From Alignment to Visualization
After defining our OKRs, shaping milestones, and evaluating effort and dependencies, it’s time to zoom out. Session #4 is where we bring it all together. But not by locking a roadmap. Instead, we build a visual draft—one that reflects how we believe the quarter might unfold based on what we know today.
This isn’t a Gantt chart. This is a conversation canvas. It allows teams to align, anticipate, and adjust. It gives everyone—from engineers to PMs to designers to stakeholders—a shared artifact to reference and challenge as the quarter progresses.
| When to Run | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| After Session #3 | You now understand what’s possible and needed |
| Before sprint prep | This sets up a planning process rooted in context |
1. Building a Living Plan
Session #4 is not about committing to hard dates. It’s about mapping intention. Together, the team sequences milestones across a draft timeline:
- Each milestone includes annotations for effort, value, dependencies, skills needed
- Teams place cards across weeks, calling out risk areas, constraints, or parallel work needs
- One person proposes; the rest react—like a fishbowl dynamic
# Folder structure
okra/
├── session-4/
│ ├── quarter-plan-board.png
│ ├── timeline.md
│ └── constraints-risks.md
2. The Flow of the Session
We typically run this session with four key steps:
- Each team member picks a milestone, reads it aloud, and proposes where it might land based on earlier sessions.
- They annotate effort, dependencies, and skill needs using color or symbols.
- Everyone else responds: Are we overlapping too much? Is this sequence risky? Where are we tight on capacity?
- Milestones get moved, split, sequenced, or flagged.
3. Outcome: A Shared Plan, Not a Frozen One
You leave the room with:
- A visual timeline of the quarter with mapped milestone intentions
- Clear markers for where we might need spikes, research, or alignment
- A sense of which milestones depend on external unlocks or deep learning cycles
Milestone: Email Feedback MVP
Planned Start: Week 3
Planned End: Week 5
Notes: Depends on DS validation and UX wireframes
Color: Yellow (Experiment), Skills: Design, Backend, DS
4. A Quarter That Reflects How We Work
Session #4 closes the OKRA loop. It helps the team see time and scope as dimensions we manage together—not inputs handed down. We can now:
- Start sprints with clarity, not surprise
- Adjust direction without chaos
- Celebrate learnings and shifts, not just delivery
Most importantly, we have a way to make alignment visible. And in agile work, that’s often what separates good teams from resilient ones.
This isn’t the end of planning. It’s the beginning of a quarter with shared intent.