The 5Q Method — Get the Things Done That Matter

The problem is rarely a shortage of ideas.

Owners of private businesses usually know what would move the company. The trouble is what happens after that. Too many things get named as priorities, so none of them is. Follow-through is strong for a few weeks and then uneven. Attention moves to whatever is loudest. And there is seldom a scheduled, disciplined moment to look at what actually happened and ask why.

The result is a gap between what an owner says matters and what the business demonstrably executes. That gap is not a motivation problem. It is the absence of a loop.

What matters isn’t what you say matters. It’s what your actions demonstrate matters.

Five questions. One loop.

The 5Q Method is five questions, asked in order and then repeated. It is small on purpose.

Q1 What matters right now?
Define the priority: a meaningful outcome, with its magnitude and its timing. “Reduce fixed overhead by 10% by December 31,” not “get costs under control.”
Q2 What will we do about it?
Convert the priority into specific commitments and actions. These are the current execution commitments, and the scoreboard for the next review.
Q3 How are our actions progressing?
At each review, go through the commitments one by one: what happened with each, and where it stands. This is the execution check. Did we do what we said?
Q4 Where do we stand on what matters?
Then look at the outcome Q1 is aiming at, not just the actions. Record where it actually stands and how it has moved since the last review. Completed commitments and an unmoved result is a finding, not a success.
Q5 What next?
Decide what happens next. Any new action created here goes into Q2, so the decision and the commitments stay linked.

Q1 stays in place until the outcome is achieved or something else matters more. At each 5Q Review, Q5 creates the next Q2.

How the loop works

Q1 is set once and stays in place. Q2 is the current set of commitments. At every recurring 5Q Review, the owner asks how the actions are progressing, where things stand on what matters, and what next, and the decision from Q5 creates the next Q2. The loop runs until the outcome is achieved or something else genuinely matters more. Only then does Q1 change.

Q1 Set what matters Defined once. Stays in place.
Q2 Set the commitments The current execution commitments.
Q3, Q4, Q5 5Q Review Action progress, outcome progress, what next. Q5 creates the next Q2.
Q3, Q4, Q5 5Q Review Again. A new Q2 every time.
Repeat Until Q1 changes The outcome is achieved, or something else matters more.

The 5Q Review is recurring, but it is not a status meeting. Nobody reads a list. Each review looks at where the result stands as well as how the commitments are progressing, and over a series of reviews the record of what was committed, what was done, and what it changed shows an owner how the business actually executes rather than how it intends to.

Up to three active 5Qs

An owner runs one, two, or three 5Qs at a time. Each is a single important outcome with its own Q1, its own commitments, and its own loop through every review. Three is capacity, not a target. Most of the time, one or two is the honest answer.

1
Q1
Reduce fixed overhead by 10% by December 31.
2
Q1
Replace $150,000 of lost recurring revenue by June 30.
3
Open
Used only when a third thing truly matters right now.

If more than three things matter right now, you haven’t decided what matters right now.

A Q1 is an outcome with a size and a date. Others look like:

Increase gross margin from 28% to 32% by March 31.
Build and maintain a $500,000 liquidity cushion by June 30.
Hire and onboard a VP of Operations by March 31.
Reduce average customer quote turnaround from five days to two by December 31.
Launch the new Birmingham location by May 1.
Raise on-time delivery from 82% to 95% by September 30.
Reduce the owner’s operational involvement to 25 hours per week by September 30.
Be transaction-ready for a business sale by December 31.

Financial information often informs a Q1 and how it is measured. The Method itself is about execution across the whole business, not only its finances.

One 5Q, one review.

Here is how a single 5Q moves from priority to commitments, and what the first review looks like.

Q1

Reduce fixed overhead by 10% by December 31.

Q2 What will we do about it?

Review and eliminate unnecessary subscriptions.
Renegotiate lease terms.
Obtain competitive insurance quotes.
Identify a specific monthly savings target.

At the next 5Q Review

Q3 How are our actions progressing?

Subscriptions reviewed. The unnecessary ones cancelled.
Lease conversation not started.
Two of three insurance quotes received.
Monthly savings target set.

Filled: complete. Half: in progress. Empty: not started.

Q4 Where do we stand on what matters?

Fixed overhead is down 2.4% against the 10% target.

The subscriptions and quotes were easy to delegate, and together they account for nearly all of the 2.4%. The lease is the largest item and the least comfortable conversation, so it kept sliding. Without it, the 10% is out of reach.

Q5 What next?

The owner calls the landlord this week, personally.
Third insurance quote in by Friday. Decide the following week.
Report actual overhead against the 10% target at every review.

These decisions create the next Q2.

About the 5Q Method

The 5Q Method was developed by Josh Hannum of Hannum Advisory over decades of working alongside business owners on finance, operations, decisions, accountability, and execution. It is a simple discipline for deciding what matters, translating it into action, and repeatedly confronting reality until the outcome changes.

It is simple on purpose. Five questions are easy to remember, hard to hide from, and small enough to run alongside the actual work of running a company. 5Q is an execution discipline, not project-management software. It does not care how commitments are tracked, only whether they were kept and whether the result moved.

Josh Hannum, CPA

Founder, Hannum Advisory

Decades of experience working alongside owners as a finance and operating advisor.

The questions: Five, asked in order, then repeated.
The review: Recurring. Q3, Q4, Q5, every time.
The limit: No more than three active 5Qs.
The promise: Get the things done that matter.
Developed by: Hannum Advisory

Use the 5Q Method with Hannum Advisory

The Method can be understood in minutes. Applying it consistently is harder. Q1 drifts toward what is comfortable. Commitments get written generously and reviewed gently. The review slides when the month gets busy.

Hannum Advisory works directly with business owners to sharpen Q1, challenge priorities, quantify outcomes, establish commitments, interpret what happened, distinguish reasons from excuses, and keep the recurring review discipline in place.

5Q keeps the focus. Hannum maintains the discipline. The owner owns the outcome.

How Hannum Advisory works with owners

What matters right now?

Name the one, two, or three outcomes that deserve focused execution over the coming months. That is Q1. Everything else in the Method follows from it, and if you want an experienced advisor in the loop with you, that is where the conversation starts.

Start a conversation Work with Hannum Advisory

Get the things done that matter.