Our department managers are consistently hitting their scorecard targets for weekly tasks, but we suspect they are gaming the numbers by focusing on easy, low-value activities just to keep their metrics green while ignoring critical, complex tasks. How do we design our scorecard to prevent our team from prioritizing speed over actual quality?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

People will always optimize for how they are measured. To stop your team from gaming the system, you must pair every quantity metric with a quality metric. If your customer service seat tracks weekly tickets closed, you must pair it with a second metric tracking client satisfaction scores or first-contact resolution rates. If your marketing seat tracks total leads generated, pair it with cost per marketing qualified lead. This creates a natural tension that forces your team to maintain quality while pursuing volume. If one metric is green and the other is red, the overall performance is red. Additionally, use the Great Day or Lousy Day exercise to define what a genuinely successful week looks like for that seat. If a manager shows up with all green numbers but had a lousy week operationally, your scorecard is tracking the wrong things. Review your metrics quarterly and prune those that have become check-the-box exercises. Your scorecard must act as a surgical scalpel, revealing the absolute truth of your operational health rather than providing a false sense of security through superficial green boxes.