Robert SnyderFounder & President| Innovation Elegance, LLCChicago, Il, United States
Do you like the idea of a Culture Scorecard? If so, do you think it is a viable instrument?
What metric titles would you include?
What target values come to mind?
I asked ChatGPT for ideas, but its ideas felt like a Lessons Learned (so not the same thing), and the measurements and target values felt arbitrary or just plain squishy.
I drafted a scorecard a while ago, but I’m confident I can get some good ideas and a good sanity check here. 😊
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Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Interesting question. I think the biggest challenge isn't choosing the right metrics, but defining what the scorecard is actually intended to measure. Before selecting indicators or targets, I'd clarify the unit of analysis and the observable behaviors that provide evidence of culture in that context. Otherwise, there's a risk of creating precise-looking metrics that don't actually measure culture. A useful Culture Scorecard should reveal meaningful patterns over time, not just generate scores. Saving Changes...
What's the application? My first thought was an organizational change readiness assessment and scorecard - a tool already in use by some Change Managers. Saving Changes...
Robert SnyderFounder & President| Innovation Elegance, LLCChicago, Il, United States
Thank you both!
The goal of the scorecard is to shape culture. Sharing a bit more, here are some of the metric titles I landed on ...
Simplicity
Finite Productivity
Documentation Debt
Say/Do Ratio
Entropy
Lessons Learned duplicates
Interchangeability
Hope
I like the idea of quantifying all these.
I can defend a quantity ... a target value ... for all of these.
I can defend a *direction* / trend (up or down) for each of these.
I can anticipate a skeptic for each and exaggerate counterproductive reactions into absurdity.
Fair? Reactions?
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2 replies by Aaron Porter and Sreesudha Ayyalasomayajula
Jul 16, 2026 10:41 AM
Aaron Porter
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Thanks for the additional information. I think this is sounding more like a maturity model (think CMM/CMMI) or organizational health metrics than the change management scorecards I've used. An important question to ask is "What decisions will the scorecard enable?" Does it help leaders know where to invest in improvement efforts, is it another hammer that employees will support publicly and complain about in private, or is it just another tile on the executive dashboard?
I would also caution that you don't usually change culture by trying to change culture. You change incentives, structures, leadership behaviors, processes, hiring, and the kinds of decisions that are rewarded. For example, at a prior employer, they were trying to transform. They worked with a partner, generated a lot of excitement about the change, even had a wall covered with new slogans. In practice, they incentivized speed for the sake of speed. At monthly meetings, people were recognized for going faster. A month later, nobody was paying attention to the fact that the thing that was recently celebrated was now failing - something that could have been avoided with a little more emphasis on focus and making sure we were pursuing the right problem or opportunity.
If you can turn the metrics into specific actions and incentivize the outcomes you want to achieve, I can see this being a helpful tool.
Jul 17, 2026 8:25 AM
Sreesudha Ayyalasomayajula
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Interesting, Thanks for adding more details to it.
The goal of the scorecard is to shape culture. Sharing a bit more, here are some of the metric titles I landed on ...
Simplicity
Finite Productivity
Documentation Debt
Say/Do Ratio
Entropy
Lessons Learned duplicates
Interchangeability
Hope
I like the idea of quantifying all these.
I can defend a quantity ... a target value ... for all of these.
I can defend a *direction* / trend (up or down) for each of these.
I can anticipate a skeptic for each and exaggerate counterproductive reactions into absurdity.
Fair? Reactions?
Thanks for the additional information. I think this is sounding more like a maturity model (think CMM/CMMI) or organizational health metrics than the change management scorecards I've used. An important question to ask is "What decisions will the scorecard enable?" Does it help leaders know where to invest in improvement efforts, is it another hammer that employees will support publicly and complain about in private, or is it just another tile on the executive dashboard?
I would also caution that you don't usually change culture by trying to change culture. You change incentives, structures, leadership behaviors, processes, hiring, and the kinds of decisions that are rewarded. For example, at a prior employer, they were trying to transform. They worked with a partner, generated a lot of excitement about the change, even had a wall covered with new slogans. In practice, they incentivized speed for the sake of speed. At monthly meetings, people were recognized for going faster. A month later, nobody was paying attention to the fact that the thing that was recently celebrated was now failing - something that could have been avoided with a little more emphasis on focus and making sure we were pursuing the right problem or opportunity.
If you can turn the metrics into specific actions and incentivize the outcomes you want to achieve, I can see this being a helpful tool. Saving Changes...
The goal of the scorecard is to shape culture. Sharing a bit more, here are some of the metric titles I landed on ...
Simplicity
Finite Productivity
Documentation Debt
Say/Do Ratio
Entropy
Lessons Learned duplicates
Interchangeability
Hope
I like the idea of quantifying all these.
I can defend a quantity ... a target value ... for all of these.
I can defend a *direction* / trend (up or down) for each of these.
I can anticipate a skeptic for each and exaggerate counterproductive reactions into absurdity.
Fair? Reactions?
Interesting, Thanks for adding more details to it. Saving Changes...
Robert SnyderFounder & President| Innovation Elegance, LLCChicago, Il, United States
Thanks Aaron. Certainly, I’ll take a crack at this question, “What decisions will the scorecard enable?”
- - - - -
Complexity. Is teamwork as easy as it should be? The decision is whether to increase or decrease complexity.
Finite Productivity. At the moment, what are our optimized decision bundles? And how many steps do we plan to complete each? The decision is the ideal number of steps at any certain time.
Documentation debt. Is there information that resides in people’s heads or buried in email that raises the marginal cost to use that information? The decision is whether to document certain information residing in people’s heads or buried in email.
Say/Do Ratio. Is there work that we say we’ll do that we don’t do? Is there work we did that we didn’t expect, plan, or report? The decision is to minimize divergence in what we say and do.
Entropy. Where do we have unacceptable levels of waiting, noise, sprawl, rework, or chaos? The decision is to reorganize work to minimize entropy.
Lessons Learned duplicates. Are we fixing things so that the same errors rarely arise again? The decision is to fix things so that they don’t arise again.
Interchangeability. Are we rotating roles so that employees are stimulated, engaged, and learning? Are we rotating roles when we don’t have to so we can rotate roles when we DO need to? The decision is to rotate roles to raise interchangeability to a robust level.
Hope. Are we sharing ideas that show concern for something in the future? Are we sharing ideas that show ambition for something in the future? The decision is to find more things to have concern about and to be ambitious about.
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Robert SnyderFounder & President| Innovation Elegance, LLCChicago, Il, United States
I’ll float a thought process for whether each target value should be high or low.
Complexity. Most teams’ complexity is currently too high. It’s possible to have this target value be too low. I can't defend a target value of 0, 1, 2, or 3, for example.
Finite Productivity. A number too low suggests immaturity, incompleteness, and low standardization. A number too high suggests micro-managing.
Documentation Debt. Any target value above 0 feels arbitrary.
Say/Do Ratio. Any target value other than 1 feels arbitrary. Entropy. Any target value above 0 feels arbitrary.
Lessons Learned duplicates. Any target value above 0 feels arbitrary.
Interchangeability. A target value of 0 feels like worst-case. The only number I can defend is a fraction of the target value for Finite Productivity.
For example, if Finite Productivity is 100, I think I could defend an Interchangeability metric of 25.
Hope. I feel I need examples about how large the organization is and how much change is going on. For example, if the team is 10 people and 5 projects are in-flight, perhaps I can defend 10+5 (15) hope statements per month as a target metric.
Welcoming reactions, ideas, suggestions, and skepticism. 😊
Great discussion! A Culture Scorecard is a valuable instrument when designed with actionable metrics. I would include metrics like team collaboration index, psychological safety score, knowledge sharing frequency, innovation adoption rate, and employee engagement trends. Target values should be context-driven based on organizational maturity. The key is ensuring the scorecard drives meaningful conversations and decisions rather than becoming a compliance checkbox. Linking culture metrics to project delivery outcomes makes it even more powerful for leadership buy-in. Saving Changes...
Robert SnyderFounder & President| Innovation Elegance, LLCChicago, Il, United States
Thank you for these ideas, Zeinab. 😊 If you’re willing, share details about target values and how to measure?
I’ll share some precision on how to measure the metrics I proposed above.
Complexity
How To Measure: the number of distinct verbs in your project plans Target value that I can defend = 5. Draft, Review, Revise, Approve, Distribute. What’s typical: I don’t think many organizations give attention to variability and Verb Sprawl. I estimate a typical value to be around 40. Exaggerating what’s counterproductive into absurdity? High variability. 50 different verbs. 100 different verbs. Infinite task lists with minimal interdependencies. There’s a time and place for exotic vocabulary. A project plan is not the place! 😊 Imagine aiming for a Complexity metric of 100. Pretty mischievous. 😊
Finite Productivity
Description: the number of distinct, repeatable, “muscle memory” steps to maintain systematic project success. Calculation = Number of Decision Bundles x Number of steps to complete each bundle Number of Decision Bundles = 54 Number of Steps for each = 4 (Five Verbs on 4 rows in a project plan) Target value = 216 How to Measure: 54 x 4 = 216. 216 is a defensible default and starting point. Every Lessons Learned exercise stands to fine-tune this number. What’s typical: teams work in “Infinite Activity” … meetings, meeting minutes, emails, Jira tickets, Verb Sprawl, RACI. “Finite Productivity” is not in organizations’ vocabulary. Exaggerating what’s counterproductive into absurdity? When executives ask, “How’s the project going?” … respond … “The project is great! We’ve held 100 meetings.” “The project is great! We’ve produced 100 meeting minutes.”
Documentation Debt
Description & How to Measure: the number of formal deliverables you believe are worthwhile that your organization shrugs at and does not produce. Target value that I can defend = 0. What’s typical: teams have significant documentation debt. Cultures pressure for speed and frequency. Cultures don’t pressure for low marginal cost (the benefit of good documentation). I suspect a reasonable estimate for typical Documentation Debt is 30. Formal documentation is significantly out of favor.
OK, that describes 3 of the 7 metrics I proposed so far. Do any resonate? Anyone willing to share their organization’s current value of any of these? Questions? Skepticism? Ideas to improve or refine? Saving Changes...
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