Cadence

Everything in a company happens in a certain cadence. The period of each cadence differs. Learn about the cadences we have at GitLab.

Overview

Everything in a company happens in a certain cadence. The period of each cadence differs. The timescale between periods are about 4x, varying from 3x to 5x. Below are the cadences we have at GitLab:

  1. 30 years (3x 10 years)
  2. 10 years (3.3x 3-years)
  3. 3 years (3x year)
  4. Year (4x quarter)
  5. Quarter (3x month)
  6. Month (4.3x week)
  7. Week

Items on this page are grouped into a cadence based on the underlying period of time that the item pertains to, not based on when the item is updated. For example, our strategy looks three years out but is reviewed annually by E-Group and may be updated more frequently if the need arises.

A overview of key company dates for FY25 can be found here

Cadence Examples

How elements of our cadence fit together over time:

  1. Our Mission is to make it so that everyone can contribute by using our product, to our product, and to our company.
  2. Our Vision is what we want the product to evolve into in the next 10 years, AllOps - a single application for DevSecOps, ModelOps, and a Servicedesk.
  3. Our Strategy is what we’ll focus on over the next 3 years in order to make progress towards our vision. Our strategy is to be the leading DevSecOps Platform by focusing on our three strategic pillars: Customer Results, Maturing the Platform, and Growing Careers.
  4. Our Yearlies are annual goals to make progress to our three year strategy. We have 3 goals per strategic pillar, for 9 goals in total.
  5. Our OKRs are quarterly objectives to make progress towards the yearly goals. They have a hierarchy in them with which they flow from the CEO level to the level of teams.

How other elements relate to our cadence:

  1. Top Cross-Functional Initiatives typically last a year and should be closely aligned to the yearlies.
  2. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are measures of performance for important things we do as a company all the time. If you want to change a KPI in a quarter this typically will be an OKR.
  3. Our Values are the principles we follow in pursuing the items on this Cadence page but are not part of any cadence.

Cadence Flow

Below is one example of how the cadence items in cadence flow fit together to illustrate how we will accomplish our longer term goals by successfully completing our shorter term goals.

  1. One part of our mission is everyone can contribute to GitLab, the application. By making innovation more accessible, we increase user contributions to the product, which creates results for a larger audience, which, in turn, allows more users to contribute to our product. This virtuous cycle drives a high rate of innovation for our product and allows more people to innovate and contribute.
  2. One component necessary to achieve our AllOps vision is improving GitLab ServiceDesk, which helps connect external parties to the software development process, allowing more people to contribute. ServiceDesk is needed to provide a complete Value Stream Delivery overview, which should help more people manage the flow of innovation from idea to customers, which should lead to more teams and companies relying on GitLab as their AllOps solution.
  3. One pillar of our three year strategy is Customer Results, which includes Proving Value with items like Value Stream Analytics to help a broader user base like managers and executives deliver value and innovation. Proving value to a broader user base moves us closer to providing a complete Value Stream Delivery overview, creating progress towards our AllOps vision.
  4. One of our FY24 Yearlies is to increase NetARR from Ultimate up-tiers which we’ll accomplish in part by providing more value to business users with features like Value Stream Dashboards for Executives. These features help extend Value Stream Management and, by extension, create progress for our Customer Results strategic pillar.
  5. One FY24Q1 CEO objective is to increase adoption through customer results to increase operating income with a sub-key result of launching Value Stream Dashboards MVC 1 Beta in FY24-Q1.

Successfully achieving our KR of a beta value stream means progress against our Yearly value stream dashboard goal, strategic goal of extending value stream management to more users, vision of an AllOps solution, and mission of everyone contributing. While the KR is a single building block, our successful completion within the quarter leads to progress against our longer term goals.

Update cadence

We have a cadence for reviewing our elements. Specifically, each element is reviewed at the cadence of the element that is the next level down. For example, we revisit our 3 year strategy every year. This maps to when we do annual Yearlies. And, we revisit our Yearlies every quarter. This is the timeframe for creating OKRs.

These reviews ensure that elements reflect current priorities and do not get stale. While we have set review times, we don’t need to wait for an update cycle to capture changes that we have decided to make.

  1. 30 year Mission: reviewed every 10 years
  2. 10 year Vision: reviewed every 3 years
  3. 3 year Strategy: reviewed every year
  4. Annual Yearlies: reviewed every quarter. Review usually happens during the E-Group Offsite
  5. Quarterly OKRs: reviewed every month

30 years

10 years

3 years

  1. Strategy
  2. 3-year product direction strategy
  3. Long range outlook
  4. Restricted stock unit vesting after cliff of six months is passed
  5. Average retention of team members is around 3 years

Year

  1. Yearlies for setting annual company goals
  2. Annual plan
  3. 4 quarter rolling forecast
  4. Most of Direction
  5. Fiscal Year Product Investment Themes

Quarter

  1. OKRs
  2. Board meeting
  3. Sales targets (in Clari)
  4. E-group offsite
  5. GitLab Assembly
  6. Quarterly Kickoff
  7. Earnings activities
  8. Key Reviews
  9. Group Conversations

Month

  1. Release
  2. Retrospective
  3. Most KPIs

Week

  1. 1-1 cadence with reports
  2. E-Group Weekly

Gantt Chart

Below is a visual example of our cadence and is subject to change based on company and team schedules. Dates are approximate.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecJanOKR prep                    California Pay Data Report      EEO-1 Report                    AAP                             Release                     Start Q4 Earnings Prep      End of Q4                   FY starts                   next FQ starts              Canada Benefits Implementation Job Family Alignment         SKO                         Q1 QBRs                     Q1 Quarter Kickoff          Release                     Compensation Philosophy Training Popular Spring Break Periods    Prep led by CFO             Australia WGEA                  GitLab Assembly             OKR prep                    March                       Release                     March                       Easter Holidays                 Benefits Survey Released  Code of Conduct Acknowledgement Long Range Outlook planning exercise Release                     Start Q1 Earnings Prep      End of Q1                   next FQ starts              VETS-4212                       DIB Survey                      Q2 QBRs                     Q2 Quarter Kickoff          Engagement Survey(estimated)    Major Release               Benefits Survey Results Analyzed Prep led by CFO             GitLab Assembly             OKR prep                    June                        Release                     June                        Catch-up Compensation Review Manager Review Popular Summer Travel Periods   Release                     Start Q2 Earnings Prep      360s                            End of Q2                   next FQ starts              Catch-up Compensation Review  Q3 QBRs                     Q3 Quarter Kickoff          OKR prep                    Release                     Compensation Training         Prep led by CFO             GitLab Assembly             Annual Plan Prep            September                   Release                     September                   next FQ starts              Performance Factor Review            Release                     Start Q3 Earnings Prep      End of Q3                   Annual Comp Review Inputs Evaluated/Proposed to Compensation Group for next FY Q4 QBRs                     Audit Annual Compensation Review Q4 Quarter Kickoff          American Thanksgiving           Release                     Prep led by CFO             December                    December                    GitLab Assembly             OKR prep                    Release                     Christmas and New Year Celebrations          Fiscal Year at a GlanceFinance ActivitiesE Group OffsiteBoard MeetingMonthly ReleasesOKRSales Key DatesCompensation Review CyclePeople DatesAnnual Mandated Compliance ReportsDates when Team Members are more likely to be OOOYear Overview

 


Last modified February 7, 2025: Replace ref links with regular links (9fe84978)