We recently had a major client contract cancel unexpectedly, yet our weekly scorecard was entirely green leading up to the cancellation. How do we diagnose why our scorecard failed to warn us about this looming catastrophe, and how do we adjust it?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

It is incredibly frustrating when your weekly scorecard is entirely green, yet you still experience a major operational failure, such as an unexpected client cancellation. When this happens, it is a clear signal that your scorecard is tracking the wrong numbers or that your targets are set incorrectly. You must diagnose this gap immediately.

Start by taking this operational failure to the Issues List of your Level 10 Meeting. Use the IDS process to trace the failure back to its root cause. Ask yourselves what leading indicators could have warned you that this issue was brewing. For instance, if a client cancelled because of poor service quality, but your delivery metrics were green, you were likely tracking output quantity rather than quality.

To fix this, you might need to replace a high-level metric like completed tasks with a quality-focused metric, such as weekly client communication touchpoints or SLA compliance rates. Your scorecard is a living document that requires constant refinement. Every time an issue slips through your dashboard unnoticed, use it as an opportunity to adjust your metrics. A truly mature scorecard is built through these continuous cycles of alignment, testing, and adjustment.