Govern targets as versioned data with a publication and freeze point
Publish targets from planning at a declared grain and phasing, freeze them per period and revise them as new versions—so year-to-date performance is reproducible.
Independently created. Contains no employer or client implementation detail, internal names or figures.
01Context
Targets are agreed in spreadsheets and loaded into the CRM and the data platform by different people. Phasing differs by team, mid-year revisions overwrite earlier numbers, and accounts without targets drop out of reports. The same account shows different year-to-date performance depending on the report, and segments built on that performance flip without anything having happened.
02Decision drivers
- D01
YTD performance must be reproducible
- D02
Revisions must not rewrite the past
- D03
One owner must be accountable for publication
- D04
Segments, plans and reviews depend on the same target
03Options considered
Targets edited directly in the CRM
One team, one version, no revisions
Cost: No history, no owner, silent overwritesEach report reads the planning spreadsheet and phases it itself
Exploratory analysis
Cost: Different YTD answers for the same accountVersioned targets published from planning, read everywhere
Targets that drive segmentation, recovery and reviews
Cost: A publication process and a planning owner04Decision
Set targets at one authoritative grain (for example account × product line × month) with a declared phasing. Publish each version from planning with an effective date; the CRM and the data platform read the published version and never edit it. Freeze each period at a declared date. A revision creates a new version from its effective date; closed months keep the version in force at the time. Every KPI declares which target (signed or budget) and which phasing it uses.
05Consequences
- YTD performance can be reproduced for any past month.
- Revisions are visible as versions, not silent changes.
- Accounts without targets are a reported gap, not a disappearance.
- Planning gains an explicit publication responsibility.
06Revisit when
Targets are set once a year and never revised.
A planning platform provides versioning and publication natively.
07Where this decision is applied
Cases that take this decision, and why it matters there.