A monthly review you will keep

A monthly review earns its keep by happening. One sharp review in March does less for you than twelve plain ones in a row, because the value is in the comparison: this month against last month, against the plan, and against what you expected. Skip a month and that thread breaks, and the next review starts from memory.

So design the review for the month when you are busy, not for the month when you have time.

Set the day before you set the agenda

Pick a fixed day, such as the second Tuesday of the month or the third working day after the month ends, and put it on the calendar for the whole year now. A review with a standing date survives a busy week. One that waits for a quiet week waits a long time.

Deciding in advance when you will act is one of the better-tested habits in psychology. Researchers call it an implementation intention, a plan that spells out the when, where and how of a goal ahead of time, and across 94 independent tests such plans had a medium-to-large effect on whether people reached their goals. A standing date on the calendar is the simplest one there is.

Choose a day late enough that the month's figures are in. If your books close on the tenth, a review on the fifth is a review of guesses.

Keep it to four questions

A review that tries to cover everything turns into a long meeting nobody wants to repeat. Four questions are enough, asked in this order:

1. Where did the month land? Revenue, costs, cash, and the one or two measures that matter most to your plan, each against its target.
2. What moved on the plan? Which priorities advanced, which stalled, and why.
3. What needs a decision? Not a discussion: a decision, with who makes it and by when.
4. What is coming? Deadlines, renewals, filings and commitments in the next month or two.

If an item does not answer one of these, it belongs somewhere else.

Look at the same figures every time

Changing the measures each month makes every review a fresh start. Choose a short list, keep it steady for the year, and change it only on purpose, at a quarterly planning session. A steady list is what lets you see a trend instead of a series of snapshots.

Recording and reviewing the same few measures is ordinary management, and it is worth more than it looks. In a randomized field experiment, Indian textile plants given free consulting to adopt modern management practices, such as routines for recording and reviewing quality defects, production and inventory, raised productivity by 17% in the first year. Those were large factories in one industry, and their result is not a promise for yours. What carries over is the habit: measure the same things, look at them on a schedule, and act on what you see.

Write down what you decided

The review's real output is a short record: what you decided, who owns each action, and when you will look at it again. Without that record, next month's review reopens this month's questions. With it, the first item next month is simple: did we do what we said we would?

End with something you can hand over

A short written summary of the month is useful well beyond the review. It is what you show a lender, a partner or your leadership team when they ask how things are going, and writing it puts the month into a clear shape. If you can explain the month in a page, you understand it.

What you learn by keeping it

Hold the review for a few months and it starts to show you things about yourself as an owner: which decisions you put off, where your attention goes when the week gets busy, and which problems come back because nobody owns them. That is often worth more than any single month's figures.

Where Standing Proof helps

The workspace is built around this rhythm. The Floor opens each month with where the business landed and lists what needs a look: a figure off its target, a decision due, a deadline coming. Decisions are recorded with a date to review them. And the monthly briefing turns the month into a document you issue when you are ready, to the people you choose.

If you would rather have a partner hold the rhythm with you, EPS prepares the review from your own records on a set day each month, so your time goes to the decisions only you can make.

Sources

• Gollwitzer, P. M., and Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69–119.
• Bloom, N., Eifert, B., Mahajan, A., McKenzie, D., and Roberts, J. (2013). Does management matter? Evidence from India. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 128(1), 1–51.