Annual Planning

Annual Planning is the strategic planning process conducted once per year to set the long-term direction and establish annual-level OKRs. While quarterly OKRs drive execution, annual OKRs provide strategic direction and stability — they define the year's major themes and outcomes, which then cascade into quarterly specifics.

A typical annual planning process includes: Strategy Review (how did we perform last year? what's our competitive landscape?), Stakeholder Input (customer feedback, market analysis, board direction), Strategic Direction Setting (what are our top 3-5 strategic priorities for the year?), and Annual OKR Definition (what key outcomes do we need to achieve to execute this strategy?).

The relationship between annual and quarterly OKRs is important: annual OKRs are typically stable throughout the year, while quarterly OKRs are adjusted based on learnings from previous quarters. For example, an annual OKR might be "Build a profitable enterprise business line," while quarterly OKRs might be "Launch enterprise sales team (Q1)," "Close 10 enterprise customers (Q2)," "Expand enterprise customer base to 25 (Q3)," etc.