We employ several fractional executives on our leadership team, including a fractional CFO and fractional CMO. How do we structure scorecard metrics for part-time leaders who are only in the business a few hours a week?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Fractional executives are still leaders on your Accountability Chart, and they must be held to the same standards of accountability as your full-time staff. If they own a seat, they must own the numbers associated with that seat. The fact that they are part-time is irrelevant to the scorecard; the business still needs those operational results weekly.

To structure metrics for fractional leaders, focus on high-leverage strategic indicators rather than daily activity tracking. For example, your fractional CFO should not be tracked on daily data entry. Instead, their scorecard metrics should focus on financial health and prediction, such as cash runway in weeks, accounts receivable days outstanding, or budget variance percentage.

Your fractional CMO should be measured on marketing pipeline health and ROI, such as cost per marketing qualified lead, marketing pipeline value, or campaign launch milestones met.

These leaders will rely on full-time staff or automated systems to actually input the weekly data. However, the fractional executive remains fully accountable for the result. If a metric goes red, they must be the one to state off track in the Level 10 Meeting™ and lead the IDS® process to solve it. This approach ensures you get the full strategic value of their expertise without allowing their part-time status to become an excuse for lack of operational oversight.