Ceos Annual

ceos-annual

Facilitate the EOS Annual Planning session — the formal year-end process (typically a 2-day offsite) where the leadership team refreshes the V/TO, reviews the outgoing year, sets the new 1-Year Plan, and establishes Q1 Rocks. This is the most comprehensive EOS meeting of the year.

When to Use

• "Run annual planning" or "annual planning session"
• "Plan next year" or "let's plan for 2027"
• "Review 2026" or "year in review"
• "Refresh our vision" or "update the V/TO for the year"
• "Annual offsite" or "strategic planning session"
• Any end-of-year or start-of-year strategic planning discussion

Context

Finding the CEOS Repository

Search upward from the current directory for the .ceos marker file. This file marks the root of the CEOS repository.

If .ceos is not found, stop and tell the user: "Not in a CEOS repository. Clone your CEOS repo and run setup.sh first."

Sync before use: Once you find the CEOS root, run git -C <ceos_root> pull --ff-only --quiet 2>/dev/null to get the latest data from teammates. If it fails (conflict or offline), continue silently with local data.

Key Files

Annual Planning Agenda

The full annual planning session follows a 7-section agenda:

Year Determination

When determining the planning year:

• If run in Q4 (Oct-Dec): "Next year" is current year + 1. The "outgoing year" is the current year.
• If run in Q1 (Jan-Mar): "Next year" is the current year. The "outgoing year" is current year - 1.
• If run mid-year (Q2-Q3): Warn that annual planning typically happens at Q4/Q1 boundary. Ask which year to plan for.

Key EOS Principles

• Annual Planning reviews the FULL V/TO — not just the 1-Year Plan. All 8 sections get reviewed.
• 10-Year Target and Core Focus rarely change (if ever). Confirm they still resonate, but don't pressure updates.
• 3-Year Picture updates to reflect progress and changing conditions.
• 1-Year Plan is entirely new each year with 3-7 measurable goals.
• Q1 Rocks are set during annual planning, aligned to the new 1-Year Plan.
• All leadership team members must attend. If someone is missing, note it but proceed.

Process

Mode: Plan

Use when conducting the full annual planning session with the structured 7-section agenda.

Step 1: Setup

1. Determine the planning year. Ask if not clear from context. Follow the Year Determination rules above.

2. Check for existing planning file. Look for data/annual/YYYY-planning.md.

   • Exists: Ask: "Annual planning for YYYY already exists. Open it to review, append notes, or start fresh?"
   • New: Continue with Step 2.

3. Gather session details:

   • Attendees (all leadership team members should be present)
   • Location (office, offsite, etc.)
   • Date (default to today)

4. Gather context. Read these files silently:

   • data/vision.md — current V/TO state
   • data/rocks/ — all quarters for the outgoing year
   • data/scorecard/weeks/ — scorecard data for the year
   • data/issues/open/ — open issues list
   • data/accountability.md — current org structure
   • data/people/ — People Analyzer evaluations

5. Create the year directory if it doesn't exist: data/annual/

Display a preparation summary:

Annual Planning — [Year]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Date: [Date]
Attendees: [Names]
Location: [Location]

Data loaded:
  V/TO: [Last updated date]
  Rocks: [Count] across [N] quarters
  Scorecard: [N] weeks of data
  Open issues: [Count]
  People evaluations: [Count]

Let's walk through the 7-section agenda.

Step 2: Section 1 — Year in Review

1. Score Q4 Rocks. Read all Rocks from data/rocks/YYYY-Q4/. Display current status for each Rock. For any Rocks still on_track or off_track, ask: "Complete or incomplete?" Update status to complete or dropped.

   Calculate Q4 completion rate: (complete / total) * 100.

   If no Q4 Rock files exist: "No Q4 Rocks on file. Skip Q4 scoring, or enter scores manually?"

2. Annual Rock Summary. Read Rocks from all four quarters of the outgoing year. Display a summary table:

   Annual Rock Summary — YYYY
   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
   | Quarter | Total | Complete | Rate |
   |---------|-------|----------|------|
   | Q1      | 5     | 4        | 80%  |
   | Q2      | 6     | 5        | 83%  |
   | Q3      | 5     | 3        | 60%  |
   | Q4      | 6     | 5        | 83%  |
   | Year    | 22    | 17       | 77%  |

   If below 80% annual average: "Below the 80% target. Discuss: Were Rocks too ambitious, or were there execution issues?"

3. Scorecard Trends. Read scorecard files for the year. Identify which metrics consistently hit or missed goals. Display a summary of trends.

   If no scorecard data exists: "No scorecard data for YYYY. Skip trends."

4. Celebrate Wins. Prompt: "What were the biggest wins and accomplishments this year?" Record responses.

Record all Year in Review data in the planning file.

Step 3: Section 2 — V/TO Refresh

Walk through each V/TO section from data/vision.md:

1. Core Values: Display current values. Ask: "Do these still resonate? Any changes?" Note: Core Values should rarely change.

2. Core Focus: Display purpose and niche. Ask: "Still accurate?" Note: Core Focus should rarely change.

3. 10-Year Target: Display current target. Ask: "Still the right big goal?" Note: This shifts slowly.

4. 3-Year Picture: Display current state. Ask: "What's changed? What should the 3-Year Picture look like now?" This section updates to reflect progress.

5. 1-Year Plan: This is entirely new each year. Ask: "What are the 3-7 measurable goals for [next year]?" Walk through each goal, ensuring it has a specific measurable target.

6. Marketing Strategy: Display target market, 3 Uniques, proven process. Ask: "Any updates?"

Important: Record proposed V/TO changes in the planning file. Actual updates to data/vision.md should be done via ceos-vto after the session, or the user can approve inline updates during this step. If the user wants to update vision.md now, show the diff and ask for approval before writing.

Step 4: Section 3 — Issues Sweep

1. Read all open issues from data/issues/open/.
2. Display the list with age (days since created).
3. Ask: "Which issues should we tackle today? Add any new long-term issues?"
4. For selected issues, run a quick IDS:
   • Identify the real issue
   • Discuss perspectives
   • Solve with an action item, owner, and due date
5. Record IDS results in the planning file.

Note: For issues that need full IDS treatment, reference ceos-ids for creating formal issue files.

Step 5: Section 4 — Organizational Checkup

1. Read data/accountability.md for the current Accountability Chart.

2. Display all seats with current owners.

3. Ask: "Are all seats filled with the right people? Any structural changes needed?"

4. If People Analyzer evaluations exist in data/people/, reference the latest ratings:

   People Summary:
     Brad: Core Values 5/5, GWC Pass ✓
     Sarah: Core Values 4/5, GWC Pass ✓
     Mike: Core Values 3/5, GWC Evaluating ⚠️

5. Discuss any concerns. Record structural changes and people decisions.

Note: For formal People Analyzer updates, reference ceos-people.

Step 6: Section 5 — Set Q1 Rocks

1. Reference the new 1-Year Plan goals (from Step 3).
2. Ask: "What Q1 Rocks will drive progress on these goals?"
3. For each proposed Rock, collect: title, owner, which 1-Year goal it aligns to.
4. Validate:
   • 3-7 Rocks per person. Flag if outside range.
   • Alignment. Each Rock should connect to a 1-Year Plan goal.
5. Record in the planning file.

Note: Create individual Rock files using ceos-rocks after this session. The planning file captures the decisions; the Rock files are the operational artifacts.

Step 7: Section 6 — Set Scorecard

1. Read current Scorecard metrics from data/scorecard/metrics.md (if it exists).
2. Display current metrics.
3. Ask three questions:
   • "Which metrics do we keep for next year?"
   • "What new metrics should we add?"
   • "What metrics should we remove?"
4. Record decisions in the planning file.

Note: Update the Scorecard metrics file using ceos-scorecard after this session.

Step 8: Section 7 — Conclude

1. Key Decisions: Summarize the major decisions made during the session.
2. Cascading Messages: Ask: "What needs to be communicated to the rest of the organization?"
3. Action Items: Compile all action items from all sections with owners and due dates.
4. Next Steps: List follow-up tasks (commit V/TO updates, create Rock files, update Scorecard, communicate decisions).

Step 9: Save the Planning File

1. Show the complete planning file before writing.
2. Ask: "Save this annual planning session?"
3. Write to data/annual/YYYY-planning.md.
4. Remind: "Run git commit to save the planning session."
5. List follow-up actions:
   • "Update vision.md with V/TO changes using ceos-vto" (if not done inline)
   • "Create Q1 Rock files using ceos-rocks"
   • "Update Scorecard metrics using ceos-scorecard"

Mode: Review Year

Use when analyzing the outgoing year's performance without running a full planning session.

Step 1: Determine the Year

Ask which year to review. Defaults:

• If run in Q1 (Jan-Mar): Default to previous year (outgoing year)
• If run in Q4 (Oct-Dec): Default to current year (year almost complete)
• Otherwise: Ask which year