep is to download your team's quarterly report from the Vision tool: click the graph icon on the far right of the filters bar to generate a PDF of your Scorecards, Rocks, Vision, SWOT analysis, and Org Chart.
Before the meeting, review:
Vision. Refresh alignment on your organization's vision and update anything that's out of date.
Rocks. Confirm last quarter's Rocks are marked done or not done so the Review Prior Quarter segment goes quickly.
Issues. Make sure short- and long-term Issues are clearly written so discussion can start fast.
Org Chart. Look for structural changes or new seats coming in the next few months.
Note: Ninety automatically archives a copy of your team's Vision when you start your annual session (not the quarterly session).
How to start a quarterly planning meeting
Start a Quarterly Planning Meeting from the Meetings tool. Only one meeting can be active per team at a time.
Click Meetings in the left navigation.
Choose your team from the Team dropdown.
Click Start a Meeting.
Select Quarterly Planning Meeting from the agenda list.
Team members join by clicking Meetings > Join Meeting. To end the meeting, click Finish on the meeting page; a recap email is automatically sent to the team.
How to customize the quarterly planning meeting agenda
Each team can tailor its quarterly planning meeting agenda. Owners, Admins, and Managers can adjust a single team's agenda; Owners, Admins, and Coaches can push a standard agenda to every team.
Customize the agenda for your team
Click Meetings in the left navigation.
Choose your team from the Team dropdown.
Click the Agendas tab.
Click the Quarterly Planning Meeting agenda.
Toggle segments on or off, click the pencil icon to edit a segment's name or time, click Add Custom Section or Add Tool Section, or drag segments to reorder them.
Click Save Changes.
Push a custom agenda to all teams
Click your name at the bottom of the left navigation, then Company Settings.
Click Meetings and select Quarterly Planning Meeting from the dropdown.
Adjust the agenda as needed.
Click Save, then More Options, then Push to All Teams.
Tip: To keep built-in sections like Objectives, Check-In, Review Prior Quarter, and the People Analyzer, modify the existing Quarterly Planning Meeting agenda rather than building a new agenda from scratch — a brand-new custom agenda doesn't include every built-in tool section.
Quarterly Planning Meeting vs. Quarterly Review
A Quarterly Planning Meeting and a Quarterly Review are different things in Ninety, and they're easy to mix up.
A Quarterly Planning Meeting is a whole-team meeting held every 90 days that follows the agenda described here.
A Quarterly Review is a one-on-one conversation between a team leader and a direct report — run from the 1-on-1 tool — that evaluates the person across Core Values, Rocks, and roles.
If you're looking to evaluate an individual rather than plan the quarter as a team, see Quarterly and Annual Reviews.
Troubleshooting
I can't start or find the Quarterly Planning Meeting.
The Quarterly Planning Meeting agenda is available in the Accelerate and Thrive (including Legacy) plans. In Essentials, only the Weekly Team Meeting is available; check your plan with your Owner or Admin. You also need to be an Owner, Admin, Manager, Team Member, or Coach to start a meeting — if you only see Join and not Start a Meeting, you may not have permission or the meeting may already be scheduled by someone else.
My quarterly agenda won't save.
Refresh the page (or try a different browser) and edit the agenda again — this resolves most saving issues. If it persists, contact support.
My custom agenda is missing sections like Objectives, Check-In, or Review Prior Quarter.
Those are built-in tool sections that a brand-new custom agenda doesn't include. To keep them, modify the existing Quarterly Planning Meeting agenda (from the Agendas tab, or via Company Settings to push to all teams) instead of creating a new agenda from scratch.
We didn't receive the meeting summary email.
You can still review the meeting's notes, Issues, and To-Dos from Past Meetings in the Meetings tool. Recap emails are sent when the meeting is concluded with Finish; if you expected one and didn't get it, contact support.
My agenda's 60-minute section is labeled "Tools" or "EOS Tools," not "Mastery."
That's the same operating-system segment — its label varies by workspace and business operating system. Whatever it's called, it opens the OS Toolbox, so your team can review and strengthen its concepts, tools, and disciplines.