A plan is a short, focused list of what to work on next, agreed together rather than handed down. It's built around three focus areas at a time, on purpose: a broad list of good intentions rarely survives contact with an actual quarter, and three things you can point to beats ten you can't.
Three is a recommendation, not a limit, and it counts open focus areas: one with an outcome recorded no longer takes a place. How many a plan carries is the manager's call, and adding one while three are open asks them to confirm before the form opens.
Plans and reviews
A plan belongs to the person, not to a review. Each person has one active plan at a time, and it keeps running whether a review is open, closed or hasn't happened yet. Starting a review doesn't touch it, and closing one doesn't either.
What connects the two is the review's assessments. Once both sides have submitted, the active plan suggests candidates from them while it has room for another focus area: dimensions you both rated developing, dimensions either of you flagged, and dimensions you read differently. A dimension achieved on a plan since that review began isn't suggested again. Taking one opens a new focus area linked to that dimension. A closed review keeps showing the candidates it pointed to.
A plan can also have an objective: a line or two on what its focus areas add up to.
Creating a new plan
The manager creates a new plan from the Plan tab. That closes the current one, which stays on the record read-only under Earlier plans, and asks which focus areas to bring along: any still open, and any recorded as continued, partially achieved or paused. Carrying moves a focus area: it's the same one, with its check-ins, now on the new plan. Its outcome is cleared, so it's open again and its status follows its start date. Anything you don't carry is marked no longer relevant and stays on the plan it was set in. Either way, an outcome already recorded on it, and what was written about it, is kept as a check-in.
Open and closed
A plan is open from the moment it's created, and closed when the next one is created or when the manager closes it with Close plan. Closing it on its own leaves the person with no plan until the manager creates another. It moves to Earlier plans, read-only, and every unfinished focus area on it is marked no longer relevant, with any outcome already recorded kept as a check-in. A closed plan can't be reopened. Nothing about a plan is emailed: it's made together, and the person can always read it on their record. If they see a focus area differently, a check-in on it is where that goes, and it stays on the record.
When every focus area on the open plan has an outcome, the plan suggests creating the next one.
Achieved and no longer relevant focus areas aren't offered. They're finished, one way or another.
Focus areas
Each focus area has a title, one line on what should look different in a few months; a description of what the person will do and how you'll both know it worked; and the manager's own commitment: something they're going to do too, whether that's unblocking something, making time for it, or changing how they run a meeting. All three are required. The description and the commitment are Markdown, so bullet lists and bold text come out as written. A focus area can also link to one dimension from the framework, or none if it doesn't map cleanly to a single one.
The commitment exists so a plan doesn't quietly become the employee's homework while the manager just checks in periodically. A real commitment from the manager keeps a focus area a two-sided agreement instead of a one-sided ask.
The plan lists every focus area with its commitment and its latest check-in, so a one-on-one can run from it, and the manager can add a check-in straight from there. Open a focus area to see the rest: its description, every check-in with the newest first, and, for the manager, editing it and recording its outcome.
Focus areas are numbered in order of priority, starting at 1. The manager sets the order by dragging a focus area by its number, or from the keyboard: Space picks it up, the arrow keys move it and Space drops it. The new order saves as soon as it's dropped. A new focus area joins at the bottom, and carried ones keep their order on the new plan.
Dates
Every plan has a start date and a target date. The start date is today unless the manager picks another. The target date is when the focus areas are broadly aimed at, usually the next conversation. Both are required, so no plan runs open-ended, and the manager can change either later. Each focus area can set its own start or target date instead; anything that doesn't follows the plan's. A focus area's target date can't be later than the plan's, and bringing the plan's target date in brings any focus area due after it along.
The bar under each focus area shows how much of the time from its start date to its target date has gone, not how far the work has got.
Status
A focus area's status says where the work stands. While it's open, it's not started until its start date and in progress from then on, whether or not anyone has checked in. Recording an outcome sets the status: achieved sets done, paused sets paused, no longer relevant sets no longer relevant, and partially achieved or continued set in progress, because the work goes on. The outcome decides it, so nothing ends up marked both "achieved" and "in progress". A check-in never changes the status.
The plan's date is also what the Plan target dates email watches: managers who leave it on get a heads-up two weeks before a report's plan reaches it, linking to the plan. It isn't sent while a review is open. See Your account for the notifications you can turn off.
Checking in
The manager adds a check-in to a focus area at any time, usually in a one-on-one: a note on where things stand, including anything the manager and the person see differently. A check-in is shared as soon as it's written, and it also appears under Notes, where the Check-ins filter lists them. The person reads check-ins but doesn't write them. Only the manager's outcome ends a focus area, so when one looks done, say so in a check-in and record the outcome. A new check-in never overwrites an old one, so the plan builds a visible history of how something actually progressed instead of just the most recent update.
Whoever wrote a check-in can edit or delete it at any time, even after the focus area has an outcome or the plan has closed: open the focus area and use Edit or Delete under it. A new manager reads the check-ins an earlier manager wrote but can't change them. An edited check-in keeps its date and says edited.
Completing a focus area
The manager records the outcome when a focus area is done, not the employee, since the commitment behind it is theirs. Five outcomes: achieved, partially achieved, continued, paused, or no longer relevant, each setting the status. Once a focus area has an outcome, check-ins on it stop and its wording is fixed. Partially achieved, continued and paused ones are offered again when the next plan is created.
The manager can change an outcome, or reopen the focus area on the active plan. Reopening clears the outcome and what was written about it, and check-ins open again. It's open, so its status follows its start date.
A focus area with any check-ins against it can't be deleted, only completed. Deleting it would erase its check-ins.
Deleting a plan
Until anyone has checked in on any of its focus areas, the current plan can be deleted rather than closed: Close plan offers Delete it instead. The plan goes with its focus areas, doesn't appear under Earlier plans, and can't be brought back. Once there's a check-in on it, it can only be closed, for the same reason a focus area with a check-in can't be deleted. Earlier plans can't be deleted.