Growth is up, but the last 6 weeks feel wrong
Question
Our last 12 months look great (about +11% vs last year), but the past 6 weeks don’t add up. We missed forecast, incentives got deeper, collections slowed, and refunds nudged up—yet every dashboard still shows green. I can’t tell what changed. Why is this happening?
Answer ✅
Totals can look excellent while the way you achieve them becomes noisy. SSM-Audit adds a simple stability band beside the KPIs you already report. It shows whether growth is calm and repeatable or forced and fragile—so the pattern you’re sensing becomes visible before it hits cash, refunds, or churn.
What the bands would have shown 📊
• Headline growth drifting from A++ toward A- / A– in recent weeks
• Discounted wins weakening while list-price wins hold steadier
• On-time closes fine, but slipped-to-month-end deals degrading
• Collections band softening; refunds band worsening
• A widening gap between a “record month” and a “repeatable month”
What to do now 🛠️
- Split the headline into a few obvious lanes (new vs repeat, list-price vs discounted, on-time vs slipped).
- Scan bands weekly and find the lane that dropped from A+ to A- / A–.
- Fix the pressure point first (tighten discount guardrails, enforce deal hygiene, strengthen value early in the funnel).
- Reward calm growth (recognize teams that hit the same totals with A+ bands).
- Add a tiny band rollup to exec reviews so a green dashboard can’t hide early drift.
CLI 💻 — try our mini Calculator to identify the drift
(Mini CLI Download Page)
Feed your CSV and see bands and drift at a glance (numbers unchanged).
# Revenue stability
ssm_audit_mini_calc input.csv --kpi "Revenue" \
--out bands_revenue.csv --plot_kpi "Revenue" --build_id q1
Outputs you’ll get:
- CSV with stability bands for each timestamp (e.g.,
bands_revenue.csv). - A drift chart (
--plot_kpi) to visualize degradation or recovery. - Optional alerts if you enable thresholds in your setup.
Technical notes
Representation: x = (m, a) with a in (-1, +1)
Collapse parity: phi((m,a)) = m
Order-invariant pooling:
U = sum(w_i * atanh(a_i))
W = sum(w_i)
a_out = tanh( U / max(W, eps_w) )
Typical bands (example):
A++: a >= 0.75
A+: 0.50 - 0.75
A0: 0.25 - 0.50
A-: 0.10 - 0.25
A--: a < 0.10
Navigation
Back: SSM-Audit Q&A Series – Index
Next: SSM-Audit Q&A Series – Customers (Question 2)
Explore Further
https://github.com/OMPSHUNYAYA/Symbolic-Mathematical-Audit
Page disclaimer
Illustrative scenario for research and education. Observation-only; do not use for critical decisions without independent validation.
SHUNYAYA 