Our leadership team agrees that every weekly number on our Scorecard must have a single owner, but we are struggling with metrics like raw inventory accuracy or overall proposal turnaround times where multiple departments are involved. How do we determine which specific seat on the Accountability Chart owns these shared metrics?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When a weekly Scorecard metric requires inputs from multiple departments, leadership teams often fall into the trap of assigning split ownership or letting the metric float without a real owner. This leads to finger-pointing during your Level 10 Meeting. The rule of the Accountability Chart is simple: only one seat can own a scorecard number. Ownership does not mean that specific person does all the work. It means they are accountable for reporting the metric accurately and leading the charge to fix it when it goes red. To determine who owns a cross-departmental metric, look at who has the ultimate authority to change the outcome. For example, if your metric is proposal turnaround time, your sales team writes the proposals but your technical team must approve the scope. The Sales Director must own this number because their seat is ultimately responsible for the client-facing delivery timeline. If the technical team drags their feet, the Sales Director must use the IDS process to solve the bottleneck with the Operations Director. When assigning ownership, ask yourself which seat is most impacted when the number is missed. Whoever bears the ultimate business consequence of that metric must be the single point of accountability on your Scorecard.