LESSON 6 OF 6 · ADVANCED
Build a 90-day operating plan
Choose a small number of business priorities, define baseline measures and assign actions with owners. Include a review cadence, risks and a way to change direction when evidence contradicts the plan. Evaluate retention and candidate experience alongside starts. Sustainable recruiting leadership requires reliable follow-through, not only a strong launch presentation.
Combine your priority matrix, coaching plan and metric definitions into a 90-day operating plan.
About 2 minutes reading + 12 minutes practice. Take longer when needed.
Apply the method
Choose a small number of operating priorities and define the baseline, actions, owners, resources and review dates. Include dependencies, approval requirements and a downside response. Connect activity measures with candidate experience, role evidence, onboarding delivery and retention context. Make the review cadence explicit and record decisions when priorities change. A 90-day plan should guide work and learning rather than serve as a list of aspirations. The plan is stronger when it identifies what the team will stop or defer to create capacity.
A worked application
Fictional example: A team chooses three priorities: reduce manager feedback delays, clarify stage definitions and repair the onboarding handoff. Each has an owner and a two-week review. A proposed software purchase is deferred until those process issues are understood. At day 60, the team reviews evidence and either expands a successful practice or changes an ineffective one. The final review records lessons for the next period.
Common mistake to avoid
Do not write a plan with ten urgent initiatives and no resource trade-offs. An action without ownership and review is still only an intention.
Work through the case
FICTIONAL SCENARIO
A team prioritizes faster manager feedback, clearer stage definitions and an onboarding handoff. Those improvements can be reviewed before spending on new tools.
Make it practical
Combine your priority matrix, coaching plan and metric definitions into a 90-day operating plan.
Compare your reasoning with a worked response
The plan explains what changes, why it matters, who owns it and how progress will be evaluated. Mark assumptions and approval-dependent actions explicitly.
Takeaway
Use the method to explain your decision, identify what you still need to verify and choose an accountable next step.
Treat the response as a model for reasoning, not the only possible wording. Adapt it to the role, evidence and appropriate organizational guidance.
Connect this course to the complete process
Work through the connected case, practice the conversations and add this course’s work to your final project.