We are building our first company-level Scorecard and our leadership team currently has a list of forty different metrics that everyone insists are critical. How do we whittle this list down to the recommended five to fifteen numbers without losing sight of important operational details?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

To cut your list of forty metrics down to a lean, impactful weekly Scorecard, your leadership team must engage in the desert island exercise. Imagine you are stranded on a desert island with no phone, no email, and no access to your office. You only receive a single piece of paper once a week with a few numbers on it. What are the absolute minimum numbers you must see to know exactly how your business is running, whether it is healthy, and where it is broken?

Start by mapping your forty proposed metrics directly to the seats on your Accountability Chart™. Every seat on your leadership team should have at least one but no more than three high-level numbers. If a metric does not directly indicate the health of a major business function, move it off the leadership Scorecard. It probably belongs on a departmental scorecard instead.

Focus on your primary activities. You need numbers that track marketing, sales, operations, customer satisfaction, and finance. If a number is just nice to know but does not trigger immediate action when it goes red, cut it. Your leadership Scorecard must only contain metrics that demand a response. By applying this filter, you will naturally distill your list down to five to fifteen vital signs that truly dictate the pulse of your company.