Movements page

The page of a reporting pack that lists every measure that moved past its stated threshold since the last period, each line citing the table and row it came from. It replaces the narrative; the other tables are evidence.

DefinitionThe page of a reporting pack that lists every measure that moved past its stated threshold since the last period, each line citing the table and row it came from. It replaces the narrative; the other tables are evidence.

Citation on every line

Commentary that does not cite a row is opinion, and the pack keeps it out.

Failed identities go here

A roll-up that did not reconcile is a movement, not a footnote.

How it is used

One page listing every measure that moved beyond its own threshold since the last period, with the size of the move, the place it occurred and a link to the rows. Measures that did not move are not mentioned.

Example

Of 42 measures, five moved: northern coverage down four points, dormant value up 12 percent, two reps' forecast bias, and price realisation in one category.

Where it goes wrong

A pack that reports all 42 every month. The five that matter are on page nine.

Articles that use this term

Board and management reporting · Finance and FP&A teams

Automating the sales report: from a manual monthly pack to computed tables

A practical path for a sales operations or finance team that assembles the monthly sales report by hand: what to automate first, the definitions that have to be written down before anything can be computed, the four exports the whole pack comes from, the identity checks that replace the reconciliation week, what stays manual, and the order in which the pack's sections move from spreadsheet to computed table.

16 Sept 20263 min read Board and management reporting

How to read a movements page: the line to check first, and the line that is not a finding

A reading guide for the movements page of a monthly pack: why the first line to check is any failed identity, not the largest movement, how to tell a movement caused by a definition change or a re-upload from one caused by the business, the citation as the thing to click, the threshold column as the reason a line is there, the within-threshold line as the one that closes the question, and how long the page should take.

16 Sept 20263 min read How-to guides

How to read a norm table: the population, the cell count, and the version

A reading guide for the norm table that every gap on a report depends on: the population column that says which customers the norm was drawn from, the cell count that says how many, the greyed cells under the floor, the method column, median or percentile, the version and date, the norms that moved since last quarter and why, and the test of a good norm table, that a reader can defend any gap on the report by pointing at one row of it.

16 Sept 20263 min read Board and management reporting

Level and trend: why the direction outranks the number on almost every desk

Why the level of a measure, 52 percent concentration, 74 percent OTIF, 88 percent lock-up, is the least informative thing about it and the trend against the measure's own history is the finding, the four exceptions where a level is a hard threshold, the window a trend needs, the consecutive-period rule that separates a bad month from a deterioration, the trend of the reference itself, and the rule that every level on a report carries its trend beside it.

16 Sept 20263 min read How-to guides

Norm and benchmark: why the reference is your own customers, and when an external figure is allowed

The difference between a norm, computed from the company's own customers of the same kind where the relationship is full, and a benchmark, a figure from outside describing an average company, why every gap on this site is against a norm, the three things a benchmark cannot do, be defended to a rep, be applied to a specific customer, or be versioned with the base, the two places an external figure is allowed, as a wallet fallback and as context, and the rule that it is always labelled.

16 Sept 20263 min read Board and management reporting

Ten board metrics for a sales-led company, and the definition of each

The ten numbers a board of a sales-led B2B company should see every month, each with a one-sentence definition, the source it is computed from, the identity that proves it, and the trap that makes it wrong: revenue against plan, revenue by segment, customer concentration, net retention, coverage, share of wallet against norm, pipeline coverage, forecast against history, cost of sales per dollar, and the movements page that ties the other nine together.

16 Sept 20263 min read