The Secret to a Great Planning Process — Lessons from Airbnb and Eventbrite

Lenny Rachitsky and Nels Gilbreth argue that annual and quarterly planning is painful for most organizations because it asks many people to imagine futures, agree on one, and plan a path to it. Drawing on dozens of planning cycles at Airbnb and Eventbrite, they observe that poor planning usually stems from unclear roles: who decides, who contributes, what each party must deliver, and when. Their proposed remedy is the "W Framework," a four-step cycle of context, plans, integration, and buy-in. The excerpt previews the essay, which also includes templates, pitfalls, and stories. The core message is that a shared, explicit process makes planning far less chaotic and more likely to produce real commitment.

01Key takeaways

• Plan with an agreed-upon framework rather than assuming the organization knows how to plan together.
• Most failed planning traces back to unclear roles: who decides, contributes, and delivers what, and when.
• Start the planning process early so teams are ready to execute on day one of the quarter.
• Leadership should share high-level strategic context before asking teams to propose their own plans.
• Close planning with explicit buy-in from teams so the final plan is actually adopted and not abandoned.

02Key sections

Why planning feels so hard

Planning is painful because it requires many people to envision futures, align on one, and map a concrete route, unlike day-to-day execution. The authors contrast failed cycles with the advantage of a team that started early and shipped faster.

The root cause of bad planning

The authors argue that most planning failures trace back to a basic lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities. Unanswered questions about who has input, who sets timelines, and who makes the final call drive chaos.

Introducing the W Framework

The W Framework is presented as a structured answer to role confusion, developed after the authors reflected on coordinating large groups at their former companies. It is designed to be applied as a repeatable system.

The four steps

The framework moves from leadership sharing context, to teams proposing plans, to leadership integrating a single plan, to teams finalizing and committing. Each step has a clear owner and purpose.

03From the post

“Hi friends! As a break from our regularly scheduled programming, I’ve got a new long-form essay out, in collaboration my good friend Nels (who led finance and then global revenue strategy for many years at Eventbrite). In it, we share everything we’ve both learned about running a yearly (and quarterly) planning process — including plug-and-play templates, common pitfalls, and some fun stories. Check it out, and let me know what you think! 🙏 Below is an excerpt from the essay. You can find the full article here. An excerpt from the First Round Review article by Lenny Rachitsky, a former product lead and head of consumer supply growth at Airbnb, and Nels Gilbreth, former Head of Global Revenue Strategy at Eventbrite. Read the full article It's almost the end of Q3, which means annual (and quarterly) planning is just around the corner. If you’re like most people, this sentence just filled you with dread. We've been through dozens of planning cycles after spending 10 years at Eventbrite and seven years at Airbnb, so we've seen firsthand how messy and challenging…”

04Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.