Four inputs. Your real numbers. The annual revenue impact of misclassified timelines in your practice.
Every engagement runs on a clock. Effort-based work compresses with intensity. Compounding work takes time regardless of how hard you push. When the timeline doesn't match the transformation type, clients leave good work early or stall inside engagements that should have ended months ago. Both cost you money you never count.
Your Practice
Client engagements completed in the last 12 months
Count everything you invoiced for. Retainers, projects, advisory, fractional work. One client with two separate scopes counts as two.
engagements
Average engagement value
Total fees collected last year divided by the number above. If it varies, use the midpoint between your smallest and largest.
$
The Mismatch
Engagements that ended early, stalled, or needed unplanned extensions
Early terminations. Renewals that didn't happen. Projects that ran past the original timeline without new scope. Retainers where the client asked "what are we still doing here?" Count all of them.
engagements
What percentage could have been saved with better timeline classification?
Conservative: most were genuinely bad fits. Aggressive: the work was right, only the clock was wrong.