Lagging indicator

About a third of a leadership Scorecard, and no more. Cash collected, revenue booked and on-time delivery all belong there. Anything that depends on the accounting close is better on a monthly review, because a row that arrives eleven days late teaches the team to skip past it when the board is read out loud.

A meeting made entirely of lagging numbers turns into a history lesson with explanations attached. Everybody reports, nobody decides, and the same conversation happens next week with a fresh set of reasons. The rows still matter, because they are the only honest check that the activity you chose was worth choosing. They are evidence, not a steering wheel.

Worked example: A twelve-person landscaping company ran five rows, all financial: revenue, margin, payroll percentage, cash, receivables. Every Monday the owner explained numbers that were already fixed. Adding jobs quoted, jobs scheduled and callbacks gave the meeting something to decide, and the five financial rows stayed on the board as the record of whether those decisions worked.

Sources: Traction, Gino Wickman, chapter on Data; kpi.org/kpi-basics