You've just logged into Strety for the first time, and you're pumped! Finally, a tool that helps you organize, implement, and run EOS/Business Operating System (BOS) more effectively and with focus. Then you see this screen. Now what?
Whether you are completely new to EOS/BOS or you've never used software to manage it, this guide walks you through our recommendations for setting up Strety the right way the first time, so you can roll it out to your team with confidence.
Establish a pilot or testing team
When implementing Strety, it's best to start with your Leadership Team or create a pilot or test team, then scale out after a few meeting cycles.
By default, there is a Leadership team already created in your account. You can use that team if your pilot team is made up of leadership members. If you're new-ish to EOS/BOS, we recommend creating a pilot team for this purpose.
You can always reassign any items you add to the pilot team to a legitimate team down the road. The pilot team simply creates a clean sandbox between real and test work as you get familiar.
If you opt for the test team route, create your test team and add your test team members.
Invite your team to Strety
Account Owners and Admins can invite people to Strety by:
Selecting Adminland from their profile options
Select Users
Select Invite Users
Once there, you have two options: Invite by Email or Invite by Microsoft Directory. If you opt to invite via email, you can add an individual or bulk add people by separating their emails with a comma. Select the Role, choose which Team(s) the new user(s) should be added to, and click Send Invites.
Note: You can edit which team(s) any person is assigned to from the Users page in Adminland. Team members can also be edited within the Team Space itself.
If your organization uses Microsoft SSO, we recommend configuring Entra/Microsoft Directory so you can invite people directly from Entra.
From there, search for the people you want to invite, select the Role and which Team(s) the new user(s) should be added to, and click Send Invites.
Note: Microsoft Directory requires Global Admin permissions. For more information about what that includes, review Microsoft Permissions.
Add data
Once you've set up your test team, it's time to populate it with information and data as you begin to build toward that first L10 meeting. From your test team's home page, click into any of the tools and create your first Rocks, Measurables, To Dos, Headlines, and Issues.
Our recommendations
Rocks: Add 2-3. Include an example of both a Status Only (EOS Style Rock) and Status with Target type.
Rocks are typically the highest priorities for the next 90 days
Rocks should be set for the organization and at the team level
Rocks should be S.M.A.R.T: specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely
Scorecards: Add 2-3. Backfill the last 1-2 weeks with a numerical check-in so there is data ready to review in your first L10.
Weekly measurables should measure progress and let you know that work is being done that leads toward your desired outcomes
No need to track everything; each team typically has 5-15 measurables they should be tracking on a weekly basis
Add context to your check-ins and spend less time getting everyone up to speed in your L10
To Dos: Add a handful. Typically these are tasks that deserve accountability but shouldn't linger open for more than 7-14 days. Most of your To Dos will actually originate within Strety meetings.
To Dos can be created from almost anywhere in Strety, including Rocks, Issues, Headlines, 1:1s, or any Agenda Item
Create tasks and tickets to avoid duplicative work by integrating Strety To Dos with Microsoft Planner, Asana, HubSpot, Monday.com, ConnectWise, Autotask, or Halo PSA (see section below)
Headlines: Add 1-2. Typically these are announcements that require little to no follow-up; more of a DYK type message.
Issues: Add 2-3. Typically these are problems, ideas, or opportunities that need input from others in order to be resolved.
Other examples: an obstacle for someone on the team, a broken system, a missing step in a process, a customer complaint, or an employee grumbling
Short-term Issues are for things you plan to resolve this quarter
Long-term Issues are things you need to resolve but may not be ready to tackle yet.
Once everything has been added, click back to your pilot or test team overview page to see how everything looks.
With your data added, some of you may be ready to run your first L10. However, there are a few more Strety features to call out in order to make Strety an interoperable part of your tool stack.
Set up integrations
Strety integrates where your work happens. That means Microsoft Teams, Planner, Monday.com, HubSpot, Asana, Google Tasks, ConnectWise, Autotask, and Halo. To truly take advantage of all Strety has to offer, we recommend integrating before you begin to run your meetings.
Microsoft Teams
If your organization lives in Microsoft Teams, we encourage you to use the Strety app in Teams, with no need for another siloed tool. If you allow your team to install Microsoft apps, you should be all set! If you currently restrict folks from installing apps, you will need a Global Admin to grant the one-time required permission.
Click the link to read more about the additional Microsoft Permissions we require.
Strety integrations
For many To Dos that originate within Strety, the work happens somewhere else. To reduce duplicative work and meet people where they actually work, we have a growing list of platforms you can create, link, and bi-directionally sync To Dos with.
The best part is when tasks or tickets are completed within those platforms, the To Do will automatically complete back in Strety.
Create Strety To Dos, Issues, and Headlines from Microsoft Teams chat
Ever had something come up in a Microsoft Teams chat and wanted to follow up in a team meeting? Strety makes it easy to bring those conversations into Strety and nest them into the appropriate team meeting.
Click the three-dot menu of the specific message, then click Create Item in Strety. If you don't see the option, try the More actions menu.
From there, choose whether you want to create an Issue, Headline, or To Do, then select its destination. One less thing to slip through the cracks!
Create Strety To Dos, Issues, and Headlines from Outlook
Ready to have your mind blown? Install the Strety app in Outlook and create an Issue, To Do, or Headline from any email in your inbox!
Install the Strety app in Outlook
Pin the app in Outlook for ease of access
Then, when you need to turn an email into an Issue, To Do, or Headline, click the app, choose what you want to create, and select its destination:
Run your first L10
With data entered and integration(s) configured, you're ready to run your first Strety L10. Navigate to the Agendas tab from your pilot or test team page and click into the active L10 agenda.
Customize your L10 agenda
Not all teams run EOS/BOS or their L10 meetings by the book. Strety gives you the option to set custom durations for each section and/or reorder sections.
You can even add or remove tools, including custom agenda items, to fully customize the content of each weekly meeting:
Run the L10
Once you have your L10 configured how you want it, you're ready to run your first L10! Click Start Agenda, mark who is in attendance, and use the Next nav button in the top right to progress through the meeting.
As you move through each section, notice the timer counting up in the left agenda pane. As the allocated time nears, the timer will turn red, letting you know it's time to wrap up that section.
At any point throughout the meeting, you're also able to create a Cascading Message, create a To Do, create a Headline, and take notes.
Take advantage of the features during the meeting rather than after. You can also trigger a tangent alert if things start to deviate too far off track as a good-natured way to get everyone to refocus. You can also Invite Strety's AI Assistant to Automatically take notes and generate To Dos during your discussions.
The Issues section is typically where teams spend the majority of their L10 time. We recommend giving everyone a couple minutes to review the issue list to prioritize or vote for the issues they feel are highest priority.
If you opt to vote, everyone gets three votes. We show a vote counter in the top right so you know once everyone in attendance has exercised their full voting power. Once the votes are in, click the Votes column header for a quick sort and begin to tackle your issue list.
You can enter solution notes (recommended), add To Dos to serve as next steps (also recommended), merge related Issues, send Issues to other teams, cascade a message from an Issue, and convert short-term Issues to long-term Issues, or long-term Issues to short-term Issues, by opening any Issue directly within the L10.
We believe it's important to celebrate the wins, big and small, and resolving issues should be seen as a win. Hopefully you are able to resolve a few during your first L10.
If you want to take your celebrations up a notch, you can customize the confetti settings from your personal profile and make it rain emojis across your screen.
You can disable confetti anytime if a meeting requires a more formal tone through your Personal Settings.
Conclude the L10
The conclusion page serves as both a meeting review and an opportunity for housekeeping. On it, you'll have the ability to:
Add Cascading Messages, which remind your team members to share information with their respective teams after the meeting
Review all To Dos created in the meeting
Rate the meeting, where everyone in attendance can provide rankings and add context, in public or private
Upon concluding the meeting, you'll see a meeting summary page. The summary is sent out via email to everyone on the team whether they were in attendance or not, making it easy for everyone to stay aligned on what was discussed that day.
We'll show you total meeting time, number of attendees and absentees, number of tangents, average ranking, To Dos created, Cascading Messages created, an Issues report, a Headline report, and an aggregated set of notes from anyone who took them throughout the meeting.
When you navigate back to the pilot or test team's Agendas tab, you'll see the completed agenda in the Past Agendas section and the current, or next, iteration of the L10 ready in the Active Agendas section.
How to set up and run non-L10 meetings in Strety
Use Strety for any important meeting on your calendar, whether internal or with a client, recurring or one-off. Below are just a handful of the infinite types of meetings you can run with Strety agendas.
Team: Daily huddles, project updates, pipeline reviews, and incident response
Project: Kickoffs, discovery, mid-point, and completion
Client: Onboarding, QBRs, and strategy sessions
One-offs: Event/campaign planning, problem solving, and idea generation
Secondary L10s: Build a custom L10 agenda separate from the team default
To create an Custom Agenda for a non-L10, click Create Agenda from your team agenda page.
Decide whether you want to build your new agenda from scratch or use a pre-existing template. For more on Agenda Templates, read Strety Agenda Templates.
From here, build your agenda with a mix of custom agenda items and tools. To read more on Strety Custom Agendas, read Strety Custom Agendas | Complete Guide.
Set up 1:1 meetings
1:1 meetings are the frequent - typically weekly or biweekly - meetings between a manager and their direct report(s). Topics can vary from meeting to meeting, but having a dedicated time to discuss subjects like professional development, personal updates, and/or any problems or issues facing the direct report is a valuable use of time for both parties.
Strety automatically creates a 1:1 agenda for each manager and direct report pairing. Set up your manager/direct report relationships from Users in Adminland. Read the docs below for more info on 1:1s:
Once assigned, the manager and direct report will both see the 1:1 agenda appear on their homepage and can begin to collaboratively build out the agenda for their 1:1s.
Managers also gain access to the Person Space of each direct report, allowing them to see a summary of the direct report's Rocks, Scorecard Measurables, To Dos, and Reviews. This makes for a great page to review ahead of any 1:1 meeting.
To build your 1:1 agenda, click the Agendas tab and click the Active Agenda.
From there, build your agenda from scratch or leverage a template to include the agenda items and tools you want to discuss.
Once you've concluded a 1:1, you'll see a historical record of every 1:1 appear from the direct report's agenda page.
Stay up-to-date
SaaS tools rely on accurate, up-to-date data to provide value. Strety is no different. It's imperative that everyone, including managers and direct reports, is accountable for checking in regularly, so when it's time to meet, your focus is on moving forward, not catching everyone up.
Strety has built-in features to ensure every team member knows when to check in and where to check in, removing excuse-making from the equation.
Schedule Check-In reminders
From your Notification settings, you can customize the day and time you receive a reminder to check in on your Rocks and Scorecard Measurables. We default this to Monday morning; however, you can set them to remind you the morning of your week's most important L10.
Your Person Space: where to check in
Though you may be a member of multiple teams across Strety, we provide one place where it all comes together: your Person Space.
Here you see all the Rocks, Measurables, and To Dos assigned to you, plus a place to input Issues and Headlines to discuss in your 1:1 meetings. This is where we recommend starting your work week in Strety!
Click into your Rocks and Measurables and provide your check-ins so that you're ready for your upcoming weekly meetings.
When checking in on your Rocks and Measurables, make sure to add context around your update. It's a huge help both in the weekly meeting and when looking back at the end of a quarter or year.
If you would like to connect to discuss how to set up and implement Strety, reach out to me at derek@strety.com, and we'll get something on the calendar!