Administration
Building scorecards
Writing items, levels and feedback instructions that grade consistently, and the two mistakes that make a scorecard useless.
A scorecard is the standard a conversation is graded against. Getting it right is the highest-leverage configuration work on the account, because every roleplay result and every management read downstream inherits its quality.
#The structure
#Levels must be behavioural
This is the whole craft. A level written as an adjective cannot be graded consistently by anyone, human or otherwise.
Item: Discovery quality
Level 3: Good discovery
Level 2: Adequate discovery
Level 1: Weak discovery
Item: Quantified the problem
Level 3: Got a number from the buyer and confirmed how it was arrived at
Level 2: Got a number, did not test it
Level 1: Established a problem exists, no number attempted
The test: could two different people, reading only the level descriptions, watch the same conversation and land on the same grade? If not, rewrite until they could.
#Feedback instructions
Write what you would say to the rep, in your organisation's voice, at that level. Not the definition of the level again.
- At the top level, name what they did so it is repeatable. "You asked for the figure and then asked how they got to it. That second question is what makes the number usable."
- At the middle, name the one thing missing. Exactly one.
- At the bottom, give the words. A rep at level one usually does not know what the behaviour sounds like, and telling them to do it more does not help.
#Two mistakes
A twenty item scorecard produces a grade nobody reads and feedback nobody acts on, and it makes every roleplay feel like an exam. Six to ten items covering the capabilities that actually decide your deals will change more behaviour than a complete one.
Scores are only comparable while the scorecard is unchanged. Edit items or levels and every earlier grade was produced against a different standard, with no offset that repairs it. Tune the scorecard hard in the first few weeks, then freeze it, and record the date you froze it so any report spanning that line can say so.
#Match the scorecard to the conversation
A scorecard grades one kind of conversation. Binding a discovery scorecard to a negotiation roleplay marks reps down for not doing something they were never attempting, which reads to them as the tool being broken and is a fast way to lose a rollout.
If your team runs four distinct conversation types, you need four scorecards, not one long one.
#Where to start
Do not write one from scratch. Take the qualification standard your organisation already uses, the one in your deal review template or your methodology material, and turn each requirement into an item. If a requirement cannot be turned into observable behaviour, it was never a standard, and finding that out is useful on its own.
Last updated 3 September 2026
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