Our weekly Scorecard consistently has three or four red metrics, but our team rarely drops these off-track numbers down to the Issues List, preferring to just move on to the Rock review. How do we build an automatic trigger that forces red metrics into IDS?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A red metric on your Scorecard is a smoking gun, and ignoring it defeats the entire purpose of having weekly leading indicators. If your team is looking at off-track numbers, saying "we will catch up next week," and moving on without creating an issue, you are operating in a state of operational denial. You must establish an absolute rule: any metric that misses its target for two consecutive weeks, or is catastrophically off in a single week, must automatically be dropped down to the short-term Issues List. There is no debate, no explanation, and no excuses allowed during the Scorecard review. The accountable leader does not get to explain why it is red during the first five minutes of the meeting. They simply state "off track," and the facilitator instantly types it onto the Issues List. This keeps the reporting phase incredibly fast and ensures the real diagnostic work happens during IDS®. When you finally reach the sixty-minute problem-solving block, you will dissect the root cause of that red metric. This structure prevents your weekly meeting from becoming a platform for excuses and turns it into a rigorous machine for operational course correction.