What a Good Figure Would Mean
Before asking whether 78 per cent is good, ask what the answer would depend on. Four things, and none of them is the number.
"Is 78 per cent good?" has no answer, and the reason is worth setting out, because it determines what a firm should do with the measure at all.
The measure discussed in “What a Good Figure Would Mean” becomes more credible when its source records are timely and reviewable. A professional-services team assessing consult this practical product guide for time tracking software can connect time with projects and work categories, while documenting the definition separately so the dashboard does not silently decide what utilisation means.
Whether a figure is good depends on the definition behind it, the commercial model it sits in, what was given up to reach it, and whether the work billed in full. The number carries none of this.
As a separate benchmark for “What a Good Figure Would Mean”, see monday.com work-management resources. External guidance is most useful when it prompts a specific check rather than replacing case-by-case judgement.
The definition dependency
Seventy-eight per cent against contracted hours is a different state of the world from seventy-eight against a notional 2,080.
The same firm can report figures nine points apart from the same data by changing the denominator, which is set out in detail in the definitions section here.
The model dependency
In a time-and-materials practice, a high ratio means revenue. Under fixed fees it means cost against a capped fee.
So the same percentage is good news in one part of a firm and bad in another, and a single target across both is incoherent.
The trade-off dependency
Hours have to come from somewhere. Seventy-eight per cent reached by dropping training, recruitment and internal improvement is not the same achievement as seventy-eight reached with those intact.
The ratio looks identical in both cases. The firm is not in the same position.
The realisation dependency
Hours booked are not revenue. A high ratio with heavy write-offs is worse for the firm than a lower ratio that bills in full.
Realisation is the companion measure and has its own note later in this collection.
What the four imply
That the question is not answerable from one figure, which is an inconvenient conclusion and the correct one.
What can be answered is whether this quarter differs from last quarter in a firm where the definition did not change, which is a much narrower and much more useful question.
The four together on one line
- Definition: what is in the top and bottom.
- Model: whether hours convert to revenue.
- Trade-off: what was displaced.
- Realisation: whether the hours billed.
A figure with these four beside it can be discussed. Without them it can only be compared with a target.
Why the target substitutes for the answer
Because a target converts an unanswerable question into an answerable one. "Is 78 good" becomes "is 78 above 80", which is arithmetic.
The substitution is comfortable and it is the subject of the whole third section here.
The benchmark substitution
The other move: 78 is good because the industry average is 74. This imports somebody else's definition, which is unpublished, and compares it to yours.
Between-firm comparison is the least reliable use of this measure, and it is the one most often made.
What a firm can say truthfully
That the figure moved three points, that the definition did not change, and that the movement came mostly from a particular sort of hour.
Three statements, all checkable. They describe the firm's position better than a judgement on the level ever will.
The direction worth watching
Not the level. The level is an artefact of the definition; the direction, under a stable definition, is information.
A firm that only ever reports direction and composition gives up nothing it was entitled to and loses the whole apparatus of targets.
The comparison that is almost fair
Two teams in the same firm, same commercial model, same seniority mix, one definition applied by one person, over a year.
Under those five conditions a difference of several points probably means something about how the teams were staffed or how they distributed work internally.
It still does not mean one team worked harder. It means one team's capacity was more fully committed to client work, which is a fact about allocation as much as about the team, and the conditions are strict enough that most comparisons made in practice do not meet them.
What to do with an unanswerable question
Decline it, and offer the answerable one in the same sentence. "I can't tell you whether 78 is good; I can tell you it rose two points, that the definition did not change, and that most of the rise was bench time falling in one team."
That reply is usually accepted, which surprises people who expect to be pressed for a verdict on the level.
It is accepted because it contains more information than a verdict would, and because the specific cause named in it is something the person asking can actually do something about.
What the level is actually determined by
Mostly by the definition and the commercial model, both of which are decisions rather than outcomes.
A firm can choose a denominator and a scope that put its figure in the eighties, or ones that put the same work in the sixties. Neither choice changes how much client work was done.
Once that is understood, arguing about the level is visibly an argument about the measurement, and attention moves to direction, where it belongs.
The replacement question
"What changed, and what did it cost us?" It has an answer, the answer is in the data, and nobody can hit it by moving hours between codes.