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The Reporting Trust Health Check

Score your reporting environment across 10 diagnostic areas. Understand exactly where trust is breaking down — before you spend a dollar fixing it.

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Example scoring preview

KPI definitions2/10
Report ownership5/10
Data source clarity3/10
Executive alignment4/10
Dashboard usage7/10
Illustrative — your scores will differ
10 diagnostic areas

Where reporting trust breaks down — and how to measure it.

Each area has 3–5 diagnostic questions. Answer honestly, score each area 1–10, and you'll have a clear picture of where reporting trust is strongest and where it's failing.

01

KPI Definitions

Are your key metrics defined in writing? Do Finance and Operations use the same definition for "revenue," "active customer," and "churn"? Does every KPI have a formula and an owner?

Signal question: "If I asked three people what our 'monthly active users' means, would I get the same answer?"
02

Data Source Clarity

Do people know which system is the authoritative source for each critical metric? Is there a documented source-of-truth for customer data, financial data, operational data?

Signal question: "When Finance and Sales disagree on pipeline, which system wins — and does everyone accept that?"
03

Report Ownership

Does every report have a named owner responsible for its accuracy? Is there a process for updating or retiring reports? Can you identify which reports are "official"?

Signal question: "If a number in the weekly operations report is wrong, who is responsible for fixing it?"
04

Dashboard Usage

Are your dashboards actually used to make decisions — or do they exist because someone built them? Can you name which dashboard leadership opens before each key meeting?

Signal question: "Show me the last time a leadership decision was explicitly made because of a dashboard."
05

Manual Reporting Effort

How much time do analysts spend each week building reports in spreadsheets that could be automated? Is manual reporting growing, shrinking, or stable?

Signal question: "How many person-hours per week are spent assembling the Monday morning report pack?"
06

Data Quality

Are there known data quality problems that affect reports regularly? Is there a process for identifying and resolving data quality issues before they reach leadership?

Signal question: "How often does someone catch a data error in a report after it's been distributed?"
07

Governance

Is there a process for requesting new reports or dashboards? Is there a process for changing a KPI definition? Does anyone own the overall reporting operating model?

Signal question: "What happens when two teams want the definition of 'on-time delivery' changed in opposite directions?"
08

Executive Decision Alignment

Do the reports your team produces match what leadership actually needs to make decisions? Are executives asking for data that doesn't exist in current reports?

Signal question: "Does the CEO ever make a decision and then ask for data you don't have readily available?"
09

Report Duplication

How many reports serve overlapping purposes? Is anyone tracking how many dashboards exist and what each one is for? Could you retire 20% of your reports with no impact?

Signal question: "How many different reports show monthly revenue — and do they all show the same number?"
10

AI & Data Readiness

If you wanted to adopt AI tools for analytics or forecasting, is your data foundation reliable enough to trust the outputs? Are your definitions and sources documented well enough to feed a model?

Signal question: "If an AI tool asked 'what does a churned customer mean in your data?' — could you give a crisp, consistent answer?"
How to use it

Three ways to put it to work.

01

Score it yourself

Work through each area with the signal questions. Score 1–10. Areas below 5 are where trust is most at risk. Below 3 means the problem is likely already costing you decisions.

02

Score it as a team

Have your analytics team, finance lead, and a department head each score the same areas independently. The gaps between scores are often as revealing as the scores themselves.

03

Use it to prep for a diagnostic call

Bring your scores to the free Reporting Trust Diagnostic call. It makes the conversation significantly more productive — we can focus on the lowest-scoring areas and work out whether a structured assessment would be useful.

Scoring guide

What your total score means.

10–30
Critical — reporting trust is severely broken
Multiple foundational problems. Decisions are likely being made on data nobody fully trusts. The cost of inaction is high. A structured Reporting Clarity Assessment would identify where to start.
31–55
Concern — real gaps, growing risk
Some areas are working, but critical gaps in definitions, ownership, or governance are creating friction. The problems are manageable now but will compound as the organization grows.
56–75
Stable — functional, but room to improve
Reporting is working at a basic level. Targeted improvements in the lowest-scoring areas could meaningfully increase trust and decision speed without a large transformation project.
76–100
Strong — mature reporting operating model
Your reporting environment is well-governed and trusted. Focus on continuous improvement, AI readiness, and ensuring governance scales as the organization grows.
Free tools & templates

Put governance into practice.

Every template is free with no email required. Built to work alongside the articles and give you something you can use in your organization this week.

Template · Excel

KPI Dictionary Template

A structured template for documenting every metric your organization uses to make decisions — definitions, owners, source systems, grain, and governance details. Stop relitigating what a number means every time it appears in a meeting.

  • 5 pre-filled examples — MRR, Active Customers, Churn Rate, CAC, NRR
  • Required and Optional field markers across 15 columns
  • Status dropdown (Active / Draft / Deprecated)
  • Grain dropdown (Daily through Ad Hoc)
  • Instructions sheet with field guide and governance tips
  • 45 blank entry rows · auto-filter · frozen panes
Excel · .xlsx · 2 sheets Download free
Template · Excel

Reporting Inventory Template

Catalog every dashboard, spreadsheet, and recurring report in your organization — with owner, format, audience, manual effort, trust and usage ratings, and a recommended action. The first thing you build when you want to fix reporting.

  • 7 pre-filled examples across Excel, Power BI, Tableau, Salesforce, Google Sheets
  • Trust and Usage ratings (1–5) with color-coded cells
  • Manual effort tracking in hours per month per report
  • 5 dropdowns: Format, Function, Delivery, Frequency, Action
  • Instructions sheet with 6-step inventory guide
  • 43 blank entry rows · auto-filter · frozen panes
Excel · .xlsx · 2 sheets Download free
Interactive Tool

Dashboard Audit Checklist

Thirty scored questions across six dimensions — purpose, metric definitions, data trust, design, governance, and operational health. Score any dashboard in under 20 minutes and walk away with a prioritised fix list.

  • 6 categories × 5 questions — 30 total
  • Yes / Partially / No scoring with inline fix suggestions
  • Auto-calculates score and category breakdown on completion
  • Priority fix list links to relevant articles
  • Print-ready results
Interactive · HTML · Free Start the audit

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