The annual planning

The synthesis shows on the page, for the key people, and whoever leads, if they are one of them, decides each card right there (see Deciding each card) and, once every card is accepted or set aside, starts the breakdown: the plan tree, each part's deliverables and each team's time (see The breakdown: the plan tree, The plan's deliverables and Each team's time, quarter by quarter) and, last, the approval of each part and the plenary (see The approval and the plenary); saving the plan to Y Managers isn't available yet. The page belongs to the organization and is in Settings › Grouping › Plan next year. At the top, it says until when the interviews run, the method and who coordinates. Right below come the stages, one block each: Prepare, Year in review, Interviews, Synthesis and decision, Breakdown and Approval and plan. Each block says “Done”, “You are here”, “Next” or “Later”, and a stage already done opens again with a click. Then the Your next step card says what is up to you in the current stage, as coordinator, key person or someone outside the list, and brings the button for the action when there is one: open the interviews, invite who is missing, start or continue your interview, or start the breakdown. In the breakdown, it shows the four steps — Part owners, Deliverables, Indicators and Team time —, each with what is missing, and the title says the step that comes next; clicking a step scrolls down to its block.

Who starts and who leads

The Admin starts it. When preparing, the Admin chooses the year, the method, the key people and the interview deadline (15 days by default; at most 30, counting today), and can name one of them to lead; if no one is named, whoever prepares leads. Whoever leads adjusts the list and the questions, opens the interviews, reopens a finished interview and asks Orion for the synthesis. Without a subscription, these buttons show a 🔒. In the prepare stage, a band says the mode: review what already exists, with what Grouping has — the objectives, the initiatives and the open deliverables linked to them —, or start from scratch, when it has no objectives yet.

Prepare in five blocks

Prepare comes in five numbered blocks, in the order of the work: Method, Key people, The interview script, The core of the plan and Interview deadline. Save sits in a bar fixed to the bottom of the page, with a summary of what it will save — how many key people and questions, the deadline and the method — and saves everything at once. With a change not yet saved, the bar says so and shows Discard the changes, which brings everything back to what is saved. In the deadline block, the reminders show as cards: the invitation (through Open the interviews in Year in review; with the interviews open, on each save, to whoever joined the list), the one for whoever hasn't started, the one for whoever stopped halfway and the deadline one, with its date, 2 days before.

The method

There are five: CLEAR (the Y Managers method: three to five objectives, with a few initiatives each), OKR, BSC, Problem tree and Situational Strategic Planning (Matus). The method brings the interview questions — which whoever prepares can change — and sets the columns of the synthesis: the method's levels and the deliverables. The page shows the chosen one, with its summary; Use another method shows the list. Once the first person answers, it can't change anymore.

The key people and each one's area

People are chosen through the structure, team by team. Click a team and check its people, one by one or with Check the whole team. Managers only leaves just the team's managers in the list. Then move on to the next team. The search covers the whole organization, by name, title or team. Whoever is already chosen stays in the Chosen so far table, with their title, area, Leads and the interview in a chip — Joins when saved for whoever just joined the list. In the structure, each team's count turns green when the whole team is chosen, and manager marks whoever manages the team. The area comes from the team the person was checked in, and it can be changed (for example: Sales, Operations). Someone taken off the list, with Remove on their row, is out of the planning. If that person had already received the invitation, their interview is closed and they get a notice. What they already confirmed stays saved, shows up in the answers marked no longer a key person, and Orion uses it in the synthesis knowing it came from someone who left. If they were the last one left to finish, whoever leads gets, on save, the notice that the interviews are done. Once the synthesis exists, taking someone off the list asks for confirmation.

A person removed from the organization (deactivated in Users) leaves the progress count without anyone having to take them off the list: they stay in The interviews, with the No longer in the organization tag, don't count in the total or among those still missing, and what they said stays, with the same mark. Save doesn't take them off the list or notify them; if they are restored, they count again. If they were the last one left to finish, the notice that the interviews are done goes out within a day.

After the breakdown, someone who owns parts of the plan only leaves the list after handing them over: in place of Remove there is Hand the parts to… and the key person who takes them (the handed-over parts lose their approval, and the new owner is notified).

The interview script

The questions are in The interview script, in the prepare stage. They start as the method's questions, and each person sees them in their own language. Whoever prepares can change the text of each one, Add a question, Remove and reorder them with the arrows; from then on, the script applies as written, to everyone, in any language. There can be up to 20 questions, of up to 500 characters each, and Back to the method’s questions undoes the changes. The script can change while the interviews are open: a question whose text changes keeps its answers; one that is removed stops counting in the progress, and what was already answered to it stays saved and goes into the plan; a new question applies to those who haven't finished. The script is saved with the rest, with Save.

The core of the plan

The vision and the mission of the plan are optional. When they are written, the cards of the synthesis serve them, and Orion doesn't rewrite them. Left blank, Orion proposes a vision from the interviews when it builds the synthesis, for you to adjust. With the vision written, the block shows how it opens the breakdown map, in the dark band. The whole organization sees the core in the Prepare step.

The year in review

After the list is saved, the Year in review stage shows the year before the plan's: the deliverables — those due in the year and those that received hours —, by objective and initiative in Grouping (each row adds up everything below it) and by team. In each row: how many came out on time, late, cancelled or are still open and the hours from the signed work plans; under Attention, how many depend on one person only (when that person did 80% or more of the hours) and how many are overdue and still open. Click a row to open, below the table, its deliverables: the team, the deadline — the planned one and the current one, when the deliverable was rescheduled —, the status and the hours. What wasn't under any objective shows up in Outside any objective. If Grouping has no objectives yet, the planning starts from scratch, and the year in review shows the year by team. The year in review is only for whoever leads and for the key people; in an organization that reads by team, the name and the deadline of another team's deliverable stay hidden, but it still counts in the numbers.

The invitation and the interview

In the year in review stage, the Open the interviews button, in Your next step, invites each key person: the notice arrives in the Waiting on you bell, by email and, if they have Orion on WhatsApp, there too, with the deadline and the link that opens the planning page right on the questions. Each reminder goes out only once: to whoever hasn't started, 3 days after the invitation; to whoever stopped halfway, after 3 days without answering; and to whoever hasn't finished, 2 days before the deadline. From that day on, only the deadline reminder goes out: no one gets two on the same day. Whoever leads is notified when someone finishes, when everyone has finished and when the deadline passes; if someone joins the list after everyone had finished, the everyone-finished notice goes out again when that person finishes. Someone added to the list later, while the interviews are open and before the deadline, is invited on Save itself, with the same notice; if the notice doesn't go out to someone, Invite who is missing, on the same card, tries again. After the deadline, someone added is only invited if the deadline is extended in the same save.

The interview is a form on the page itself, in Your interview: at the top, the Answered x of y questions bar; below it, the questions. The person writes the answer and clicks Send answer: the answer is saved as a draft, and Orion comments on what is clear and what is missing — why it matters, how we'll know it worked, by when and who takes care of it. Orion doesn't rewrite the answer, doesn't make things up and doesn't judge. The person adjusts the text if they want, and clicks Confirm; Ask for another comment sends it again. If the comment doesn't come, the answer stays saved and can be confirmed as it is. Doesn't apply marks a question that doesn't fit their area, and Change the answer reopens an answer already confirmed. Only confirmed answers and the ones that don't apply count in the bar. The comment uses the Y Managers AI, paid for by the organization; if the organization has no subscription, the person confirms directly, without the comment.

They can stop and come back whenever they want, until the deadline: what was sent stays saved. The invitation link and the Start my interview button (or Continue my interview), in Your next step, lead to the questions. With all of them answered, Finish the interview closes the interview and notifies whoever coordinates.

When the interview closes, and how to reopen it

The interview stays open until the end of the deadline day. If whoever leads changes the deadline while the interviews are open, the interview of everyone who hasn't finished follows the new date, without a new message; extending a deadline that has passed reopens the interview of those who didn't finish. After the deadline, the questions become read-only, and what was confirmed stays saved and goes into the plan. A finished interview is read-only too. To change an answer after finishing, before the deadline, the person uses Reopen my interview, in Your interview or in Your next step. Whoever leads can also reopen anyone's interview, with Reopen the interview, on that person's row, in The interviews, and then the person gets a notice the same way as the invitation. The answers are still there: the person changes what they want and finishes again.

Who sees what

In The interviews, the page shows how many are complete, in progress, invited but not started, closed and not invited yet, a tag with each person's status and how many questions each one has answered. The key people see everything from each other, with the name of who brought it up: in The answers, as each person wrote them, each one's confirmed answers, by question or by person — drafts don't show up —, and the page tells this to whoever answers. The rest of the organization, including an Admin who isn't on the list, sees who takes part and where each one stands, but not the content.

The synthesis

Whenever they want, whoever leads asks Orion for the synthesis with the Ask Orion for the synthesis button, in the Synthesis and decision stage, or in the conversation — for example, "Build the synthesis of the 2027 planning". Whoever hasn't finished goes in with what they've confirmed so far. The synthesis does not close the interviews: whoever hasn't finished keeps answering until the deadline, and the stage bar shows Open until on the Interviews stage. Orion works in the background and tells whoever asked, in their conversation, how many cards the synthesis has, how many stayed vague and how many points went to the agenda. The synthesis comes out in the organization's language (the Language field on the Organization page), even if whoever leads uses another language in their own account. With new answers, Ask for a new version makes another version; with nothing new, Orion says the current synthesis already covers everything.

Orion builds the cards from the answers: it splits the ideas in each answer, joins similar ones from different people, gives each a size — a level of the method, a deliverable or still vague —, proposes where it goes and compares it with the previous year's plan. Each field holds only what someone said; what nobody said shows as Missing: nobody said. Before saving, the server checks that each card cites real answers, that each link respects the method's levels and that every answer became a card or shows up in Answers that did not become a card, with the reason.

In From the answers to the cards, the map has a column for each level of the method and one for the deliverables. The dashed line links each card to the one above: it is the link proposed by Orion, to be checked. The solid line is the one whoever leads chose or confirmed. A card without a link stays in its column, with a dashed border, and loose answers stay in Still vague, each with a concrete proposal from Orion or a question for whoever said it. Click a card to see who wrote it and the fields: why it matters; how to know it worked, with the indicator, the unit, today's number, the target and the formula — marked proposed by Orion, to be checked when nobody said it —; for deliverables, when they are done; by when; and who takes part. The open card also shows Where it came from, with each person's words, what the previous year's plan shows (for example, In the 2026 plan, in a 2027 planning) and Where it goes.

Below the map are Where they agree (each theme, with how many people brought it up), Where they diverge (each side, with the person and their position), The agenda of the decision meeting (each question with its label: Orion's proposal, New, Keep and adjust, Close or Divergence) and What Orion read in the interviews, the summary for the meeting. The key people decide, in the meeting; the cards whoever leads took to the meeting go at the end of the agenda.

The synthesis shows what each key person said, so only the key people see it, including whoever leads, if they are on the list. An Admin who leads without being on the list sees that it is ready, but not the content; the rest of the organization doesn't see it. A draft made before the synthesis by cards shows only its summary, as The previous version of the draft.

Deciding each card

Whoever leads, if they are on the list of key people, decides each card under You decide, below the open card. Each change is saved right away and shows up for the key people:

• Accept into the plan: the card goes to the breakdown map, the next stage, and still goes through approval, in the last one;
• Take to the meeting: the card goes at the end of The agenda of the decision meeting, as Decide the card “…”, and only goes to the map if the meeting decides so;
• Set aside: the card stays out of the plan, but is kept with who brought it and the reason — It's for another period, It's already in another card or Not a priority now —, and it can be brought back;
• Back to “no decision” undoes the decision.

Before deciding, you can adjust the Title (Orion's stays recorded on the card, and Back to Orion's title brings it back), the Size and Where it goes: only the cards of the level the method accepts above show up, Confirm this link makes the line Orion proposed solid, and Remove the link leaves the card without a link. Merge with another card is for two cards that say the same thing: the chosen one stays, the words of whoever brought each one add up under Where it came from, whatever was linked to the other moves to it, and the other leaves the map and shows up under Merged here, with Separate to undo it. Only cards of the same size merge; a still vague card merges with any card. On the map, each decided card gets a badge — In the plan, On the agenda or Set aside —, and the open card says who decided and when.

Decisions are tied to the version of the synthesis. A new version starts with no decisions, because its cards are different; the decisions of the previous one stay saved with it, and the page warns you before you ask for the new version. The other key people see the decisions and who made them, but don't change anything. Whoever leads without being on the list doesn't see the synthesis, so they don't decide. Without a subscription, the buttons under You decide show a 🔒.

The breakdown: the plan tree

The breakdown starts once every synthesis card is accepted or set aside, and every vague card that was accepted has a size. A card taken to the meeting is still waiting: after the meeting, it is accepted or set aside. The panel next to the map counts the cards with no decision and the ones on the meeting agenda. Before the start, the Breakdown step in the step bar already opens and, like the end of the synthesis, shows what is still missing, card by card, each with Open the card, which goes back to the synthesis with that card open to decide it. With everything decided, whoever leads, if they're on the key people list, clicks Start the breakdown, there or in Your next step. The plan tree grows from the accepted cards, and from then on the synthesis decisions no longer change.

How the tree grows. Each accepted card becomes a part of the plan at its level in the method (in CLEAR, objective or initiative), linked to the part above that was decided in the synthesis. The card's indicator becomes the part's indicator, with today's number and the target when what was said is a number; when it isn't (for example, «below 10»), what was said stays on record, and the page shows it next to the field. The card's Who becomes the owner when it's the name of a key person. A deliverable card becomes a proposed deliverable. A card that matches something from the previous year makes the part continue what is already in the Grouping: recording the plan updates that part instead of creating another, and its open deliverables come in as deliverables that already exist.

The four blocks. In this stage, each step has its own block, with the same number as in Your next step: 1, the plan's map; 2, The plan's deliverables, with Add a deliverable to the plan right after the map and the list below it; 3, The plan's indicators; and 4, Each team's time, quarter by quarter. What stayed out of the plan comes in a separate card, at the end, and Undo sits above the blocks.

What stays out. What is in the Grouping and no accepted card brought shows under Left out of the plan, with each part's open deliverables. Those parts stay active and untouched: recording the plan neither deletes nor deactivates anything. To deactivate one, on purpose, use the Grouping page.

The map and the list. The vision from Prepare sits at the top, in a dark band. Each top-level part takes a band, a row of its own: on the left, the part; on the right, what is below it — the parts one level down, each in a card of another color, with its deliverables — or, with no level below, the part's own deliverables. Deliverables are white, and the legend below the map gives the levels' colors and the tags. In each band, whoever can change the part has + Add and the name of the level below — in CLEAR, + Add initiative —, which creates the part right there, with just its name. Each part shows its owner and its first indicator, today → target; what is missing shows in orange. For whoever can change the part, No owner · choose opens the part with the cursor on the owner, and No indicator · add opens the part with a new indicator, ready to fill in, starting with what is measured. A part that continues the Grouping carries the tag Continues from and the previous year. Each deliverable carries a tag saying where it came from — Existing (in Y Managers), Proposed (came from the interviews, from Orion or a key person) or New (created in the plan) —, explained in the legend below the map; clicking a deliverable opens it below the map (see The plan's deliverables). In a part that takes deliverables, + Add a deliverable here goes to Add a deliverable to the plan, with the part already chosen. List shows the same tree, indented.

Who changes what. Whoever leads can change everything. The owner of a part can change it and everything below it. The other key people see the whole tree and who owns each part. Whoever leads without being on the list, and the rest of the organization, only see that the breakdown is in progress.

What you can do with a part. Click a part to open it:

• Text and Save the text;
• Owner: a key person, or No owner. The owner can be changed at any time: by whoever leads, by the owner (handing the part over) or by the owner of a part above. To give the part to someone else, add them to the list in Prepare first;
• Indicators: up to ten per part, added with Add an indicator, each with what is measured, the Unit, the Formula, Today, Target, By (month and year), Measured (every day, every week, every two weeks, every month or every quarter), Better when it (goes up or goes down; without a choice, today and the target decide) and The number comes from: The owner reports, the default, or Y Managers calculates, only for a measure chosen from a list of what it can already count — the part's deliverables completed on time, the deliverables completed, and the execution of the part's deliverables. The written formula describes the number; it never becomes a calculation. No field is required, and what is missing shows in orange;
• Move to: only to a part one level up;
• Merge with: only with a part at the same level. The receiving part continues, with its owner; what was below the other one, its indicators and deliverables move to it, and the other one's text stays on record under Merged here. When merging, you choose the name that stays: one, the other, or both together;
• Add below: a part one level down, with no owner and no indicator;
• Add a deliverable to this part: only in a part that takes deliverables; it goes to Add a deliverable to the plan, with the part already chosen (see The plan's deliverables);
• Delete this part of the plan…, in red, at the end of the open part: the part and everything below it leave the plan, after one confirmation. A deliverable that already exists in Y Managers isn't deleted: it stays in the day-to-day, unlinked from the plan. A proposed deliverable is removed.

Whoever leads can also add top-level parts, with + Add and the level's name, at the top of the map.

Undo. Above the blocks, each person undoes their own last change, including text and indicator changes, and then the one before. When someone else changed the same item afterwards, Undo refuses, so it doesn't erase their change.

The plan's indicators. In block 3, a table shows the indicators part by part — the indicator, Today → target, By and The number comes from —, and the top of the block says how many parts have an indicator. Each line opens the part: an indicator's line puts the cursor in it; for whoever can change the part, the line of a part with no indicator opens it with a new indicator, like No indicator on the map.

Nothing in the breakdown changes Y Managers: the plan goes on to approval, in step 6, and recording it in Y Managers isn't available yet. Without a subscription, the buttons that save show a 🔒.

The plan's deliverables

Each deliverable in the plan sits in a part of the method's last level — in CLEAR, the initiative, or the objective with no initiative below it —, in a team, and in the quarters the team will work on it. Deliverables come with the tree: the ones open in the Grouping components that continue from the previous year come in with the part that continues each one, and the ones from the synthesis cards come in as proposed. All of them start in the 1st quarter and To confirm. Each deliverable says where it came from, in a tag and a short phrase: Existing, with came with and the Grouping component, linked by a synthesis card or brought by and the name of whoever brought it; Proposed, by Orion, from the interviews or by whoever proposed it; and New, created by and the name. The open deliverable says it in full, under Where it came from. One that already exists comes with its team in Y Managers; a proposed one starts with No team yet, and the team is chosen on its page.

The deliverables list. In block 2, right after the map, comes Add a deliverable to the plan and, below it, the list of them all, with the filters All, Existing, New and proposed and To confirm. Each line shows the deliverable, with the tag and the phrase saying where it came from; the part, which whoever can change the deliverable changes right there — to another part that takes deliverables, or to Out of the plan (day-to-day) —, confirmed or not; the team; the quarters, also marked there; and the confirmation: whoever leads presses Confirm, and a confirmed one says Confirmed. Clicking the name opens the deliverable right below its line.

Add a deliverable to the plan. Choose the part under In which part — + Add a deliverable here on the map and Add a deliverable to this part in the open part already choose it and put the cursor on the name — and:

• Create new, with just the name: the deliverable starts «to confirm», in the 1st quarter, in the home team of the part's owner, and opens right away so the rest can be filled in;
• Choose an existing one: the search by name starts at two letters and shows up to eight open deliverables of the organization, among those the person sees in Y Managers, each with where it is today (in a part of the plan, out of the plan, in a grouping or in the day-to-day), its status and its team. Bring it here puts the deliverable in the part; if it was in another part of the plan, it leaves that one, and the notice says which.

The open deliverable. Clicking a deliverable opens it below the map, when the click comes from the map or the open part, or below its line, when it comes from the list: Where it came from, its status in Y Managers (when it already exists), To confirm or Confirmed by and the name, the Team, the Quarters, the Team time in each marked quarter and the Part of the plan, the part it sits in. For whoever can change it:

• Quarters: T1 to T4, to mark and unmark. Unmarking a quarter removes the deliverable's percentage in that quarter;
• Change the link: to another part that takes deliverables, or Leaves the plan (stays in the day-to-day);
• Merge with: only a new or proposed deliverable, into another deliverable of the plan. The other one continues; the name of the merged one stays on record in it, and the quarters of both are added up;
• Delete this deliverable…, in red, for a new or proposed one, which leaves the plan; or Take out of the plan…, for one that already exists, which isn't deleted from Y Managers: it stays in the day-to-day, unlinked.

The deliverable's page. On a new or proposed deliverable, Open the deliverable's page shows, within the planning, the Title, Team, Start, End, Quarters and Description, with Back to the plan. Changing the team removes the deliverable's percentages in the teams' time. For one that already exists, the page is the one in Y Managers: Open the deliverable's page in Y Managers.

Who changes what. Deliverables follow the rule for parts: whoever leads, the part's owner and the owner of a part above it. Bringing a deliverable from another part takes being able to change both. Only whoever leads confirms: Confirm, in the list, or Confirm the deliverable, in the open deliverable; Back to «to confirm» undoes it. Every change goes into Undo, like the changes to parts.

Each team's time, quarter by quarter

In block 4, the planning shows each team's time, one quarter at a time — Quarter 1 to Quarter 4; a quarter that goes over 100% is flagged on its tab. Each team's manager splits the team's time in percentages, by priority, among the deliverables the team will work on in the quarter, with no need to know how many hours the team has: Orion turns each percentage into hours (the percentage times the team's time). Whoever leads and the manager of a team above can also fill it in; the other key people see the numbers. A manager who isn't on the key-people list doesn't see the breakdown: to fill it in, they first join the list in Prepare. A percentage is saved when leaving the field; empty means «no percentage».

Each team has a card with:

• the manager, or No manager on record, and the team's hours in the quarter: for each person whose home team it is, the country's working days in the quarter, minus holidays, times the weekly hours in their profile (with no hours on record, 8 hours a day). Each person counts once, in their home team, and only people count. It is the same calculation as the work plan;
• the day-to-day: the part of the time that doesn't go to deliverables, such as support, managing the team and training. In the 1st quarter, it is Day-to-day, from the signed plans: what those plans already take, with no field to change, and the deliverables from the previous year show already in the plans with the hours, without a percentage. From the 2nd quarter on there are no work plans yet: the day-to-day starts at the previous year's average — the hours of lines without a deliverable and of recurring deliverables, over the hours of the plans signed that year —, and the manager adjusts it quarter by quarter. A team with no history starts at 0%, with a notice;
• a percentage for each of the team's deliverables marked in the quarter;
• the total, and Free or Over 100%, in percentage and in hours. Over 100%, the card names the heaviest deliverables and suggests lowering a percentage or moving a deliverable to another quarter, in the deliverables list.

The notes say what makes the number optimistic: whoever has no signed work plan in the 1st quarter counts as free, and a deliverable without a percentage doesn't add to the total. A new or proposed deliverable with no team stays out of the cards until it gets one, on its page; a notice at the top counts how many are missing. Absences and vacations aren't in the count yet. Where the numbers come from, at the end, repeats these calculations.

Like the rest of the breakdown, nothing about the time is saved to Y Managers before approval.

The approval and the plenary

With the breakdown ready, whoever coordinates takes the plan to approval (the Take the plan to approval card, below the tree, first says what to check, without blocking). Step 6, Approval and plan, starts, and each owner gets a personal notice with the parts waiting for them.

1. Each owner approves their part. Approving a part (objective or initiative) means approving its text, owner, indicators and deliverables; without an indicator, it is tracked by the execution of its deliverables. It's decided by the owner, the owner of a part above it, whoever is above them in the team line and whoever coordinates — each person only sees the buttons of what they decide. Approve takes an optional comment; Reopen the discussion withdraws the approval and notifies the owner; editing an approved part withdraws it too. Reject… (only a part not yet approved, with a confirmation) takes the part out of the plan with what is below it; deliverables that already exist in Y Managers stay in day-to-day work. The rejected part goes to The rejected parts, from where Bring back for discussion returns it, without the earlier approvals.

2. What each person approved

who approved each part, when and the comment.

3. The plenary validates the whole. With everything approved, the key people discuss the plan and whoever coordinates records: Approved as is, Approved with adjustments or Back to review (which reopens every part). Once approved, the plan locks until it's recorded; whoever coordinates can Reopen the plan. Each key person is notified of the result.

Recording the plan in Y Managers isn't available yet: for now, the approved plan stays in the planning. Notices go to each person, never to a group; without a subscription, the buttons show a 🔒.