The delta v accountability playbook: Weekly, monthly and quarterly check-in’s

Part of the magic of delta v is the way we help teams keep track of their progress in different time scales: Daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly.

One part of the puzzle is the recurring rituals with which we plan work, account for progress, celebrate small wins, and take stock of what we achieved and what we need to do next. We adapt a good number of proven rituals from Agile software development process to make it work for cross-functional teams. Another part of the puzzle is the technology platforms and tools that can help us collaborate and stay productive. Read on to learn about our rituals and tools.

Remember, your mileage may vary. Take this as inspiration, and come up with accountability rituals and technology tools and platforms that work for you.

Accountability rituals

Daily

The daily standup is a ritual borrowed from the Agile software development process. It is a daily 15 minute standup meeting for coordinating work, happening at the same time every day – and everybody is expected to attend on time.

It is a stand up because the goal is to make it so uncomfortable that you cannot make it run long.

The format is prescriptive:

  • We go around the room and have each person spend 1 minute sharing a status update. Pro-tip: Have a random person start every day, and have them pick the next person to share their status next, and so forth.
  • The status update has this format: What I did yesterday; what I will do today; where do I need help
  • Any additional discussion will result in an action item to set up a follow up discussion off line

The benefit of having this standup ritual happen at the same time every day is to make sure everyone has up to date information about everyone else’s progress – and there is a forum for people to coordinate and ask for help. People cannot go more than 24 hours out of sync. It is also amazingly effective for keeping team members accountable to each other.

This standup can finish in 15 minutes if the team is at or below a two-pizza size (everybody can be fed with 2 large pizzas). For a startup up to 10 people, it is usually worth allowing this meeting to go to 20-25 minutes so everybody feels included and has shared context.

Download a template for the daily standup meeting here.

Weekly

The weekly goal-setting meeting is a ritual for reflecting on the progress towards team and individual goals in the previous week, and intentionally choosing goals to pursue for the following week. It is loosely drawn from the sprint retrospective and sprint planning ritual from the Agile software development process.

The weekly cadence provides enough time for larger initiatives to make progress, and yet it is frequent enough to help the team do course corrections as new data comes in and they iterate and learn.

The goal setting is a 30 minute meeting for each team and is best scheduled at the same time in the beginning of each week (e.g. 11am on Mondays).

Download a template for the goal setting meeting agenda here.

The weekly wall-of-wins celebration is a modified ice-cream social in which teams are encouraged to think about their best moments and biggest achievements in the past week – and to share and celebrate those moments. This is best done with snacks and beverages towards the end of the week as a recurring meeting (e.g. Thursday). For virtual teams, this can be a BYO snacks and beverages event.

The wall-of-wins celebration is different from the goal setting meeting in that it encourages teams to celebrate small wins, which is absolutely critical in providing perspective and positive energy to the entire team.

Download a template for the weekly wall of wins celebration here.

Monthly

The monthly rubric is a way to take stock of what the venture achieved against the area of focus for the month. We provide three rubrics, one for each month, that help teams measure their progress towards the focus for each month. This is an excellent way to connect all the data collected and accomplishments earned on one page, and think holistically about what it all means for venture creation.

Download the rubrics for each of the three months here.

Quarterly

The quarterly retrospective most closely mimics the cadence of real life board meetings in venture-backed startups. A quarter is a good time span to take a step back and look at the overall state of the venture, see patterns and trends, and use that insight to inform future plans. The retrospective and planning template works well for this reflection.

Communications and collaboration tools

Video chat

Instant messaging

Slack is the best-in-class instant messaging tool with a powerful feature set to help you organize conversation topics by “channels”. Warning: It is not for everyone – see if your team members will adopt first. If everyone is not all in on it, it is much less helpful.

Mobile phone coordination

US based teams have had good luck using WhatsApp groups to coordinate social activities. China-based teams have had good luck using Wechat.

Long form conversations

For long form conversations email remains the most practical way (even if you may run into inbox bankrupcy from time to time)

File sharing

Dropbox has the best integration with both Windows and Mac operating systems.

Google Drive is convenient for Gmail users, but has less seamless integration with Windows and Mac OS’es. It is also not appropriate for China based teams.

Code repository

Github is the mainstream code repository for software development.

Issue tracking

Pivotal is an easy-t0-use ticketing platform that is helpful for software development.

Project management

Trello is the fastest way you can set up a Kanban board for self management of daily tasks.