Rocks are the most important priorities that a company, department, or individual must complete in the next 90 days. Each Rock should be specific, measurable, and attainable, with a single owner and a clear due date

Create a new Rock from Quick Create or your team's Rock page

Create and define your Rock via the following setting options:

Video Overview of Company vs Department vs Individual Rocks

First, determine which level your Rock should be, Company, Department, or Individual:

There are also (4) Progress Types, these are determined by a combination of what you're tracking and how you check-in

Once the Rock is created, increase the visibility into the Rock by sharing it with additional Team Spaces - this will show the shares Rock in any team's Rock page + make them viewable in their L10 meetings

Note: Strety automatically shares Rocks with the assignee/owner's Person Space

You can view all Company Rocks from any team space or in any L10 agenda by clicking the Show Company Rocks dropdown drawer
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Once expanded, you'll see the Company Rocks above the team space's Department and Individual Rocks

For a detailed breakdown on the differences between Company, Department, and Individual Rocks, check out this guide

Rocks can sometimes impact multiple teams in your org. If there is a Rock that already exists in another team space you can add it using the Add Rock --> Existing option

Select the Team the Rock currently is on then select the Rock name from the Item dropdown.

Once added, the Rock and all of it's check-in history will be viewable by everyone in the team space is was added to. We also make it clear which primary team space the Rock is a part of

Check-ins are your way of updating the recent progress made for your Rocks.

Check-ins should be done weekly and ahead of your L10 Meeting or 1:1 meetings so everyone is informed of its current status

You can check-in a Rock from two places:

To check-in a Rock click the Status field and update your Status:

To see the historical record of all previous check-ins, click into the Rock itself:

Milestones allow you to break down a Rock into smaller, more actionable segments.

Effectively using milestones creates an extra layer of accountability for your highest priorities and helps everyone involved quickly and transparently determine whether you're on track or off track towards hitting your target.

To add a milestone, click into the Rock then Add Milestone. Give it a name, due date, and assignee. You can click inline to add a description

Rock categories provide an additional way to identify, group & view your Rocks. Categories are team-specific, so each team can organize their metrics to their preference

Click Edit Categories to edit existing or add new Rock categories

To edit the category of a Rock, click directly into the category column

To group your Rocks by category, change the Group By dropdown:

The Backlog is meant to store any ideas you have for future Rocks or for Rocks that may have been on the back burner from previous quarters.

Once added to the backlog you can advance the Rock by adding milestones, editing the description, and adding comments, helping the Rock take shape before you're ready to actively track it.

We highly recommend adding your Rock fragments into the backlog as soon as they are identified so the entire team can is aware of potential future priorities

From the create new button, toggle on the Send to Backlog toggle

To move an active Rock to the backlog, open the Rock and select Move to Backlog from the Action menu

Once the due date arrives and you no longer want the Rock to appear in your L10s, it's time to archive it. Click on the 3-dot menu and select Archive

Archived Rocks are still accessible by clicking the Archived checkbox in any team's Rock page:

"Keep, Kill, Combine" in the EOS framework is a prioritization method to refine a long list of potential quarterly Rocks into 3-7 crucial, actionable items by deciding to keep essential tasks, eliminate unnecessary ones, and merge overlapping objectives, ensuring team focus and alignment on what truly matters for the next 90 days

Rocks are typically aligned to quarterly or 90-day priorities, but they can span span any time period that reflects how much time you realistically expect it to take in order to achieve.

Once a Rock's time period due date arrives, assess where you are. Hopefully your target has been achieved and you can mark it as done and send it to the archive.

In the unfortunate event that you miss your target, don't simply extend the due date until you complete it - that robs you of a learning opportunity - acknowledge the target was not done, analyze and asses why, and decide what's left to achieve your goal. Options typically include:

Rocks can get off track for a variety of reasons, that's normal. However, too often owners of Rocks may be reluctant to voice any problems they're running into out of concern for how it might reflect on them or their perceived performance; that's also a normal sentiment.

We subscribe to the EOS philosophy that surfacing issues - not suppressing them - is in everyone, including the organization's best interest. You may not know the right next steps - and that's okay - so open it up for discussion and lean on your team to help you navigate a path forward.

If you find your Rock off track for too many weeks, create an issue from rock so it can be discussed more openly at the team/org level or in your next L10.

When you create an Issue from a Rock, we'll preserve the linkage between the newly create Issue and the origin Rock so everyone has that context when it's time to discuss potential resolutions or next steps. You can even add additional context to the Issue before sending to the team:

Once created, it will appear on your team's Issue list until it is either resolved, moved to long term, or sent to another team for further collaboration

Rocks can be exported from two places:

Team Space Traction Report: Export directly from the Team's Traction Report. Adjust the Report to include the specific Rock(s) you want included in the export:

As Image Downloads: Download images of your Rock(s) from any space via the Download Image icon
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Want to learn more? Check out these relevant Rocks resources from Strety's Blog