Are you trying to figure out if you need a Rock, a Project, or both to collaborate and track progress in Strety?
Let me break down when and why you’d use each tool, because getting this right will save you time and make your team way more effective.
For a deep dive into each tool (with video), check out the Help Docs:
When to Create a Project for a Rock
A lot of times, Rocks are bigger initiatives than the Rock tool intuitively supports. If you need more real estate or want a better visual to manage all the different people helping you achieve that Rock, I recommend setting up a Project for it.
Why? Because you can bring in other people from other teams. You aren’t as constrained by the team-based permissions that Rocks currently have. You don’t find yourself trying to fit a Rock into something it’s not meant to be.
Think about it this way: if your Rock is great for the binary “on track or off track” updates in your L10 meetings, but when you’re actually working on it, you need a lot more room and collaborative space — that’s when you create a Project.
The details of the Rock don’t matter as much in your L10s, but having a space to task everything out without cluttering up your meetings is actually a benefit to the rest of your team.
One example from our team of a Rock tied to a Project is our SOC-2 Type 2 compliance initiative. It’s a Rock because it’s a company priority, and it’s a Project because it’s a complicated initiative; we need the space and cross-collaboration capabilities.
How Project Updates Work with Rocks
We’ve gotten some feedback that project updates should automatically feed into Rock completion based on to-do percentages. But here’s the thing: not all To Dos are created equal. You might complete five tiny to-dos versus five super important ones that get you 80% of the way there.
That’s why we don’t automate everything. I want someone to tell me what “on track” or “off track” means. This Rock may look on track, but you may know why it’s actually off track — and I want that human accountability to inform the team.
We don’t want the check-in experience to just be a thoughtless “it’s 80% complete based on to-dos.” That doesn’t tell me anything. The human who owns that Rock is responsible for communicating how it’s doing, despite maybe the appearance of the project relative to its timeline.
When to Create a Project Without a Rock
Not every project needs to be a Rock. These might be projects that are either ongoing or very short-lived in nature.
Here’s a good little rubric to go through:
- Do problems come out of this project that usually become talking points in team settings? If so, that might be a great thing to move into Strety as a Project.
- Do you meet on this weekly? If so, that’s a good reason to have it as a Project in Strety, especially since you can create custom agendas around it and pull information into it.
Great examples of Projects without Rocks include:
- Ongoing processes (like our customer migration project or updating SOPs)
- Repetitive processes (like attending 5 conferences a year or website updates)
- Detailed workflows (like onboarding new employees)
My rule of thumb: if issues arise out of a project/process/workflow, it’s great to have that project in Strety. If it’s an ongoing processes/workflow that involves multiple people, imagine you’re out for a week — someone should be able to jump into the project and see where the project stands. Just by looking at it, they should be able to understand 80% of the work you’re doing.
That’s the goal of setting up a Project: making it really clear based on the to-do list you’ve set up, the custom fields you’ve created, and how you leverage descriptions and checklists to help your team understand what you’re doing and where work is at.
When to Create a Rock Without a Project
Sometimes a Rock is just a Rock. If it’s straightforward enough that you don’t need the extra collaborative space, project management features, or cross-team coordination, keep it simple. Your quarterly priorities don’t always need the full project treatment — sometimes the Rock format gives you exactly what you need for tracking and accountability in your L10 meetings.
A great example of this kind of Rock is a numerical check-in Rock. Maybe you have a goal of 100 outbound calls next quarter. You may manage a few To Dos around this Rock (that you can connect to HubSpot if that’s your CRM). But the check-in is how many you completed, not details around how you’re getting it done. This Rock likely doesn’t need the real estate a Project provides.
The Bottom Line
The beauty of having both Projects and Rocks in Strety is that you can choose the right tool for the right job. Don’t force everything into one format just because it exists.
Start simple, add complexity when you need it, and always ask yourself: “What would make this easier for my team to execute and track?” That’s usually your answer right there.
Want to see how Projects and Rocks work together in your business? Start your free trial and test out both tools with your team’s actual work. Or hop on a call with us to discuss exactly how Strety could be the best EOS® software for you.
