A year is long enough to dream. A week is short enough to react. Ninety days sits in the useful middle.

It’s enough time to ship something meaningful, change a process, test an offer, improve debtor days, recruit a role, fix reporting or lift margin. It’s also short enough that nobody can hide behind vague intentions.

The one bit of gold

A priority is not a priority until it changes someone's calendar.

If nothing changes in the calendar, no time has been protected. If no owner is assigned responsibility, no one owns the outcome. If no metric is watched weekly, the priority is just a wish with nicer formatting.

The one-page structure

Your 90-day plan should fit on one page.

Start with the 12-month destination. This isn’t a slogan, it should be specific enough that a reasonable person can tell whether you got there.

For example:

"By 30 June next year, the business has reached $2.4m revenue, maintained 58% gross margin, reduced debtor days below 25 and hired one senior person."

Then choose no more than three priorities for the next 90 days. Three is hard enough. Five usually means you’re unwilling to choose.

For each priority, record the owner, the day-90 outcome, the first seven-day action and the scoreboard.