"Rocks" are the three to seven most important things a team commits to finishing in the next 90 days. This guide shows how to choose them, how to write one well (with good and bad examples side by side), how to track them weekly in two minutes, and what to do when one goes off track. Free tracker download included.
"Rocks" is the quarterly-priority concept popularized by the Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS®). Enginely is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by EOS Worldwide, LLC. Inside Enginely these are called Priorities.
A rock is a quarterly priority: a specific, finishable outcome with one owner and a due date at or before the end of the quarter. The name comes from the familiar jar analogy — put the big rocks in first, then the gravel, then the sand, or the big things never fit. Day-to-day work is the sand; it fills every week on its own. Rocks are the few things that would not happen this quarter unless someone deliberately protects time for them.
Rocks sit between the annual plan and the weekly to-do list. The annual plan says where the business needs to be in twelve months. Rocks break that into 90-day chunks. The weekly meeting checks, in one word per rock, whether each is on track — and the to-do list holds the seven-day steps that move them.
Three to seven for the company or leadership team, and one to three per person. That feels too few to almost everyone the first time, which is the point: if everything is a priority, nothing is. A team that sets twelve rocks usually finishes four, and not always the right four. A team that sets five and finishes five builds the habit — and the trust — that makes the next quarter better.
Individual rocks should roll up. Each leadership-team member owns one or two of the company rocks plus, if needed, a departmental rock of their own. Anyone whose calendar is already full of rocks from three different teams is a planning problem worth raising before the quarter starts, not in week nine.
A good rock passes one test: on the last day of the quarter, everyone in the room would agree whether it is done or not done, without debate. To get there, every rock needs:
| Weak rock | Strong rock | Why it's better |
|---|---|---|
| Work on hiring | Hire 2 account executives who start by Sep 30 (Priya) | Countable, dated, one owner |
| Improve customer onboarding | Cut average onboarding from 21 to 10 days for new accounts signed this quarter (Jordan) | Baseline, target, scope |
| New website | Launch the redesigned pricing and product pages, live by Aug 15 (Marcus) | Defines what "done" means |
| Look into a CRM | Choose a CRM and migrate all open deals, with the team trained, by Sep 30 (Derek) | An outcome, not research |
| Reduce churn | Launch a 30/60/90-day check-in program covering 100% of accounts over $10k ARR (Aisha) | Controllable by the owner this quarter |
| Get organized | Document the 5 core delivery processes and have each owner sign off (Jordan) | Specific deliverable and standard |
Notice the last two rows. "Reduce churn" is a result the owner cannot fully control within a quarter; the strong version is the controllable project most likely to move it. Put the result itself on the weekly scorecard, where you can watch it respond.
Here is a realistic set of five company rocks for a 25-person company (made-up data), as they would look in week 7 of the quarter:
| Rock | Owner | Due | Status (wk 7) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Launch partner portal v2 with 10 partners onboarded | Sarah | Sep 30 | On track |
| Reduce customer acquisition cost by 15% vs Q2 | Marcus | Sep 30 | On track |
| Hire 2 account executives, both started | Priya | Sep 30 | Off track |
| Ship the revenue-ops dashboard to the leadership team | Jordan | Aug 31 | On track |
| Roll out NPS survey to every active account | Aisha | Sep 15 | On track |
The hiring rock is off track, so it goes to the issues list for this week's meeting. The team might learn the real blocker is that the job description attracts the wrong candidates, and leave with a to-do: "Priya rewrites the AE posting and reposts on two new boards by Friday." That is the rock system working — the problem surfaced in week 7, not week 13.
Rock review takes about five minutes in a weekly meeting (see the weekly meeting agenda template). Each owner says one word per rock: on track or off track. No status reports, no slide decks. If a rock is off track — or the owner is unsure — it drops to the issues list, where the team works through it using the identify–discuss–solve method.
"On track" means "I will finish this by the due date", not "I've made some progress". Owners who say "on track" for twelve weeks and then miss are the most common rock failure — and the fix is cultural, not procedural: make "off track" a normal, safe thing to say early.
Tip: break every rock into milestones before week 2. A rock with three dated milestones (for example: job posted by week 2, first interviews by week 5, offers out by week 9) makes on/off-track calls honest instead of optimistic.
A shared spreadsheet works for the first quarter or two — the free toolkit below includes one with Priorities, Scorecard, and To-Dos tabs. Teams usually move to software when they want the weekly on/off check built into the meeting itself, off-track rocks pushed straight onto the issues list, and past quarters kept with the meeting history.
In Enginely, rocks are called Priorities. Each has an owner, due date and progress, and is marked on or off track during the meeting in one click; an off-track priority drops to the issues list; past quarters stay in your meeting history. It is free for teams of up to 10 and $49/month flat for up to 25 people.
Just your email — no account, no password.
Set your priorities once; Enginely asks for on/off track in every meeting and routes anything off track to the issues list. Free for up to 10 people.
Rocks are a team's three to seven most important priorities for the next 90 days. Each is a specific, finishable outcome with one owner and a due date inside the quarter. The concept was popularized by EOS®; Enginely calls them Priorities.
One to three per person, and three to seven for the company or leadership team. Fewer, finished rocks beat a long list that is half done.
A clear finish line everyone would agree on at the end of the quarter: an outcome (not an activity), a number or definition of done, one owner, and a due date. For example, "Hire 2 account executives who start by Sep 30" rather than "Work on hiring".
In the weekly meeting each owner says "on track" or "off track" for each rock. Off-track rocks go to the issues list to be solved later in the meeting. It takes about five minutes.
They are marked not done — no partial credit. If the outcome is still one of the most important things, rewrite it as a new rock for next quarter rather than copying it over.
A to-do is a small action finished within about a week. A rock is a larger outcome that takes most of a quarter and is usually moved forward by several to-dos.
Yes. The free Enginely toolkit includes a tracker for Excel or Google Sheets with Priorities, Scorecard and To-Dos tabs, plus a printable agenda and a facilitator slide deck. Enter your email on this page to receive it.