Which KPIs earn a place on a one-page scorecard?

The ones that pass the seven selection criteria, the first of which is that the page still fits on one page. The playbook does not offer a universal list. It gives the structure instead: three fixed headers, Happier Customers, Healthier Teams and Stronger Business, and the criteria for which measures sit under each. In most services firms the measures that qualify include client profitability, utilisation, gross margin, recurring share and cash, but the criteria decide, not a list.

What should a consultancy board pack contain?

One page per unit under the same three headers, in the same order, every month, with a target, an actual and a trend for each measure, a SOFT grid, and a threat block with an owner against every threat. The detail behind each number belongs in the management accounts, which the page reconciles to.

What is a SOFT analysis?

A grid of Successes, Opportunities, Failures and Threats, which this playbook uses in place of SWOT. Successes and Failures describe what happened in the period rather than what the business is like, so the grid becomes a monthly report that forces failures to be named. The letters are older than SWOT and are borrowed here, not invented.

How does client profitability fit on a one-page scorecard?

Under Happier Customers, as one measure with a target and a trend, with the client-level analysis held behind it in the management accounts. The scorecard shows whether the problem is growing; the detail behind it says which clients, and that conversation happens in the meeting the page is built to run.

Playbook

One-page KPI scorecard for a consultancy or agency board pack

Three fixed headers and a grid, one page per unit, and a management meeting you can actually run from it.

The methodThree headers and a SOFT grid

This playbook is a one-page monthly KPI scorecard for a consultancy or agency board pack. Every unit reports on a single page under three fixed headers in the same order, Happier Customers, Healthier Teams, Stronger Business, with a small fixed set of measures under each, a target, an actual and a trend, then a SOFT grid and a block for threat mitigations. It is for founders, finance leads and operations directors of services businesses of roughly twenty to two hundred people who already hold a management meeting and write a board pack, and have a pile of numbers that do not meet. Client profitability, utilisation (utilization) and recurring revenue all have a place on the page; the playbook decides which place.

The board pack and the management meeting usually run on different numbers. The pack is written upwards, for investors or a chair, and grows a page every quarter. The meeting runs on whatever the delivery leads bring, which changes with the month's crisis. Between the two sit the measures everyone agrees matter and nobody owns: which clients make money and which are being carried, whether a team's utilisation is high because it is healthy or because it is about to lose people, and which threats were raised three months ago and never given an owner. A scorecard that runs to twelve pages is a report. A scorecard that fits on one page is a decision tool, and the difference between them is what gets left off.

The three headers are fixed and ordered on purpose. Happier Customers comes first because it leads everything else: satisfaction, retention, client profitability, concentration. Healthier Teams follows, because the team is how customers are made happy: utilisation, attrition, hiring against plan, how people say they are. Stronger Business comes last because it is the result of the other two: revenue against plan, gross margin, recurring share, cash. Under each header sit a few measures, each with a target, an actual and a trend, chosen by seven selection criteria, the first of which is that the page still fits on one page. Beneath the numbers is the SOFT grid. The letters are borrowed, not invented here, and this version reads them as Successes, Opportunities, Failures and Threats: a period report rather than a position audit, which forces failures to be named rather than folded into weaknesses. Every threat gets a mitigation and an owner in a separate block, so the threats with no owner are visible at a glance. The playbook then sets out the management meeting you can run from the page.

There is no universal list of the right KPIs for an agency or a consultancy in it, and the playbook does not pretend one exists. The seven criteria decide what earns a place on your page, and the answer will differ between a ten-person studio and a hundred-person engineering firm. It does not replace the management accounts or the board pack; it is the page that sits on top of both and reconciles to them. And it is not a dashboard. It is filled in once a month by a person who has to defend it.

The scorecard came out of running two things at once in the business that became DevOpsGroup, a services company helping other businesses build and run software. After we took on growth investment there was a board pack to write, and it was written for the board. There was also a management meeting every month, and it ran on the numbers the people in the room happened to bring. Both were accurate. I knew every figure in each of them. They did not meet. Client profitability lived in a spreadsheet the finance lead kept; team health lived in conversations; the threats we raised were minuted and lost. Putting each unit on one page under the same three headers was the fix, and the SOFT grid replaced a SWOT that had said the same thing every quarter for as long as anyone could remember. The first time the threat block showed a column of risks with nobody's name beside them, the meeting changed.

The playbook is in development, alongside a Notion template with three linked databases, a markdown mirror, and a monthly scorecard worksheet. Joining the waitlist means you hear when it is ready, and tells me who is waiting. Nothing is for sale yet and there is no date.

What you will get

01The full playbook, with the three headers, the SOFT grid, the threat block and the meeting you run from the page.

02A three-database Notion template for the scorecard, with a markdown mirror for teams not on Notion.

03A monthly scorecard worksheet for one unit, one page, filled in by hand the first time.

04The seven selection criteria for what earns a place on the page, and what stays off it.

Who it is for

Founders and leaders of consultancies, agencies and managed service providers of twenty to two hundred people.

Finance leads and operations directors who write the board pack and run the management meeting on different numbers.

Teams who want to see which threats have no owner.

Questions

Which KPIs earn a place on a one-page scorecard?: The ones that pass the seven selection criteria, the first of which is that the page still fits on one page. The playbook does not offer a universal list. It gives the structure instead: three fixed headers, Happier Customers, Healthier Teams and Stronger Business, and the criteria for which measures sit under each. In most services firms the measures that qualify include client profitability, utilisation, gross margin, recurring share and cash, but the criteria decide, not a list.
What should a consultancy board pack contain?: One page per unit under the same three headers, in the same order, every month, with a target, an actual and a trend for each measure, a SOFT grid, and a threat block with an owner against every threat. The detail behind each number belongs in the management accounts, which the page reconciles to.
What is a SOFT analysis?: A grid of Successes, Opportunities, Failures and Threats, which this playbook uses in place of SWOT. Successes and Failures describe what happened in the period rather than what the business is like, so the grid becomes a monthly report that forces failures to be named. The letters are older than SWOT and are borrowed here, not invented.
How does client profitability fit on a one-page scorecard?: Under Happier Customers, as one measure with a target and a trend, with the client-level analysis held behind it in the management accounts. The scorecard shows whether the problem is growing; the detail behind it says which clients, and that conversation happens in the meeting the page is built to run.

Terms this playbook uses

Ships with

Monthly KPI scorecard Notion template for a consultancy or agency