The Annual Planning Meeting: A Coach's Guide

The Annual Planning Meeting is where your client steps back from the day-to-day to audit the past year, strengthen their team, and chart the year ahead: Vision, 3-Year Goals, 1-Year Goals, and the Rocks that turn all of it into 90-day action. This course teaches you to facilitate the two-day retreat with the depth, pacing, and judgment a meeting this size demands.

  • Format

    Online Course

  • Duration

    3 Hours

  • Level

    All Experience Levels

  • Certification

    Scaler Program

Why should I take this course?

The Annual Planning Meeting is the biggest investment of time your client's leadership team will make together all year, and it's the one meeting that sets the shape of every Quarterly Planning Meeting that follows. Get it right, and your client walks out with a Vision worth committing to, goals worth chasing, and a team that trusts each other more than they did two days ago.
This course teaches you to run an APM the way it's meant to run: an honest audit of the past year before anything new gets set, real attention to team health along the way, and a clear line from Vision through 3-Year Goals through 1-Year Goals down to the Rocks that make the year achievable. You'll also learn how to adapt the standard two-day agenda for clients who only have one day, and where AI can sharpen a SWOT or stress-test a scenario without ever making the call for the room.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:

  • Facilitate Day One of an Annual Planning Meeting: an honest audit of the prior year's Rocks and KPIs, a meaningful Team Health block, and a reaffirmed Vision
  • Guide your client's leadership team through a 3-Year Goals review and into ambitious, measurable 1-Year Goals for the year ahead
  • Translate those 1-Year Goals into the next quarter's Rocks, and run RDR on Issues that have had a year to build up
  • Adapt the standard two-day APM agenda into a one-day format for smaller clients, without losing what the meeting is actually for
  • Use AI to sharpen a SWOT, stress-test a scenario, or tighten a goal, without letting it replace your own facilitation judgment
This course is for coaches who have completed the Quarterly Planning Meeting course, the first course in Scaler Certification. You'll need it: the Annual Planning Meeting assumes your client already has a working rhythm of Rocks, Issues, and Quarterly Planning Meetings in place, and this course builds on that foundation rather than re-teaching it.

What's included?

  • Video lessons
  • Coaching Reflections
  • Facilitation Scenarios
  • Knowledge Checks
  • Downloadable guides and templates

Audit the Year

Facilitate an honest look at the prior year before setting anything new.

Vision, Reaffirmed

Reconnect your client to their Vision and 3-Year Goals before the year's goals get set.

Goals Into Rocks

Guide ambitious 1-Year Goals down into the Rocks and RDR that make the year achievable.

Carry It Forward

Close ready for the State of the Company and the next Quarterly Planning Meeting.
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