Annual planning
Key takeaways
- decision inventory
- assumption register
- asynchronous challenge
Operating data
Playbook
An annual planning pre-read should prepare choices, not compress every departmental update into one document. Begin with a decision inventory: the question, accountable authority, planning horizon, evidence cutoff, options under consideration, dependencies, and latest useful decision date. Material without a connection to one of those choices belongs in an appendix or separate reference.
Set a contribution template before teams draft. Require each proposal to state the outcome sought, current baseline, assumptions, evidence source and period, resource dependencies, known constraints, risks, and the decision requested. The meeting pre-read checklist provides a practical check for source access and unresolved questions.
Maintain an assumption register across functions. Give each assumption an owner, confidence label, validation method, and consequence if it proves wrong. When sales, product, finance, and operations use different definitions, preserve the conflict and assign resolution; do not silently normalize figures. Every chart should show its source, cutoff, unit, and comparison basis.
Publish the pre-read with an asynchronous challenge window that works across time zones. GitLab guidance on asynchronous communication illustrates the value of documented context in distributed work. Ask reviewers to tag factual corrections, assumption challenges, missing options, and decisions that need live debate.
Before the planning session, issue a change note and a question ledger with owner and disposition. Reserve overlap time for tradeoffs that require leadership authority, then capture each choice, dissent, dependency, owner, and review trigger. Route resulting commitments through operations follow-through. Archive the final pre-read beside its evidence snapshot so later reviews can reconstruct what leaders knew when they decided.
FAQ
When should a leader delegate this workflow?
Delegate it when repeated coordination, routing, or follow-up is taking time away from decisions that only the leader can make.
What should the assistant own first?
Start with intake rules, status visibility, and escalation timing so the assistant can act consistently before the workflow expands.