Parachute Technology grew EOS from six executives to more than seventy people, and COO Mark Lukehart sums up the payoff simply: it makes you sit down once a quarter and pick the Rocks that matter.
If your next quarterly is on the calendar, here’s how to run the day so the Rocks you pick survive all 90 days.
The EOS quarterly meeting agenda is a one-day, seven-step session the leadership team runs every 90 days: Segue, previous quarter review, V/TO review, establishing next quarter’s Rocks, tackling key Issues with IDS, next steps, and Conclude. It reviews the last quarter, resets priorities, and ends with three to seven owned Rocks.
Table of contents
What is an EOS quarterly meeting?
An EOS quarterly meeting is a full day, every 90 days, when your leadership team steps out of the weekly grind to work on the business. EOS calls it Quarterly Pulsing™, and it sits between your weekly Level 10 Meeting and your two-day Annual Planning session.
Your L10 keeps the week on track. The quarterly decides what “on track” means for the next 90 days. You look back at what you said you’d do, check it against your vision, and set the few priorities that matter most.
If you’ve done traditional strategic planning, the difference is cadence. A classic strategic plan often lives in a binder that gets dusted off once a year. Tammey Bertrand, VP of Organizational Development and Training at 31st Street Capital, describes EOS as a living, two-page plan you check quarterly and weekly. The quarterly is where you rewrite the next chapter of it.
One quick clarification: Quarterly Pulsing is the leadership team’s planning day. Quarterly Conversations are the manager-and-direct-report check-ins. Different meetings, same 90-day rhythm.
What’s on the EOS quarterly meeting agenda?
The EOS quarterly meeting agenda has seven steps, and EOS Worldwide’s version gives each one a time box. Add up the minutes and you get about seven hours of content, so with breaks and lunch you’ve got your full day.
- Segue (15 minutes). Each person shares their best personal and professional news from the last 90 days, what is and isn’t working, and what they expect from the day.
- Previous quarter review (30 minutes). Review your key measurables, then your Rocks. If you finished fewer than 80% of them, talk about what got in the way.
- V/TO review (60 minutes). Walk through your Vision/Traction Organizer so everyone’s still on the same page about where you’re headed. Concerns get raised here, out loud.
- Establish next quarter’s Rocks (120 minutes). List everything that has to happen this quarter, then keep, kill, or combine your way down to three to seven Rocks, each with one owner.
- Tackle key Issues (180 minutes). Clear out Issues your new Rocks already cover, add new ones, then IDS the top three at a time. Yes, three hours of IDS. Bring snacks.
- Next steps (7 minutes). Confirm who owns each To Do and what gets communicated to the rest of the company.
- Conclude (8 minutes). Everyone shares feedback, whether their expectations were met, and a 1–10 rating. EOS aims for an average of 8 or higher.
That’s the skeleton. The difference between a quarterly that energizes your team and one that just exhausts them comes down to what you do before and after it.
How do you prep for the quarterly?
You prep for the quarterly by pulling three things about a week ahead: where every Rock stands, what your Scorecard did over the last 90 days, and what’s sitting on your Issues List. Walk in with that data and you skip the first hour of “wait, did we finish that?”
A few prep moves that pay off:
- Close out last quarter’s Rocks. Mark each one done or not done before the meeting, so the review turns into a quick, honest conversation.
- Look for Scorecard patterns. A number that’s been red for six straight weeks deserves an Issue on the list before the day starts.
- Let people add Issues early. The best Issues show up when someone has time to think, which is rarely 3pm on quarterly day.
In Strety, you can export a PDF report of your Rocks and metrics for any date range. Working with an EOS Implementer? Share a Traction Report link so they can review your quarter before they walk in.
31st Street Capital leans on this when they review the quarter:
“We’ve got our notes, so it’s easy to see: What was the goal? What did we hit?” — Tammey Bertrand, VP of Organizational Development and Training, 31st Street Capital
How do you set Rocks without the debate?
You set Rocks by listing everything that must happen this quarter, then using keep, kill, or combine to get the list down to three to seven priorities. Each Rock gets one owner and should move you toward the annual goals on your V/TO.
Step 4 gets two hours on the agenda for a reason. Your list will start at 15 or 20 ideas, and every single one will have a passionate supporter. That’s normal. Keep, kill, combine is how you get from “everything matters” to “these five matter most.”
Two habits make this go faster:
- Start from a draft. Strety’s AI Rock Suggestions can draft Rock ideas from your V/TO, open Issues, existing Rocks, and seats, so your team starts the session by editing a list. More on that in our post on using AI to get started with EOS.
- Write the finish line down. A Rock like “launch the new website” invites a fight in week 11 about what “launched” means. Make it SMART before you leave the room.
Mark Lukehart at Parachute put it well:
“For us, that’s what Traction does: it forces you to sit down once a quarter and come up with a handful of rocks that are actually going to move this company forward.” — Mark Lukehart, COO, Parachute Technology
If a Rock is really a big project in disguise, you can run it as a project and let the project power the Rock’s progress.
What happens after the quarterly meeting?
After the quarterly, your new Rocks go live in your weekly L10 and every To Do from the day gets an owner and a due date. Then the rest of the company hears what changed. The first L10 of the quarter is the real test: if the Rocks aren’t on the screen, they’re already slipping.
Here’s your first-week checklist:
- Get the Rocks into your system the same day. A whiteboard photo is a memory, and memories don’t get reviewed in L10s.
- Send a recap. 31st Street Capital sends a meeting summary to participants after every quarterly and annual meeting, so nobody has to remember who said what.
- Cascade to departments. Department teams set their own Rocks so they line up with the company’s.
- Check every Rock in your first L10. On track or off track, out loud. Your V/TO stays live when the Rocks under it get reviewed every single week. Starting from week one makes it a habit.
What are the most common quarterly meeting mistakes?
The most common quarterly mistakes are walking in unprepared, setting too many Rocks, and leaving without a clear finish line for each one. All of them are fixable before your next session.
- Walking in cold. Without pre-pulled data, the previous quarter review eats half your morning. Fix: pull Rock statuses, 90 days of Scorecard data, and the Issues List a week ahead.
- Setting eight, nine, or twelve Rocks. Seven is the ceiling for a reason, and fewer Rocks means more of them get finished. Fix: if keep, kill, combine still leaves you at eight, ask which one you’d drop if you could only finish seven, and move it to the backlog.
- Staying at the office. EOS recommends going off-site for a reason. It’s very hard to work on the business when the business keeps knocking on the conference room door. Fix: book a room away from the office and agree on phones-away hours for the day.
- Rushing IDS to make lunch. IDS works through your top three Issues at a time, and a big one, like whether to restructure a department, can easily take an hour on its own. Rush it and the same Issue shows up again next quarter. Fix: protect the full 180 minutes and carry forward any Issue that isn’t ready to solve yet.
- Vague Rocks. Even our own team has walked out of a quarterly with a Rock like “launch the MCP server” and no definition of done. Fix: before anyone leaves the room, write one sentence per Rock that says what done looks like, with a number or a date.
- Going silent in week one. No recap, no L10 check-in, and by week three the new Rocks have faded into background noise. Fix: send the recap within a day and review every Rock out loud in your first L10.
Can you run a quarterly with a remote team?
Yes, you can run an EOS quarterly with a remote or hybrid team, as long as everyone sees the same agenda and the same data on one screen. Cameras on, a strict agenda timer, and real breaks matter even more on video than they do in a room.
The hardest part of a remote quarterly is capturing what gets decided. When the whiteboard is a shared screen and the notes are in five different chat windows, decisions get lost fast. This is where running EOS in one piece of software pays off. When your team runs its weekly L10s and its quarterly in the same EOS software, the Rocks you set on a video call land right where everyone checks them every week. Nobody retypes the whiteboard into a spreadsheet afterward, and nothing gets lost between the call and the next L10.
What does the quarterly look like with Strety?
With Strety, your quarterly runs on the same platform as your weekly L10s, so prep takes minutes, the agenda keeps the day on time, and the Rocks you set are live before everyone gets home. Here’s how the day compares without software and with EOS software like Strety:
| Stage | Without software (whiteboards, docs, spreadsheets) | With EOS software (Strety) |
|---|---|---|
| Prep | Someone copies Rock statuses and Scorecard numbers into a slide deck | Export a PDF report for the quarter, or share the Traction Report link with your Implementer |
| Running the day | A printed agenda and a phone timer | The Quarterly Pulse agenda template walks you through each step |
| Setting Rocks | A wall of sticky notes and one person photographing it | Keep, Kill, Combine across current Rocks, backlog Rocks, and long-term Issues, with AI Rock Suggestions for a first draft |
| Capturing decisions | Whoever took the best notes | The AI Assistant joins your Teams, Zoom, or Google Meet call and suggests notes and To Dos afterward. In the room, your scribe captures decisions right in the agenda |
| The week after | Rocks retyped into a spreadsheet, eventually | Rocks are already in Strety and show up in your first L10 |
Bring your AI tool to the quarterly
If you live in AI chats like Claude or ChatGPT, the Strety MCP connects it to your Rocks, Scorecard, Issues, and V/TO, and anything it updates writes straight back to Strety. A few ways teams use it around the quarterly:
- Before: Roman, founder and Visionary at Cleango, asked Claude to prep his quarterly: which Rocks to keep and which to kill, grounded in a quarter of check-ins and Scorecard history. You can read his full workflow in our 9 MCP use cases post.
- Right after: snap a photo of the final Rock list on the whiteboard, hand it to Claude, and ask it to add the Rocks in Strety with owners and due dates.
- The first week: ask Claude to flag any Rock without a SMART description and suggest a rewrite based on its context. Then create the day’s To Dos and Issues in one ask, by voice from your phone if you like.
Frequently asked questions
How long is an EOS quarterly meeting?
An EOS quarterly meeting takes one full day. The seven agenda steps add up to about seven hours, plus breaks and lunch.
Who should attend an EOS quarterly planning session?
The leadership team attends the company quarterly, and department teams can run their own. An EOS Implementer or an internal facilitator usually leads the day.
Does the EOS quarterly meeting have to be off-site?
EOS recommends going off-site so the team can focus fully on working on the business. Remote quarterlies work too if everyone shares one agenda and one screen.
What’s the difference between the EOS quarterly meeting and Annual Planning?
Annual Planning is a two-day extension of a quarterly, according to EOS Worldwide. Day one reviews the year and refreshes the V/TO through the 1-Year Plan, and day two follows the standard quarterly agenda.
What’s the difference between EOS Quarterly Pulsing and Quarterly Conversations?
Quarterly Pulsing is the leadership team’s one-day planning session. Quarterly Conversations are one-on-one check-ins between a manager and each direct report.
How many EOS Rocks should we set each quarter?
Set three to seven Rocks per team, each with one owner. EOS Worldwide suggests reviewing what went wrong if you finish fewer than 80% of them.
Do we need an EOS Implementer to run our EOS quarterly meeting?
You can run a quarterly while self-implementing, and plenty of teams start that way. An EOS Implementer helps you master the tools faster; here’s what to know about EOS Implementer cost.
What software can you use to run an EOS quarterly meeting?
EOS software like Strety runs your quarterly on the same platform as your weekly L10s, with a Quarterly Pulse agenda template and Keep, Kill, Combine for setting Rocks. Your Rocks, Scorecard, and Issues are already on screen, and the new Rocks are live the moment you set them.
Can AI help you prepare for an EOS quarterly meeting?
Yes. With the Strety MCP, AI chats like Claude or ChatGPT can review a quarter of Rock check-ins and Scorecard history and suggest which Rocks to keep or kill before the meeting.
Your next step this week
Put your quarterly on the calendar, then pull your Rock statuses and 90 days of Scorecard data before the day. That single hour of prep will save you a long morning of “wait, where are we on that?”
Want quarterly day to feel calm, focused, and maybe even fun? Try Strety free for 30 days and run your next quarterly on the Quarterly Pulse template. Your Rocks and Scorecard will already be on screen when everyone sits down, so all you need to bring is the snacks. No credit card required.
