Back in 2020, I was frustrated with QBRs at Google Cloud. They felt performative with hours spent reviewing metrics that no one cared about, while the real strategic conversations happened in hallways after the meeting ended.

So I experimented. I ditched the decks. Brought whiteboards. Asked one question: “What could we help you achieve?”

But, something bigger has emerged.

We don’t do QBRs anymore. We do Strategic Value Sessions. And they’ve fundamentally changed how we engage with customers. Not just post-sale, but throughout the entire lifecycle.

What Are Strategic Value Sessions?

A Strategic Value Session (SVS) is a collaborative, outcome-focused engagement model that replaces traditional Quarterly Business Reviews with a co-creative workshop with your customer’s executive team, designed to generate immediate business value.

Unlike QBRs, which review past performance, Strategic Value Sessions are formatted to:

• Secure executive participation and a seat at the table. SVS brings C-suite and senior leadership into the conversation, not just operational contacts
• Identify the next Minimal Viable Business Outcome (MVBO) that can be achieved in 30-60 days
• Co-create strategic roadmaps through whiteboarding and collaborative problem-solving
• Build momentum through rapid value delivery rather than lengthy planning cycles
• Embed your company into the customer’s long-term strategic plans
• Demonstrate how Customer Success brings value to the organization

Strategic Value Sessions eliminate presentation decks entirely. There are no slide transitions, no charts projected on screens, no one reading bullets out loud. Instead, participants use whiteboards, markers, and design thinking methodologies to think and solve together in real time.

The goal of every Strategic Value Session is simple: Leave with a clear, actionable outcome that drives measurable business impact fast.

And because these sessions focus on strategic business outcomes rather than product updates, they naturally attract executive-level participation. When you’re discussing what the CEO needs to achieve in the next 12 months, the CEO shows up.

Why You Should Replace Quarterly Business Reviews with Strategic Value Sessions

Traditional Quarterly Business Reviews are broken. Here’s why Strategic Value Sessions deliver better outcomes:

QBRs Focus on the Past; SVS Focuses on the Future

Quarterly Business Reviews are retrospective by design. They ask: “What did we deliver last quarter?” and “Did we meet our commitments?”

Strategic Value Sessions ask: “What do you need to achieve next?” and “What’s the fastest path to demonstrable value?”

Clients don’t renew because you met your SLAs. They renew because they can’t imagine achieving their goals without you.

QBRs Are Passive; SVS Is Active

In a typical QBR, customers sit and listen while vendors present. It’s a one-way information transfer that often ends with customers checking email while you click through slides.

In Strategic Value Sessions, everyone is out of their chairs. They’re at the whiteboard. They’re debating. They’re sketching. They’re solving problems together.

This active participation creates ownership. Customers hear about solutions and they help design them.

QBRs Measure Delivery; SVS Creates Value

The fundamental difference: QBRs are about value validation. Strategic Value Sessions are about value generation.

When you spend two hours proving you delivered what was promised, you’re playing defense. When you spend two hours co-creating the next breakthrough outcome, you’re playing offense.

QBRs Happen Quarterly; SVS Creates Continuous Momentum

The quarterly cadence of traditional business reviews creates gaps. Three months between strategic conversations means missed opportunities, stalled initiatives, and disconnected execution.

Strategic Value Sessions operate on a different rhythm, driven by MVBO delivery cycles (30-60 days) rather than calendar quarters. This creates continuous momentum and faster time-to-value.

The Bottom Line

Companies using Strategic Value Sessions instead of QBRs see:

• Shorter sales cycles (when used in pre-sales)
• Faster time-to-first-value
• Higher expansion rates
• Better retention
• Deeper strategic partnerships

Because you’re not managing accounts. You’re growing businesses.

The Value Problem

After running dozens of strategic planning sessions, a pattern emerged. Clients loved the forward-thinking approach. They appreciated being asked about their challenges instead of being talked at about our product.

But there was still a gap.

Time-to-value.

Even in these collaborative sessions, we’d identify great opportunities. We’d get excited. We’d build roadmaps. Then… weeks would pass. Months sometimes. The strategic vision was there, but the tangible value took too long to materialize.

And in the meantime? Clients started questioning whether all this “strategic thinking” was actually delivering results.

That’s when I realized: Strategy without velocity is just planning theater.

Enter MVBO: Minimal Viable Business Outcome

Borrowing from product development (MVP – Minimum Viable Product), we created a new concept: MVBO – Minimal Viable Business Outcome.

The question we now ask in every Strategic Value Session:

What’s the simplest thing we can help you achieve that would drive immediate, recognizable value?

Not the biggest initiative. Not the most impressive transformation. The simplest.

Something that:

• Can be accomplished in 30-60 days
• Requires minimal dependencies
• Produces measurable business impact
• Builds momentum for larger initiatives

Here’s an example: A client wanted to modernize their entire data infrastructure. Huge initiative. 18-month timeline. Multiple stakeholders. High risk.

Their MVBO? Migrate one critical reporting pipeline to the cloud that was currently taking 6 hours to run. Get it down to under 30 minutes.

We did it in 3 weeks.

Suddenly, executives who were skeptical about cloud migration became champions. Because they experienced value immediately, not theoretically.

The Strategic Value Session Framework

Over the past year, these sessions have evolved from experimental whiteboard conversations into a full framework.

Here’s what a Strategic Value Session (SVS) looks like:

The Non-Negotiables

No presentation decks. No slide transitions. No one reading bullets out loud. No charts or metrics projected on a screen.

Instead: Whiteboards, markers, sticky notes, and people out of their chairs.

This is a co-creative environment where people move, sketch, argue, ideate, and build momentum in real time. You might use design thinking, mind mapping, SWOT analysis, Jobs-to-be-Done—it doesn’t matter, as long as the team is thinking and solving together.

Strategic Value Sessions should feel like working meetings, not stage presentations. When done right, customers leave energized, not exhausted.

The Ultimate Goal

Become embedded in your customer’s roadmap.

Not just aligned with it. Not just supporting it. Embedded in it.

As a strategic partner, you move from supporting their current needs to shaping their future. That kind of alignment locks you in because it becomes meaningful.

When your solution becomes part of how they think about achieving their goals, renewal conversations disappear. Because they’re not evaluating a vendor. They’re evaluating whether to abandon their own strategic plan.

The SVS Agenda

Every Strategic Value Session follows this structure:

Pre-Session (1 week before)

• Strategic Brief sent to all participants
  • Current state snapshot (3-5 key metrics only)
  • Industry/market context relevant to their business
  • Strategic provocations (2-3 questions we want to explore)
• Stakeholder interviews with 2-3 key participants to understand priorities

The Session (2 hours)

Part 1: Value Alignment (20 minutes)

• Where are you now vs. where do you need to be?
• What does success look like in 6-12 months?
• What’s at stake if you don’t get there?

Part 2: Strategic Exploration (45 minutes)

• Collaborative whiteboarding session
• Identify opportunities, obstacles, and dependencies
• Use whatever framework fits: Design Thinking, SWOT, JTBD, Mind Mapping
• Key question: “What would need to be true for you to achieve this?”

Part 3: MVBO Identification (30 minutes)

• From all the opportunities discussed, identify the MVBO
• What’s the simplest thing we can accomplish in 30-60 days?
• What would demonstrable success look like?
• Who needs to be involved?

Part 4: Commitment & Ownership (25 minutes)

• Define clear owners (both sides)
• Establish success metrics
• Set next milestone check-in
• Document what we’re committing to and what we need from them

Post-Session (48 hours after)

• One-page Strategic Summary distributed to all participants:
  • What we heard (their priorities)
  • MVBO definition and timeline
  • Mutual commitments
  • Next milestone date

MVBO Execution (30-60 days)

• Rapid execution sprint
• Weekly check-ins
• Remove blockers immediately
• Document and communicate wins

Velocity Check-In (60-90 days post-MVBO)

• Measure MVBO impact
• Identify next MVBO or larger initiative
• Adjust strategy based on results

The Pre-Sales Innovation

Here’s where Strategic Value Sessions get even more powerful.

After seeing how effective SVS was for existing customers, we asked: Why wait until after they buy?

We’re now experimenting with Strategic Value Sessions as part of the pre-sales motion.

Instead of the traditional: Demo → Proposal → Negotiation → Signature → Onboarding

We’re doing: Demo → Strategic Value Session → Proposal → Signature (while already onboarding)

In the pre-sales SVS, we:

• Run the same collaborative format
• Identify their MVBO
• Begin generating value before the contract is signed
• Start onboarding early with champion stakeholders

The results?

• Shorter sales cycles. Because we’re not selling theoretically, we’re already solving real problems.
• Higher close rates. Because by the time we get to contract negotiations, they’ve already experienced our value.
• Faster time-to-value post-signature. Because onboarding isn’t starting from zero. We’ve already built momentum.

One client told me: “We signed the contract to formalize what we were already doing together.”

That’s the power of starting with value, not paperwork.

What Makes SVS Different From Traditional Customer Meetings

Let me be explicit about what separates Strategic Value Sessions from traditional customer engagement models:

Traditional QBRs	Strategic Value Sessions
Reviewing the past	Designing for the future
Proving we delivered	Creating new value together
Vendor accountability	Mutual accountability
Product-centric	Business outcome-centric
Quarterly ritual	Continuous value rhythm
Post-sales Only	Entire customer lifecycle
Metrics and status	Strategy and momentum
Passive attendance	Active collaboration
Deck presentation	Whiteboard workshops

The fundamental difference: Strategic Value Sessions are about value generation, not value validation.

The Real Impact

A year plus into this transformation, here’s what we’re seeing:

Customer Outcomes:

• 25 accounts now operating on SVS model
• 60% reduction in time-to-first-value for new customers using pre-sales SVS
• 23 MVBOs delivered in 30-60 day windows
• 9 expansions directly attributed to MVBO momentum creating appetite for larger initiatives
• 95% retention across SVS accounts (vs. 87% across traditional QBR accounts)

Internal Transformation:

• CSMs now trained in facilitation, not just product knowledge
• Sales teams bringing us into deals earlier
• Product teams getting direct strategic input from customers
• We’ve become known for “thinking with customers, not at them”

The Mindset Shift: One executive told me: “You stopped treating us like a customer to be managed and started treating us like a business to be grown. That’s why we keep expanding.”

The Next Evolution

I won’t pretend this is the final form. We’re still learning. Still iterating.

But here’s what I know for certain:

The companies that win in the next decade won’t be the ones with the best products. They’ll be the ones who make their customers successful faster.

Traditional account management is transactional. You deliver what was promised. You renew. You try to upsell.

Strategic Value Sessions are transformational. You become part of how your customers think about their business. You’re not just their vendor. You become the strategic advisor they need.