We have a creative director and a strategic product developer on our leadership team. They argue that their work is highly conceptual and creative, making it impossible to measure with weekly activity-based numbers. How do we build weekly measurables for creative seats?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

No seat on the Accountability Chart is exempt from the weekly Scorecard. The idea that creative or strategic work cannot be measured is a myth that breeds inefficiency and lack of accountability. While you cannot measure the quality of an idea with a simple number, you can absolutely measure the activity, progress, and discipline required to produce creative work.

For creative and strategic roles, focus your metrics on milestone velocity, capacity, and output. For example, instead of trying to measure creativity, track the percentage of creative briefs completed on time, or the number of design concepts delivered to clients. This ensures the creative pipeline is moving at a healthy pace.

You can also track feedback and iteration cycles. Measure the average number of revisions required before a project is approved, or the time it takes to implement feedback. A high number of revisions indicates a misalignment in the initial creative brief, which is an issue that needs to be IDSed.

For strategic seats, track the progress of research or development phases. This could be the number of customer feedback interviews conducted weekly, or key development milestones met on time. By breaking down large, abstract projects into weekly deliverables, you keep creative seats aligned with the operational tempo of the rest of the business.