Proactive Planning Beats Firefighting
Here's a pattern that plays out at countless CPG brands: someone notices on Wednesday that a top-selling SKU is almost out of stock. Panic ensues. An emergency order gets placed at expedited shipping rates. Everyone's stressed.
Meanwhile, the data showing this was coming existed the previous Monday. Nobody looked.
The difference between chaotic operations and calm operations isn't better inventory or better suppliers. It's a routine that surfaces problems while there's still time to solve them.
The 10-Minute Monday is that routine. It's not complicated. It's just consistent.
Why Weekly Cadence Works
Long Enough for Meaningful Changes
Daily inventory reviews mostly show noise—minor fluctuations that don't require action. Weekly reviews show real trends: velocity changes, approaching stockouts, incoming shipments.
Short Enough to Course-Correct
Monthly reviews catch problems too late. If your best-seller is trending toward stockout in three weeks, waiting until the end-of-month review means it's already empty when you respond.
Sustainable for Lean Teams
Mid-market brands don't have dedicated demand planners with unlimited time. A weekly routine is demanding enough to maintain discipline but light enough to actually stick.
The 10-Minute Monday Framework
Here's the structure. Ten minutes, four checks, same time every week.
Check 1: What's At Risk This Week? (3 Minutes)
Start with immediate concerns. What products are projected to run out within your reorder window?
If your lead time is 2 weeks, look at products with less than 2 weeks of inventory. These are your urgent items—order today or risk stockout.
Good planning systems flag these automatically. You're not calculating; you're reviewing the list and deciding what action to take.
Questions to answer:
- Are the projections accurate, or is demand changing?
- Can we expedite if needed, and what's the cost?
- Is there substitute product we can offer?
Check 2: What's Coming In? (2 Minutes)
Review incoming shipments for the next 2-4 weeks. Confirm that open purchase orders are on track.
This catches supplier delays before they become stockouts. If a shipment that should arrive in week 2 is actually delayed to week 4, you have time to adjust.
Questions to answer:
- Are any incoming shipments delayed?
- Do arrival dates still align with when we need the product?
- Should any orders be expedited?
Check 3: What's Not Selling? (2 Minutes)
The opposite of stockout is overstock. Which products are moving slower than expected? Where is inventory aging?
Overstock ties up cash and warehouse space. Worse, it can become obsolete—especially for seasonal or trend-driven products.
Questions to answer:
- What products have more than 90 days of supply?
- Is slow movement temporary or a real demand shift?
- Should we run promotions to clear aging inventory?
Check 4: What Changed? (3 Minutes)
The final check is about forecasts. Did last week's actual sales differ significantly from what you expected? Are any products trending in an unexpected direction?
This is where you catch demand shifts early. A product that's suddenly selling 50% faster than forecast needs attention—either to capture the upside or to understand what's driving the change.
Questions to answer:
- Which SKUs are significantly above or below forecast?
- What's driving the variance—seasonal shift, promotional activity, or something else?
- Do forecasts need to be adjusted?
Making It Stick
A routine is only useful if you actually do it. Here's how to make the 10-Minute Monday sustainable.
Same Time Every Week
Block it on your calendar. Monday morning, same time. Not "when I get around to it." Not "after I clear my inbox."
The meeting with yourself is as important as any external meeting. Treat it that way.
Dashboard, Not Data Pull
If you have to spend 20 minutes pulling data before you can spend 10 minutes reviewing it, you've already lost. Your planning tool should surface the relevant information automatically.
If you're still pulling reports manually, that's a sign your systems need work—and a cost you're paying every week.
Document Decisions
Keep a simple log of what you reviewed and what you decided. This serves two purposes: accountability (did you actually do the review?) and history (what was happening when you made that order decision?).
It doesn't need to be elaborate. A shared doc with date, key observations, and actions taken is enough.
Include Others When Needed
The 10-Minute Monday is designed for a single person to execute. But some decisions need input from others—marketing for promotional plans, sales for retail intel, operations for warehouse capacity.
Build a rhythm for escalating when needed without turning every week into a committee meeting.
What Good Looks Like
After a few months of consistent weekly reviews, here's what changes:
Fewer Surprises
Stockouts don't appear out of nowhere. You saw them coming two weeks ago and either prevented them or prepared for them.
Faster Decisions
The data is already in front of you. You're not spending time gathering information; you're spending time making choices.
Lower Stress
When you're confident that you'll catch problems with time to respond, the ambient anxiety of inventory management decreases. You're in control.
Better Forecast Accuracy
Weekly review of forecast vs. actual creates a feedback loop. You're constantly calibrating, which means forecasts get better over time.
Common Mistakes
Skipping When Busy
The week you're too busy to do the review is usually the week you most need to do it. Complexity doesn't pause for convenience.
If 10 minutes genuinely isn't available, do a 3-minute version: just the at-risk items. Something is better than nothing.
Going Too Deep
The goal is a quick pulse check, not a comprehensive analysis. If you find yourself diving deep into one particular issue, note it for follow-up and move on.
Save deep analysis for scheduled time outside the weekly routine.
Reacting to Noise
Not every variance requires action. A product that's 10% above forecast this week might just be normal fluctuation. Learn to distinguish signal from noise.
The threshold for action should be meaningful variance—30%+ in either direction—not every small deviation.
Fixing Problems Instead of Flagging Them
The 10-Minute Monday is about identifying issues, not resolving them. If you find a problem that requires an hour of work to fix, flag it and schedule the time separately.
Don't let the review time expand to fill whatever's needed. That's how routines die.
Extending the Framework
Once the weekly review is habitual, you can build additional cadences around it.
Monthly Deep Dive
Once a month, spend 30-60 minutes on strategic questions: Are we hitting inventory turn targets? How accurate were last month's forecasts? What process improvements would help?
Quarterly Planning Review
Each quarter, step back further. How did full-quarter performance compare to plan? What should change about the forecasting model? Are there product lines that need different treatment?
Annual Demand Planning
Yearly, build the full-year demand plan: seasonal curves, promotional calendar, new product introductions, and inventory investment targets.
The weekly review is the foundation. Without it, the monthly and quarterly reviews are just exercises in examining the wreckage. With it, they become opportunities to improve an already-functioning system.
Getting Started
If you don't currently have a weekly planning routine, here's how to start:
Week 1: Establish the Habit
Block Monday morning time. Just show up and look at your inventory and sales data, even if you don't have a structured system yet.
Week 2: Structure the Review
Use the four-check framework. Even if your data isn't perfectly organized, work through the questions.
Week 3: Identify Gaps
Notice where you're missing information. What data would make the review more useful? What's hard to find or calculate?
Week 4: Improve Systems
Start addressing the gaps. Maybe that's building a report, maybe it's implementing a planning tool, maybe it's fixing your data sources.
The routine comes first. Better systems support the routine.
Key Takeaways
- Proactive weekly reviews catch problems with time to respond—unlike firefighting after stockouts hit.
- The 10-Minute Monday covers four checks: at-risk items, incoming shipments, slow movers, and forecast changes.
- Consistency matters more than depth. Same time, every week, no exceptions.
- Document decisions for accountability and historical context.
- The weekly review is foundation for monthly, quarterly, and annual planning.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should I review my inventory plan?
Weekly is the right cadence for most CPG brands. It's frequent enough to catch problems before they become emergencies, but not so frequent that you're reacting to noise. Monthly reviews miss too much; daily reviews create analysis paralysis.
What should I look at in a weekly inventory review?
Four things: items at risk of stockout within your lead time window, status of incoming shipments, products with excess inventory, and significant variances between forecast and actual sales. Ten minutes covers all four if you have good systems.
How do I build a sustainable planning routine?
Block the same time every week—treat it as an unmovable meeting. Use dashboards that surface data automatically instead of requiring manual pulls. Keep the scope tight; the goal is a pulse check, not a deep analysis. Document decisions for accountability.
What's the biggest mistake in weekly inventory reviews?
Skipping the review when you're busy. That's precisely when you most need the early warning that the routine provides. If time is genuinely tight, do a shortened version focusing only on at-risk items.
How long before I see results from a weekly routine?
You'll feel more in control within 2-3 weeks. You'll start catching issues earlier within a month. After a quarter of consistent reviews, you should see measurable improvement in stockout rates and forecast accuracy.