Coo Advisor

# Operational Cadence: Meetings, Async, Decisions, and Reporting

> The rhythm of your company determines its output. Bad cadence = constant context-switching, decisions made without information, and a leadership team that's always reactive.

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## Philosophy

**Meetings are a tax.** Every hour in a meeting is an hour not spent building, selling, or serving customers. A good cadence minimizes meeting time while ensuring the right people have the right information at the right time.

**Async is default, sync is exception.** Most information sharing and routine updates should happen in writing. Reserve synchronous time for things that genuinely require real-time discussion: decisions with significant disagreement, complex problem-solving, relationship-building.

**Cadence serves strategy.** The calendar reflects priorities. If you're doing monthly all-hands but weekly status updates, you've inverted the importance.

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## Meeting Cadence Templates

### Daily Operations

#### Daily Standup (Engineering / Product Teams)
**Format:** Async-first (Slack/Loom); sync only if blocked  
**Sync duration:** 15 minutes max  
**Participants:** Team (5–10 people)  
**Facilitator:** Team lead or rotating

```
ASYNC FORMAT (post in #standup channel):
Yesterday: [What I completed]
Today: [What I'm working on]
Blocked: [Anything blocking me — tag the person who can unblock]
```

**Rules:**
- No status reporting in sync standup if everyone can read the async update
- Standups are not problem-solving sessions — take issues offline
- Skip standup if the team has a full-team session that day
- Kill standup if the team consistently has nothing blocked; replace with async

#### Daily Leadership Check-in (COO)
**Format:** Async only — read, don't meet  
**Time:** 8:00–8:30 AM

**COO morning read:**
1. Yesterday's key metrics dashboard (5 min)
2. Overnight Slack/email escalations (5 min)
3. Today's decisions needed list (5 min)
4. Any P0/P1 incidents (check status page + on-call logs)

---

### Weekly Cadence

#### Leadership Sync (Weekly)
**Duration:** 60–90 minutes  
**Participants:** C-suite + VP level  
**Owner:** COO (or CEO)  
**Day/Time:** Monday or Tuesday, morning

```
AGENDA TEMPLATE:
00:00–10:00  Metrics pulse (pre-read required — no presenting charts)
  - Revenue: ACV, pipeline, churn delta
  - Product: shipped last week, blockers this week
  - Engineering: incidents, velocity
  - CS: escalations, NPS delta
  - People: open reqs, attrition flag

10:00–45:00  Priority items (submitted in advance, max 3)
  - Item 1: [Owner: Name] [Decision needed / FYI / Input needed]
  - Item 2: [Owner: Name]
  - Item 3: [Owner: Name]

45:00–60:00  Parking lot / open
  - Anything not covered
  - Next week flagging
```

**Pre-meeting requirements:**
- Metrics dashboard updated by EOD Friday
- Priority items submitted by Sunday 6 PM
- Anyone who hasn't read the pre-read gets no floor time

**Output:** Decision log updated with outcomes, action items assigned in tracking system

#### 1:1 (Manager ↔ Direct Report)
**Duration:** 30–45 minutes  
**Frequency:** Weekly (skip-levels: bi-weekly)  
**Owner:** Report (the direct report sets agenda)

```
1:1 STRUCTURE:
[5 min]  What's on your mind / temperature check
[15 min] Their agenda — what they want to discuss
[10 min] Manager agenda — feedback, context, decisions
[5 min]  Action items review from last week
```

**1:1 anti-patterns to eliminate:**
- Using 1:1 for status updates (that's what standups are for)
- Manager dominating the agenda
- Skipping because "things are fine"
- No written record of what was discussed

**Private 1:1 doc:** Every manager/report pair maintains a shared doc with running notes, action items, and career development thread.

#### Cross-Functional Weekly Sync
**Duration:** 45 minutes  
**Participants:** 2–4 team leads with shared dependencies  
**Examples:** Product + Engineering, Sales + CS, Marketing + Sales

```
AGENDA:
00–10  Shared metrics (things both teams care about)
10–30  Activ