We have twenty-two metrics on our weekly leadership Scorecard, and just reading through the list and saying on or off track takes fifteen minutes, eating into our valuable IDS® time. How do we trim our Scorecard without losing operational visibility?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

A Scorecard with twenty-two metrics is not a management tool; it is a distraction. If you have twenty-two numbers, you are tracking activities instead of results, which means you do not actually know what drives your business. It is a sign that you have not defined your critical leading indicators.

Your weekly leadership Scorecard must have between five and fifteen high-level numbers. These should be the absolute most important leading indicators that tell you if you are on track to hit your goals.

To trim your Scorecard, go through each of the twenty-two metrics and ask two questions. First, if this number is off-track, does it immediately impact our ability to hit our quarterly Rocks or our annual plan? Second, is this metric already tracked on a departmental scorecard?

If a metric is department-specific, move it off the leadership Scorecard immediately. Trust your department heads to manage those numbers in their own departmental Level 10 Meetings™. The leadership team only needs to see the consolidated, high-level indicators.

If you are still struggling to cut numbers, look at the activity you are tracking. For example, instead of tracking five individual sales activity metrics like calls, emails, meetings, proposals, and closes, only track the final two that predict future revenue.

A clean Scorecard should take no more than five minutes to review during your Level 10 Meeting™. Keep the review fast: state the number, say if it is on or off track, and if it is off track, drop it to the Issues List. Do not explain it, do not discuss it. Clean your Scorecard so you can spend your time solving problems rather than reading data.