We suspect our consulting team is gaming their weekly billable utilization metrics by logging administrative work as client-facing hours just to hit their targets, which is artificially inflating our utilization rates while our actual cash flow drops. How do we restructure our Scorecard metrics to make billable utilization ungameable?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When consultants game their utilization numbers by logging administrative tasks as client work, they are masking capacity issues and destroying your service margins. This behavior usually stems from fear of missing targets or a poorly designed metric. To stop this gaming, you must decouple operational performance from simple hour-counting.

First, your weekly EOS® Scorecard should pair billable utilization with a quality or delivery efficiency metric. If a consultant logs thirty-five billable hours but the client is billed for only twenty due to write-offs, the system is failing. Track weekly billable hours actual versus budget per project on your departmental Scorecards. This exposes anyone who is padding their time sheets on healthy projects.

Second, implement a secondary check metric, such as task completion velocity or client sign-off on weekly milestones. If utilization is high but milestone achievements are low, your data is compromised.

Finally, use GWC™ to evaluate if your consultants understand and can deliver on their targets. If they are gaming the numbers, it is an issue of trust and alignment. Bring this to the Level 10 Meeting™ and IDS® the root cause. When you prepare for a clean exit, buyers will look closely at your utilization logs. Clean, ungameable data proves that your margins are real and repeatable.