MSP Guide: Run Successful Quarterly Planning Sessions

Most managed services providers (MSPs) perform quarterly business reviews (QBRs) with clients, but internal planning sessions are often skipped or handled informally. Regular and structured MSP quarterly planning helps teams align workloads with business needs, review performance data, and infuse lessons learned into their operations.

This guide shows you how to conduct effective IT quarterly planning sessions that strengthen daily operations and set your MSP team up for success.

How MSP team leads can run quarterly planning sessions effectively

Quarterly planning sessions will help MSP team leads align priorities, allocate resources, and build continuous improvement.

📌 Prerequisites:

You’ll need access to performance data from the previous quarter, which you can obtain from your remote monitoring and management (RMM) software.
Establishing your goals and priorities for the upcoming quarter is required for this process.
Participation from team leads and all team members across various branches

Step 1: Set the quarterly review agenda

Having a clear agenda will keep quarterly planning focused and repeatable. This will ensure that every session covers past performance, current challenges, and next steps.

📌 Use Cases:

This step provides you with topics so meetings won’t go off track.
It ensures crucial topics like key performance indicators (KPIs), risks, and resource needs are always addressed.

📌 Prerequisites:

You need access to the last quarter’s KPI, ticket resolution data, and project data.
This step requires you to have data on recurring challenges or risks raised in previous sessions.

Here’s a list of points to help you conduct a productive MSP planning session:

Start by reviewing last quarter’s KPIs and project outcomes.
Highlight recurring challenges and risks that affected performance.
Assess resource capacity and technician utilization to point out bottlenecks.
Prioritize initiatives for the next quarter based on business goals and the previous quarter’s performance.
Define accountability by assigning clear owners to each initiative.

Step 2: Analyze the past quarter’s performance

Looking back at the last quarter with your team leads will help identify what worked, what didn’t, and where resources must be allocated next. With the data you’ve acquired, you can make decisions grounded on facts.

📌 Use Cases:

This step highlights patterns in ticket volume, escalations, and service delivery.
You’ll be able to see how automation, projects, and resource allocation performed in the field.
This step reveals service level agreement (SLA) breaches, response time issues, and areas where clients have been impacted.

📌 Prerequisites:

You’ll need access to ticketing and performance data from NinjaOne, PSA platforms, or other service tools.
You should have records of SLA metrics, project milestones, and automation outcomes.

Here’s how to analyze the past quarter’s performance:

Pull data from NinjaOne and your Professional Service Automation (PSA) platforms to track ticket trends.
Review SLA breaches and response times to identify service gaps.
Assess project delays or resource conflicts that slowed delivery.
Measure automation success rates to confirm which workflows are reducing workloads effectively.

Result: You’ll have a performance dashboard that informs strategic adjustments for the next quarter.

Step 3: Prioritize upcoming initiatives

Prioritizing initiatives will ensure that quick wins are captured, strategic projects are resourced properly, and low-value efforts are deferred.

📌 Use Cases:

This step enables teams to focus on initiatives that deliver the most value to clients.
It prevents wasted effort on projects that are high effort but low impact.

📌 Prerequisite:

You will need a list of proposed initiatives collected from team leads, performance data, or client feedback.

Use this framework to rank upcoming initiatives:

High impact, low effort: Quick wins that should be implemented immediately.
High impact, high effort: Strategic projects that require resource planning and automation.
Low impact, high effort: Initiatives that should be deferred, automated, or retired.

Step 4: Align resources with forecasted needs during quarterly planning

Quarterly planning should align initiatives with your forecasted needs to address workload balance, staffing gaps, and upcoming project demands.

📌 Use Cases:

This step allows MSPs to anticipate hiring needs or automation opportunities before capacity issues arise.
It aligns upcoming initiatives and projects with the availability of technicians and team leads.

📌 Prerequisites:

You’ll need accurate data on technician capacity, including their hours available per week or per quarter.
This step requires team leads to validate the workload estimations.
You should list initiatives and the estimated effort or time required for each.

How to align resources with forecasted needs:

Utilize technician capacity to determine if additional staff or automation will be required.
Map initiatives against available hours per technician or team lead.
Identify possible bottlenecks and address them before projects begin.

Result: You’ll have a resource allocation worksheet that maps initiatives to capacity and highlights risks.

Step 5: Document and share outcomes

Quarterly planning only creates value if the results are recorded and shared. Clear documentation ensures priorities are visible, actionable, and tied to your goals.

📌 Use Cases:

This step helps create accountability by making priorities and ownership transparent.
It connects initiatives to measurable and trackable outcomes.
This step gives your teams a reference point for the next quarter’s review.

📌 Prerequisites:

You’ll need a documentation platform like NinjaOne Documentation, IT Glue, or SharePoint.
You’ll need to have an agreement on priorities and assigned owners from the quarterly planning session.
This step requires defined success metrics to link initiatives to measurable outcomes.

Here are essentials for documenting and sharing outcomes:

Publish a quarterly planning document that lists priorities and assigned owners.
Link each initiative to specific metrics, such as “reduce ticket backlog by 20%.”
Store the document in a central documentation hub, like NinjaOne Docs, for team transparency.

Result: You will have a quarterly planning register that captures priorities, ownership, and measurable outcomes.

⚠️ Things to look out for when running an effective MSP quarterly planning session

Risks	Potential Consequences	Reversals
Skipping documentation	Teams will forget decisions, and priorities will drift during the quarter	Publish a planning register and store it in a centralized documentation for team leads to see.
Overloading teams with initiatives	Burnout, missed deadlines, and a downturn in efficiency	Utilize an impact/effort matrix to filter and prioritize work.
Lack of accountability	Goals remain vague, and progress is difficult to measure	Assign clear owners and link initiatives to measurable metrics.

Best practices for quarterly MSP planning sessions

Quarterly planning works best if you follow consistent practices. The table below highlights the necessary components that will make sessions effective and the value they deliver.

Component	Purpose and value
Standard agenda	Ensures consistency across quarters
Performance review	Provides evidence for decisions
Prioritization matrix	Focus resources on what matters most
Resource alignment	Prevents overcommitment and bottlenecks
Documentation and sharing	Builds accountability and transparency

Automation touchpoint example for MSP quarterly planning sessions

A lightweight export can quickly show how work was distributed last quarter. You can use the PowerShell script below to see where workloads are uneven so you can adjust priorities or resources accordingly.

Import-Csv “Tickets.csv” | Group-Object Technician |
ForEach-Object {
[PSCustomObject]@{
Technician = $_.Name
TicketCount = ($_.Group | Measure-Object).Count
}
} | Export-Csv “Quarterly_TechUtilization.csv” -NoTypeInformation

💡Notes:

This script reads a Tickets.csv file, groups tickets by technicians, and counts them.
You can run it after exporting ticket data from your PSA/RMM for the quarter.

NinjaOne integration ideas for IT resource planning sessions

NinjaOne’s reporting, documentation, and automation features reduce manual prep work and keep team lead planning sessions grounded in real performance metrics.

NinjaOne can provide SLA and ticketing reports to support past-quarter analysis.
It can export device and endpoint trends that help forecast capacity needs.
NinjaOne can track automation success rates so MSPs can measure ROI,
You can use its software to plan agendas, outcomes, and priorities in NinjaOne Documentation for easy access.
You can utilize it to generate dashboards for QBRs that serve as inputs for internal planning.

Improving MSP team performance through quarterly planning

Quarterly planning sessions help MSP teams refine their operations, giving them a reliable way to anticipate demand, align resources, and improve delivery. With a structured agenda, teams shift from reacting to problems to proactively setting priorities.

Your MSP team can make better decisions by utilizing data-driven insights, reviewing past performance, and prioritizing initiatives using an impact/effort framework.

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