Business management is the process above the processes: it condenses sales, project delivery, billing, costs and staff into a single picture you can steer at a glance. Even so, those wanting to improve it often build a dashboard first – the wrong place to start. teamspace is the tool; it condenses figures that arise elsewhere. Good steering is built in layers, from the top down – first the goal, then the key figures, and only at the end the cockpit. This process guide first describes that path and then shows how the cockpit actually comes together in teamspace.
Guiding principle: Eight clearly defined figures with a traffic light beat forty without order. Show less and you see more in the end – and it’s not the single figure but its interplay that reveals the situation (high utilisation + low margin = lots of work, little return).
Five layers: from goal to lived practice
Before you build any cockpit, clarify the layers above it – and keep one layer below in mind: the people who act. Each one answers a different question and builds on the one before:
- Goal & core question. At its heart, business management answers: How do we keep the whole under control – with a few clear figures rather than many without order?
- Sub-goals – the steering rhythm. Steering is not a report but a beat: Measure (condense the situation) → Assess (check the traffic light) → Decide (prioritise the deviation) → Act (action with the process owner) → Follow up (effect in the review). Classic reporting looks back; lived steering acts continuously.
- Measurable data. You can only steer what you measure. The cockpit of business management – order intake, pipeline value, revenue (actual), revenue forecast, project margin, employee utilisation, revenue per employee and liquidity – and whether teamspace delivers them, is set out in Key figures for business management.
- Modelling in the tool. Now – and only now – teamspace comes in. The decisive lever: the eight figures don’t arise anew but are condensed from the operational processes – pipeline from the CRM, margin from the projects, revenue and forecast from invoicing, utilisation from time tracking. One data basis, consistent definitions, live data instead of Excel weeks behind.
- Rollout & training – the people. A cockpit is still only a promise. Steering only takes effect if every key figure has a process owner who acts on red, and the definitions are the same across the company. That takes clear responsibility and a fixed review cadence (the “Follow up” step). This closes the loop: the cockpit from layer 3 is only as good as the operational data maintenance in the other processes. Helpful: How we use teamspace ourselves and Rolling out teamspace in your company.
The crux: most people jump straight to layer 4 and build a dashboard. But without a defined core question (layer 1), without a few clear key figures (layer 3) and without someone who acts on a deviation (layer 5), steering becomes mere reporting – a nice look back with no effect.
Stocktake: where do we stand today?
Every improvement starts with an honest stocktake: How do we really steer at the moment? A maturity-level scale helps here – six levels from gut feeling to the live cockpit:
| Level | Maturity | How to recognise it |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Unplanned | Steering by gut feeling, no consistent key figures. |
| 1 | Manual | Monthly Excel reports, weeks behind. |
| 2 | Structured | Defined set of key figures, consolidated manually. |
| 3 | Assisted | An analysis tool pulls the data from the systems. |
| 4 | Largely automated | Integrated cockpit with live data. |
| 5 | Fully automated | Live cockpit with early warning and drill-down. |
Honestly place your steering at one level. The jump almost always succeeds one level at a time – and the most valuable is from 2 to 3: only once the figures come from the operational modules without manual work does steering become up to date rather than retrospective.
Where do we want to go?
The target picture is not “level 5 for everyone”. It’s the level that fits your size and management structure – and that delivers exactly the few key figures you genuinely steer by.
And an important point about working together: we provide the core process – the key-figure cockpit and the steering rhythm can be mapped in teamspace and are proven. But the details – which eight figures count for you, which traffic-light thresholds apply, who owns which – we don’t know those, you do. A good approach therefore emerges jointly.
The core process in teamspace
Business management has no linear flow of its own – it is the condensation of the other processes into a cockpit. Each stage is a lens on it; the list of steps at the top is the short version.
1. Understand the cockpit. The controlling module is the place where the reports come together – all operated on the same principle.
2. Sales & pipeline. Order intake and pipeline value as leading indicators: the analysis of sales opportunities. Details in Key figures for the sales process.
3. Projects & margin. Project profitability as the earnings yardstick: analysing projects shows contribution margin and planned/actual. Details in Key figures for project delivery.
4. Finance & forecast. Revenue, forecast and liquidity signals: the financial reports with invoicing analysis, future revenue and post-calculation. Details in Key figures for the billing process.
5. Staff & utilisation. Utilisation and revenue per employee: the employee reports with capacity and employee analysis. Details in Key figures for cost control.
6. Assess with the traffic light. Interplay instead of single figure: the methods of project controlling explain planned/actual, earned value and the traffic-light method that turns figures into decisions.
Cross-link: Business management sits on top of the other processes – sales, project delivery, billing, cost control and staff supply the raw data for its key figures.
Going deeper
These articles belong to business management but aren’t needed for every start:
- Methods of project controlling – planned/actual, earned value, traffic light as a mental model.
- Cost control: contribution margin, recharging & cost accounting – the margin as a steering figure.
- Planning a permissions concept – who may see which steering data.
- Quality management for decision-makers – document and improve processes.
You’ll find the complete list of all articles on this process at the bottom of the process page under “All articles for this process”.
Related topics
- Key figures for business management Key figures Concept
- Controlling – introduction Controlling Introduction
- Business management on teamspace.de – goals, maturity levels and metrics at a glance