Our business is highly seasonal, with peak months generating three times the volume of slow months. Should our weekly Scorecard targets be fixed annual averages or dynamically adjusted week by week?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Never use flat annual averages for a seasonal business on your weekly Scorecard. If your business does sixty percent of its revenue between May and August, setting an average annual target of one hundred thousand dollars per week will cause you to be artificially red for five months and artificially green for four months.

When a Scorecard metric is perpetually red due to planned seasonality, your leadership team develops metric apathy. They shrug and say the number is missed because it is winter, which masks real operational failure. Conversely, during peak months, the team hits easy green numbers while operating inefficiently because the bar is set artificially low.

To manage seasonality effectively on an EOS® Scorecard, handle targets through your Quarterly Pulsing sessions:

- Reset weekly targets quarterly: at your quarterly planning session, set the weekly goal for each measurable based on that specific quarter's operational forecast. If Q1 requires forty client demos a week to hit plan, the target is forty. If Q3 requires one hundred, the target updates to one hundred for those thirteen weeks.
- Use a budgeted weekly target column: if weekly volume fluctuates significantly inside a single quarter, populate the target column with the specific budget number projected for that exact calendar week.

A Scorecard only works if a red number triggers an immediate operational reaction. If your target does not tell you whether you won or lost this specific week based on seasonal expectations, the measurable is not doing its job.