Cadence meaning in business: how often it repeats
In business, cadence means how often something happens on a fixed schedule, like a weekly meeting cadence or a two-week release cadence. Calling it a cadence also promises that the schedule won't change.
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Cadence in meetings and releases
Cadence meaning in business meetings
In business, cadence is a regular, repeated pattern. When someone says “let’s set a cadence”, they mean “let’s make this a recurring meeting”. One dictionary’s example is a SpaceX launch every other week.
The opposite of a cadence is an ad hoc meeting, called once for one problem.
How a weekly cadence starts
Most cadences start out of politeness. A manager tries a meeting once, everyone says it was useful, and it goes weekly. Before that happens, ask whether an email would do the job. In our meeting or email game, the answer is always yes, weekly meetings included.
Release and sales cadence
Software teams use cadence for how often they ship. The earliest example on record is from a 2010 book on agile. Sales teams use it for the run of calls and emails they send to one prospect.
| Day of a sales cadence | What the prospect gets |
|---|---|
| Day 1 | An email |
| Day 3 | A call |
| Day 7 | A “just bumping this” |
Where the word cadence comes from
From verse to the calendar
Cadence comes from the Latin cadere, “to fall”, through either Medieval Latin cadentia or Old Italian cadenza. It first meant the rhythm of a voice or verse.
| Cadence in English | When |
|---|---|
| Chaucer uses it | Around 1380 |
| The usual date for the word | About 1390 |
| The music sense | The 1590s |
| “The beat of any rhythmic movement” | Around 1600 |
| The office sense | Unknown |
The other cadences
Outside the office, a cadence is either a steady beat or the way a musical phrase ends.
| Where | What cadence means |
|---|---|
| Music | The run of chords that brings a phrase to a close |
| Running | Steps per minute |
| Cycling | Pedal turns per minute |
| The military | The chant soldiers sing on the march |
When cadence means more meetings
Increase the cadence
When a manager wants to “increase the cadence” of an update, they’re booking more meetings about the same work. Ask what happens on a week with nothing to report.
A cadence that only goes one way
After the WFH years, the rule on office days changes on a cadence too. It only ever goes up, one more day in the office at a time. Each rise is announced as the last one for a while.
An email proposing a cadence
Subject: Vendor migration, check-in cadence
Hi all, proposing
a weekly cadencea meeting every week while we’re mid-migration: Thursdays, 20 minutes. After cutover we drop to monthly. If a Thursday has nothing new, I’ll cancel it by Wednesday noon.
Cadence in a sentence
What's the right cadence for these check-ins?
From June, we'll move the status report to a weekly cadence and drop the daily one.
The jazz trio's final cadence at the launch party lasted longer than the CEO's speech.
The app ships on a two-week cadence, Tobias, so the button you hate gets a new color every other Thursday.
Questions about cadence at work
What does cadence mean in the workplace?
In the workplace, cadence means how often a piece of work comes up again. "What's the cadence on this?" asks how often you'll get an update, and whether it arrives on a set day.
What is cadence in management?
In management, cadence is how often a manager checks in, like a one-on-one every two weeks and a team review each month. Goals might only get looked at once a quarter. If the schedule holds, a problem shows up at the next check-in, before anyone has to escalate it.
What does cadence mean in marketing?
In marketing, cadence is how often you publish or send something, like three posts a week or a newsletter once a month. Stick to it and your audience learns when to expect you.
What is an example of a cadence in business?
A Monday pipeline review, a two-week sprint, a monthly board report and a quarterly business review are all cadences. So is the Friday email that sums up the week.
What is a meeting cadence?
A meeting cadence is how often a recurring meeting happens, such as a weekly team sync or a monthly review. Setting one puts the meeting on the calendar as a series. A good one also says when it gets canceled, such as any week with nothing new.
What does cadence mean in scheduling?
In scheduling, cadence is the interval at which something repeats: daily, weekly, every other week, monthly or quarterly. It usually fixes the day too, as in every second Tuesday. Change the cadence and every date in the series moves with it.