Nobody sets the target they are measured against

LEAT publishes about thirty governance numbers, each with a target
beside it. This page is about where those targets come from, because
a target with nobody's name on it is an opinion.

The number is about a person

"Valid meeting rate: 94%. Target: 98%."

Read that again. It is a sentence about the Board Secretary. So the
98% needs an author, a date, and somebody accountable for choosing
it. Otherwise it is an accusation nobody made.

Where a target comes from

A target is proposed by one person and approved by a different one.
It records:

• the measure it applies to;
• the number, and whether higher or lower is better;
• the role accountable for it, not a person, because people leave;
• why it was set there;
• the date it takes effect; and
• the date it gets reviewed.

You cannot approve your own

The person who proposes a target cannot be the person who approves
it. LEAT refuses.

The reason is direct: somebody who could set their own target could
make their own performance acceptable by editing a number, and no
report would show it happening.

Targets are replaced, never edited

Change a target and LEAT writes a new one and marks the old one
superseded. The old one stays readable.

That matters more than it sounds. If a target could be edited in
place, last quarter's report would quietly be re-scored against this
quarter's number, and a missed target would disappear without anybody
deciding to hide it.

Until somebody approves one

Every measure ships with a starting value taken from the design
document. Those are not approved targets and LEAT does not pretend
they are. Each measure says which it is showing you:

- Approved means somebody put that number through the register.
- Starting value means nobody has yet, and it is the document's
suggestion.

A board reading a report full of starting values is looking at
engineering defaults. That is fine on day one and is not fine a year
in, which is why the label is on every line.

What LEAT never does

It never says pass or fail.

Every measure shows the number, the workings, the target and whose
target it is. The judgement belongs to the person named, because
deciding whether 94% is a problem needs context the software does not
have.

One more thing on the numbers themselves

Where fewer than ten things were measured, LEAT shows the counts and
no percentage. Three meetings out of four is not 75%; it is three out
of four, and one more meeting moves that figure twenty-five points.

And every measure shows two times: what it is measured up to, and
when the records were read. If a number changed because information
arrived late rather than because behaviour changed, those two dates
are how you tell.