Visual management
Marketing go-see protocol
Marketing go-see protocol is licensed CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Katafacts (katafacts.com).
Customise with AISkill file ↓1 · What it is
What it is
A marketing go-see walk is a gemba walk with real technique behind it, pointed at commercial data instead of a shop floor — the same work instruction shape (major step, key point, reason) the core go-see protocol already applies to observation. Describe the walk roughly, and real steps get drafted: which numbers to re-check directly at the source system, how to sample real records rather than trust the dashboard, and why each technique matters.
2 · When to use it
When to use it — and when not to
Use it when
- You want to verify that a visibility board or marketing KPI tree reflects what's actually true in the CRM or ERP, not just what a sync job reported.
- A data-sync issue has happened before and you want a real, repeatable check rather than trusting it's stayed fixed.
- You want to catch channel-attribution drift or reporting gaps before they shape a budget decision.
Not when
- The check is genuinely a one-off, not a repeatable practice — a work instruction adds structure a single check doesn't need.
- You'd be walking the data to catch someone doing something wrong rather than to verify the numbers themselves — that's not what a go-see walk is for.
3 · How to fill it in
How to fill it in
- Purpose
- What does this walk verify, and what would go unnoticed without it?
- Steps, key points & reasons
- Drafted from your description of the walk — major steps, each with zero or more key points and, for every key point, the reason it matters.
- Narrative
- Drafted from the steps actually built.
4 · What good looks like
What good looks like
The example below checks Beacon Analytics' visibility board and marketing KPI tree against the real CRM and ERP records — three of four steps have a real key point tracing back to a genuine sync-job finding, and the fourth, channel misattribution, is honestly left flagged rather than padded.
Same example, as a downloadable xlsx workbook.
Work instruction
Go-see walk — marketing ops and commercial data sync
Marketing ops — Beacon Analytics
Priya Anand, RevOps · 2026-04-24
Purpose
Verifies that the visibility board and marketing KPI tree's numbers are actually true at the source systems, not just true on the dashboard — the CRM/ERP sync job that's already failed silently once is exactly the kind of drift a dashboard-only check would miss.
Steps, key points & reasons
4 steps · 3 key points
1. Pull the marketing KPI tree's driver-metric numbers straight from the CRM, not the dashboard
- Re-run the MQL-to-SQL conversion query directly in the CRM's own report builder — The visibility board is built from a CRM/ERP sync job that has already failed silently once — a dashboard number can look current while quietly reflecting a stale sync.
2. Check a sample of closed-won bookings against the ERP contract master
- Pick five closed-won deals from the last week and confirm each one landed in the ERP within 24 hours — Sync completeness is the marketing KPI tree's own driver metric for keeping the board trustworthy — this is how you verify it's actually holding, not just assumed fixed since the last countermeasure.
3. Ask the marketing ops analyst what they're seeing that the board doesn't show
- Ask open questions about what's slow or manual right now, not leading ones about the sync specifically — A leading question about the known sync issue gets confirmation of what you already suspect, not a real, fresh answer.
4. Note any channel claiming credit for pipeline another channel likely sourcedNo key point yet
Narrative
Three of four steps have a real key point grounding the technique in a specific reason, each one tracing back to the same real finding: the visibility board's countermeasure register already shows a sync-script fix that closed on time but didn't fully hold. The fourth step, noting channel misattribution, is deliberately left without a key point yet — the same honest gap the marketing KPI tree's third goal flags, and not something a go-see walk alone can resolve without a real attribution model behind it.
5 · Common mistakes
Common mistakes
Re-reading the dashboard more carefully instead of checking the source system it's built from.
A dashboard built from a broken sync can look internally consistent while being wrong — only checking the CRM or ERP directly catches that class of drift.
Asking the marketing ops analyst leading questions about the known sync issue instead of open ones.
A leading question gets confirmation of what you already suspect, not a real, fresh answer about what's actually slow or manual right now.
6 · What it connects to
What it connects to
upstream
Marketing key performance indicator (KPI) tree
A driver metric named there (like sync-data completeness) is exactly what this walk exists to verify at the source, not just trust as fixed.
A go-see walk exists to verify the board's own numbers against reality, the same relationship the core go-see protocol has with a visual board.
downstream
7 · Where AI helps
Where AI helps
Judgement — stays yours
- Deciding whether a step genuinely needs a key point or is simple enough not to
- Deciding what a drifted number actually means for the team
Analysis — AI helps
- Drafting major steps, key points, and reasons from a description of the walk
- Drafting the narrative from the steps actually built
Drudgery — automated
- Counting steps and key points
- Identifying which steps still have no key point
- Exporting to xlsx in the house format
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