Frequently asked questions.
Understand what you’ll do, how Fractal Feedback works and which membership suits the support you need.
Getting started
What the programme involves and what you bring to it.
What is AQMeets?
AQMeets is a membership programme for people who want to make progress on important work and learn from what happens along the way.
You bring your own priorities, commitments and experience. Guided reviews, workbooks and scheduled sessions help you assess progress, make decisions and put those decisions into practice.
The programme connects daily work with weekly reviews, monthly development, quarterly strategy and annual priorities. Fractal Feedback is the method that connects them.
What would I actually do in a review?
You look at what you intended to do, what happened and what that tells you.
Suppose you planned to advance an important project, but urgent requests took most of your week. You would examine the circumstances, decide what needs attention and make a specific adjustment. That might mean protecting time, renegotiating a commitment or checking whether the project has the resources it requires.
You carry that decision into your work. At the next review, you examine whether it helped.
Who is the programme for?
AQMeets is suited to people who have some responsibility for choosing and directing their work. That includes business owners, leaders, independent professionals and people managing substantial personal commitments.
It asks for a willingness to examine your decisions and act on what you learn. You can begin with unfinished work, competing responsibilities and uncertainty about the best way forward.
Can I use it for responsibilities outside work?
Yes. Your priorities may include family responsibilities, study, health, service or a creative undertaking.
Some responsibilities involve steady care or maintenance over many years. Reviews help you consider whether those responsibilities are receiving appropriate attention, even when there is no finish date.
Is AQMeets a course, a planning tool or a coaching service?
The programme includes teaching, workbooks and recurring reviews. You apply the material to your own work over time.
You can continue using your existing calendar, task manager and notes. AQMeets provides a structure for examining your experience and deciding what follows.
Leader membership also includes private Leadership Counselling.
What should I bring?
Bring the relevant workbook, your current priorities and enough information to discuss what happened.
Your calendar, notes, completed work or a record of decisions may be useful. Start with what you have. Where information is missing, the review can help you decide what to observe next.
Fractal Feedback
How experience from your work informs decisions across the programme.
Commitments guide action.
Experience informs decisions.
What is Fractal Feedback?
Fractal Feedback is AQMeets’ method for connecting decisions across different timescales.
Your longer commitments guide what you do. Experience from that work informs your reviews. You then decide what to continue, adjust or reconsider, and carry the decision back into practice.
The same discipline runs through the programme: act, examine what happened, exercise judgment and follow through. Each review addresses a different kind of decision.
What does it add if I already review my week?
A useful weekly review helps you organise the coming week. Fractal Feedback also helps you examine problems that keep returning.
A project repeatedly losing its place in your calendar may need a scheduling adjustment. It may also reveal a missing capability, an unsuitable strategy or too many annual commitments.
AQMeets connects these questions so that a recurring problem can receive attention at the level where a useful decision can be made. Subsequent reviews help you assess whether the response worked.
If your existing review practice works well, you can build on it.
How do the different reviews fit together?
| Rhythm | Main purpose |
|---|---|
| Daily | Act on your commitments and notice what happens. |
| Weekly | Review execution and decide what needs attention next. |
| Monthly | Examine recurring patterns, habits, capabilities and systems. |
| Quarterly | Test your strategy against experience and decide how to proceed. |
| Annual | Choose priorities, allocate finite resources and decide what will wait. |
These reviews share relevant evidence and decisions. A weekly observation can inform a strategic review; a strategic decision can change next week’s work.
Does every problem have to move through all five reviews?
No. Address an issue where you have enough understanding and authority to make a sound decision.
Some problems can be resolved immediately. Others require a broader examination of resources, strategy or commitments. You do not need to wait for a scheduled review when a decision is needed sooner.
Does Fractal Feedback mean constantly changing my plans?
No. A review may confirm that your current approach deserves more time.
It may also show that you need to change how you are working, revise a commitment or stop an undertaking. The purpose is to make those decisions with a better understanding of what has happened and what matters.
One difficult week is information to examine. It is not, by itself, a reason to abandon an annual priority.
What counts as useful evidence?
Useful evidence helps you distinguish what happened from your explanation of it.
That might include completed work, time spent, customer responses, repeated interruptions, missed commitments or an adjustment that improved results.
You also distinguish between the result, what you predicted and the standard you were trying to meet. A result can exceed a modest prediction and still fall short of the standard that matters.
What if I do not know why something happened?
Record the uncertainty. You can identify possible explanations and decide what to observe or test next.
A review does not require a confident answer to every question. Recognising what you do not yet know can lead to a better next decision.
Will I have to keep extensive records?
The aim is to retain what will help later decisions.
Keep concise records of significant observations, decisions and follow-up actions. A later review should be able to draw on the relevant evidence without requiring you to reread every worksheet.
Memberships
Choose the support you need to apply the framework.
What is the difference between Lite, Pro and Leader?
| Membership | Included support |
|---|---|
| Lite | The full conceptual orientation, an initial Higher Horizons Charter, guidance for revisiting it independently, and daily, weekly and monthly practice. |
| Pro | Lite, plus Quarterly Quests, January Annual Aims, the facilitated midyear Higher Horizons programme and Jonah’s Club. |
| Leader | Pro, plus a 50-minute private Leadership Counselling allocation each active month. |
See the pricing page for membership prices and billing options.
Do I need Pro to understand the whole framework?
No. Lite includes the full conceptual orientation, including Higher Horizons and an initial Charter.
Pro adds facilitated support for quarterly strategy, annual priorities and the midyear examination of your longer commitments.
Choose according to the support you need to apply the framework.
How should I choose a membership?
Lite may suit you if you want to establish regular practice and are comfortable revisiting your longer direction independently.
Pro may suit you if you want facilitated support when reviewing strategy, setting annual priorities and examining Higher Horizons.
Leader may suit you if you also want private counsel on decisions and responsibilities that need individual attention.
Compare the support included in each membership.
Compare memberships and pricesHigher Horizons and Annual Aims
The commitments behind your priorities and the resources you give them.
What is Higher Horizons?
Higher Horizons helps you examine the longer commitments that give your plans their direction.
It considers four related fields:
- Far Horizon: The longer future you are working towards, often over a decade, with a timeframe suited to the undertaking.
- Lifetime: The work and responsibilities you hope to undertake within your life.
- Legacy: What you hope to contribute or leave in the care of others.
- Eternal: The ultimate commitments by which you judge both your aims and the means you use to pursue them.
These fields inform the programme’s five review rhythms.
How does Higher Horizons relate to Fractal Feedback?
Higher Horizons gives you a basis for judging which aims deserve your effort and what boundaries should guide your work.
Fractal Feedback connects that direction with experience. As you act, you may discover that a commitment needs different resources, a different approach or further examination.
The relationship works in both directions. Your commitments guide your choices, and experience gives you grounds to examine how you understand and pursue those commitments.
What is the Higher Horizons Charter?
Your Charter records your current orientation, significant commitments, boundaries and unresolved questions.
It provides a reference for later decisions, including annual planning. You can return to it when choosing between competing opportunities or considering a substantial change.
The Charter is provisional. You are expected to exercise judgment as your understanding develops.
What if I am unsure about my longer direction?
You can begin with that uncertainty.
Some commitments may already be clear. Others may need further thought, experience or counsel. Your Charter can record both.
You do not need a complete account of your future before making a worthwhile commitment now.
How are Annual Aims different from Higher Horizons?
Annual Aims turns your current direction into commitments for the year ahead.
In January, you assess your actual circumstances before planning what may be possible. You read your Charter, choose a vital few priorities, allocate time and resources, identify what will wait and establish your first Quarterly Quest.
The facilitated midyear Higher Horizons programme gives more sustained attention to the commitments behind those choices.
Are there two Annual Aims programmes each year?
No. The programme includes January Annual Aims and a distinct facilitated two-day Higher Horizons programme at midyear.
The midyear programme replaces the second Annual Aims event in the updated architecture.
Can annual priorities change during the year?
Yes, where the evidence warrants reconsideration.
A quarterly review may reveal a material change in circumstances or expose an assumption that no longer holds. That can prompt an examination of an annual priority or, where relevant, your Charter.
Revision requires judgment. It does not happen automatically because a quarter was difficult.
Is AQMeets religious?
AQMeets has Christian foundations, which inform its approach to purpose, responsibility and the relationship between ends and means.
You do not need to profess a faith to participate. The programme makes those foundations explicit so you can consider whether its approach suits you.
Will I have to share or defend my personal beliefs?
Peer sharing in Higher Horizons is optional. You can work privately and seek counsel through appropriate personal relationships or private counselling.
Other members may help you consider a question. They do not decide matters of conscience for you.
Read more about direction and annual commitments.
Leadership Counselling
Private support included with Leader membership.
What does Leader membership include?
Leader membership includes Pro and a 50-minute private Leadership Counselling allocation each active month.
This provides space to examine decisions, responsibilities or difficulties that benefit from individual attention.
Can I combine counselling allocations?
You can combine up to three available monthly allocations within the same membership quarter, allowing a session of up to 150 minutes.
Future monthly allocations cannot be borrowed. Unused allocations expire at the end of the membership quarter.
These rules apply to both monthly and annual Leader memberships.
Participation and progress
Returning to practice, choosing what to share and assessing what changes.
What if I miss a review or fall behind?
Resume with your present circumstances and the information most relevant to your next decision.
You may need to revisit an earlier commitment, but you do not have to reconstruct every missed day before taking part again.
What if I do not want to discuss sensitive matters with a group?
Choose what you share. You can often examine a pattern or decision without disclosing names or sensitive details.
For Higher Horizons, private reflection and appropriate personal counsel are legitimate ways to work through the material. Leader membership provides a separate route for private Leadership Counselling.
How is personal information handled?
The Privacy Policy explains how AQMeets handles personal information. Consider it before submitting sensitive material.
Your choice about what to discuss with other members is separate from how information is collected, stored and used.
How will I know whether the programme is helping?
Look for changes in your decisions and your work:
- Are you acting on decisions made in previous reviews?
- Do important commitments receive the time and resources you assigned to them?
- Can you tell whether an adjustment helped?
- Are recurring problems receiving appropriate attention?
- Are you retaining useful learning and applying it later?
- Can you give clearer reasons for continuing, revising or releasing a commitment?
Progress may include completing work, sustaining a responsibility, developing a capability or making a justified decision to stop.
Does every review need to uncover a problem?
No. Reviews also help you recognise what is working and understand the conditions that support it.
That gives you a better basis for continuing a practice, protecting useful time or applying what you have learned elsewhere.
Does AQMeets guarantee a particular result?
No particular business, financial or personal outcome can be promised.
The programme provides a method, recurring practice and support. Results depend on your circumstances, decisions, participation and factors beyond your control.
Where should I begin?
Read How It Works for an overview of the programme.
Visit What You Do Each Week to understand the regular practice.
When you are ready to choose your level of support, Compare Memberships.
See how the practice fits your work.
Explore the programme, look at a typical week and choose the support you need.