Annual Planning Prep

Walk into your planning offsite with the inputs already assembled. Joy pulls last year's goals and how they turned out, this year's department submissions, and the metrics you point it at, and organizes them into a planning-prep packet: a prior-year scorecard, the themes running across teams, and the open questions to settle in the room.

For Chiefs of Staff CEOs and Founders Heads of Strategy and Ops Department Leaders
Sample prompt to Joy's Assistant

We're kicking off annual planning for [year], with our leadership offsite on [date]. Here's the context: [context]. Pull together the inputs we'll need and organize them into a planning-prep packet: a scorecard of last year's goals against how they turned out, the themes coming up across the department submissions, and the open questions we should settle at the offsite.

What it can look like

An illustrative example. Your output will reflect your own sources, data, and prompts.

We're kicking off annual planning for 2027, with our leadership offsite on September 24. Here's the context: it's our FY2027 planning cycle, all seven departments have submitted their one-page priorities, last year's company goals and the Q4 metrics are in the Knowledge Center, and I want to walk into the offsite with the prior year honestly scored and the cross-cutting themes already surfaced rather than us discovering them in the room. Pull together the inputs we'll need and organize them into a planning-prep packet: a scorecard of last year's goals against how they turned out, the themes coming up across the department submissions, and the open questions we should settle at the offsite.

I've assembled the inputs into a planning-prep packet, drawing on the FY2026 goals, the Q4 metrics, and the seven department submissions in your Knowledge Center. It scores last year honestly, names the themes running across teams, and frames the questions worth settling at the offsite.

FY2027 planning-prep packet: draft

Planning cycle: FY2027
Leadership offsite: September 24, 2026
Inputs assembled: FY2026 goals and Q4 metrics, seven department submissions

Start with an honest read of last year. Here is how the FY2026 company goals turned out, so the room agrees on the starting line before it sets the next one.

GoalTargetActualStatus
Grow annual recurring revenue$20.0M ARR$18.6M ARRMissed
Lift net revenue retention115%112%Missed
Launch in EMEALive by Q3Live in Q3Met
Improve gross margin76%77%Exceeded
Ship the analytics platformGA by year-endGA in NovemberMet
Hold voluntary attritionBelow 10%13%Missed

Three of six goals landed. Revenue and retention both came up short, and attrition ran higher than planned, so the growth story and the people story are the two the offsite has to reckon with honestly.

Reading across the seven submissions, the same few points show up in more than one team's priorities. These are the threads worth naming before the room, not during it.

  • Capacity is the shared constraint. Engineering, Support, and Customer Success each led with headcount against demand rather than a new initiative.
  • Enterprise pull is outrunning the motion built for it. Sales, Product, and Legal all flag larger deals stretching a process designed for the mid-market.
  • Pricing keeps surfacing without an owner. Three submissions raise the pricing model as a blocker, and none of them claims it.
  • Analytics is now table stakes across GTM. Marketing and CS both want the platform that shipped in November wired into their day-to-day, not treated as a launch.

That leaves a handful of real decisions for the offsite. Framing them up front keeps the day on choices instead of status.

  • The 2027 revenue target. We landed at $18.6M against a $20.0M goal. Is $25M the right number to reach for, or do we set a range and stage it?
  • The enterprise motion. Do we fund a dedicated enterprise segment, or keep stretching the current team a second year?
  • Pricing ownership. Who owns the pricing review, and does it conclude before or after the annual plan locks?
  • What we stop doing. Every team asked for capacity. What are we willing to put down to free some of it?
  • EMEA in the plan. Does EMEA carry its own goal line in 2027, or roll into the company revenue number now that it is live?

Everything here is drawn from your own goals, submissions, and metrics, laid out so the leadership team can open it cold and start on the strategy rather than the assembly.

Want me to turn the open questions into a timed offsite agenda, or draft a first cut of the 2027 goals for the team to react to?

From scattered inputs to a planning packet in a few steps

Annual Planning Prep takes last year's goals, your department submissions, and the metrics you point it at, and organizes them into one packet the leadership team can open cold. Joy, the JoySuite assistant, scores the prior year honestly, pulls together the themes showing up across teams, and frames the open questions worth the room's time.

  1. Give Joy the context

    Paste or point to last year's goals, the department submissions, and the metrics, plus when the offsite is and anything you already know is settled or open. Rough and partial is fine.

  2. Say what you need assembled

    Ask for a planning-prep packet: a prior-year scorecard, the themes across the submissions, and the open questions for the offsite. Joy fills in sensible structure if you don't spell it all out.

  3. Review the packet

    Get the prior year scored, the cross-team themes named, and the open questions laid out in one place. Check it against how the year actually went and what you know is coming.

  4. Use it where you plan

    Ask for a tweak, "score the EMEA goal as met" or "add a question on pricing ownership," then copy the packet into your planning doc, the offsite agenda, or the pre-read you send the team.

  5. Make it one click for your team

    Save this ask as a custom command on the assistant your team already uses, so anyone can run it in one step.

Make it yours

Prior-Year Scorecard

Last year's goals laid out against how they turned out, so the room agrees on the starting line before it sets the next one.

Themes Across Teams

The points showing up in more than one submission pulled into a short list, so the cross-cutting issues surface before the offsite instead of during it.

Open Questions Framed

The decisions worth the room's time collected up front, so the agenda is about choices rather than status updates.

Grounded in Your Inputs

Built from your own goals, submissions, and metrics, so the packet reflects your year and not a generic template.

Board Pre-Read

Reshape the same packet into a pre-read for the board's planning discussion, tightened to the decisions they weigh in on.

Offsite Agenda

Turn the open questions into a timed agenda for the planning day, with each decision given its own block.

Goal Draft

Take the direction the room agrees on and draft a first cut of next year's goals for the team to react to.

Department Deep-Dive

Focus the packet on one function's submission and its slice of the scorecard for a one-on-one planning session.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does an annual planning prep workflow do?

It turns the scattered inputs of a planning cycle into one organized packet. You give Joy last year's goals, your department submissions, and the metrics, and it lays out a prior-year scorecard, the themes running across teams, and the open questions for your offsite, ready to review and copy into your planning docs.

Does Joy set our strategy or goals?

No. Joy compiles and structures the inputs so the leadership team starts from a shared picture; the strategy and the goals are yours to decide. It scores the prior year and frames the questions, but the choices at the offsite stay with the people in the room.

Can it use last year's goals and results?

Yes. When your Knowledge Center holds the prior year's goals and the year-end metrics, Joy uses them to score each goal against how it actually turned out, so the packet opens with an honest read of last year rather than a blank slate.

What if the department submissions come in different formats?

That's the normal case. Paste them however they arrive, one-pagers, slides, or notes, and Joy reads across them to pull out the priorities and the points that repeat, so you don't have to normalize them first.

How do I get the packet into our planning docs?

Copy it from the chat into your planning doc, the offsite agenda, or the pre-read you send the team. You can refine any section with a follow-up first, reframe a question or rescore a goal, then paste the version you want. Joy drafts and organizes; it doesn't send.

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