The report is ready for the monthly meeting.
To get it there, someone exported the accounting numbers, updated a sales spreadsheet, checked the operations data, and chased down a total that didn’t match last month’s version.
Then the meeting starts. The team can see what happened, but figuring out why can send everyone down a rabbit hole and derail the meeting.
I’ve seen it far too often: a key performance indicator (KPI) falls outside its acceptable range, but the supporting metrics and data that would help the team understand why are nowhere to be found.
Let’s take an illustrative revenue example. The team’s target for September was $750,000. Actual revenue came in at $720,000, leaving them $30,000 below target.
The chief revenue officer explains that September’s are always slow, leads were “up” but weren’t converting, and a few larger opportunities were “close.” All of that might be useful context. But the rest of the team can’t see it in the report.
So the conversation turns into questions for the one person who knows the details. Eventually, someone says, “I’ll get back to you.”
A useful management report gives your team a dependable view of performance and helps them identify what needs attention. That starts with one important question: what does the team need to decide?
Start with the KPI and the decision behind it
Pick one report your team uses regularly in a meeting. Then choose a KPI which is simply an indicator of performance for a certain team, process, area, etc. Give it a target or acceptable range so everyone can see where performance stands.
For the revenue example, the question might be: “Are we dealing with a timing and season issue, or is there a problem in the sales process we need to address?”
That’s a different conversation from simply reading the $30,000 gap aloud. The team needs a few strategic supporting measures that help explain the KPI, not 100 metrics that bury the answer.
Give the KPI backup: an example from Dru Bru
At Dru Bru, a brewery in Cle Elum, WA, KPI reporting helped the operations team have a more informed conversation about uniform costs. Individual bills looked similar, but deliveries were arriving more often, making the increase difficult to see from one invoice at a time.
For a discussion focused on uniform spending, the KPI could be year-to-date spend, compared with budget and the same period last year. Delivery count and average bill size give the team useful backup. The products and service levels the team actually needs add another important part of the story.
ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE · NOT DRU BRU’S ACTUAL RESULTS
One KPI. A few useful clues.
Question for the team: Are deliveries coming more often than we need?
Equal year-to-date periods. Spend is the sum of uniform invoices; average bill is spend divided by delivery count.
In this illustration, the KPI shows the cost gap. The supporting measures point the team toward delivery frequency: the average bill hasn’t changed, but there are more bills. That gives the operations team a place to investigate and a better question for the vendor: are we receiving deliveries more often than we need?
The report doesn’t need to answer every question. It should make the important result easy to find and put the evidence that helps explain it nearby. That’s how the report tells a story instead of sending everyone hunting through a pile of charts.
The Dru Bru case study shares more about the broader reporting work connecting financial and operating data.
BEFORE YOU COMPARE
Same month. Different calendar.
A change in the calendar can change the story behind your numbers.
Better question: How much of the difference reflects performance, and how much reflects the calendar?
A clear report helps the conversation. For more on making that time count, see How to Make Meetings Worth Everyone’s Time.
Make sure the comparison tells the right story
A number on its own rarely tells the whole story. For the September revenue example, the $720,000 means more alongside the $750,000 target, the $30,000 gap, a relevant prior period, and an indication of whether the data is current.
Comparisons need context, too. At Dru Bru, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday business matters, so a month with more weekends isn’t necessarily comparable to the same month last year. Payroll can differ for another reason: a biweekly schedule usually has 26 pay dates in a year, but the calendar can sometimes produce 27, and a month may have two or three. Make those differences visible, and account for them in the budget or comparison when they matter.
Choose supporting metrics that fit the question. For revenue, qualified opportunities, conversion rate, and time to convert might help. A pipeline view can add context about future opportunities, but an open opportunity is different from revenue already recognized. Define the period, source, and denominator for rates so the team knows what each number represents.
Make the numbers dependable
Trace your important numbers back to their sources. Where does the KPI come from? Who updates the underlying records? What gets copied, cleaned, or adjusted before the meeting?
If two numbers disagree, work through one disputed number before automating the process. You want a repeatable answer your team understands, not a faster way to reproduce the disagreement.
Keep a record of what your team reviewed. A sale might be canceled or an invoice corrected after a month ends, changing the report later. The team should be able to see what it reviewed and what changed afterward. I walk through an example in Why Last Month’s Reports Can Change.
Use AI and automation to make the report repeatable
Start by doing the work manually enough times to understand it. Which files do you pull, what definitions and dates matter, and what needs a person’s judgment? Write down the steps and check the result against the source.
Then use the right tool for the repeatable work. A scheduled connection or script can collect and prepare consistent data. AI can help document the process, draft a script, compare a prepared report with source files, or flag changes for review.
For example, give an AI tool reusable instructions: “Each month, compare uniform invoices with the prior period and budget, count deliveries, calculate the average bill, and flag missing or unusual records.” A ChatGPT skill can package a repeatable workflow with its sources, checks, and output. Whether it can retrieve the records depends on the available connections and permissions; otherwise, provide approved exports.
Test the output against a known period. Keep an owner responsible for unusual changes and missing data, and show when a source hasn’t updated. A missing file shouldn’t appear as zero.
Start with one KPI at your next meeting
Put one important KPI beside its target. Then ask the person who knows it best: what two or three supporting measures would help the rest of the team understand what deserves attention?
That won’t answer every question in the room. But it can give more people the context to participate, help the team focus its investigation, and reduce how often the meeting ends with “I’ll get back to you.”
If you’d like help working through a recurring report, talk it through with me. Bring the report, the systems behind it, and the decision your team needs to make. We’ll identify a practical starting point.
