The Operational Maturity Assessment built for mid-market companies.
Most operational frameworks were built for one of two audiences catering to startups building from zero or enterprise companies with dedicated operations departments and seven-figure consulting budgets.
The mid-market companies exist in a gap between these two worlds, complex enough to need formal systems and not yet large enough to justify the overhead of enterprise-scale tools and methodologies.
The HQ Score is the first operational maturity assessment calibrated specifically to this revenue stage.
HQ Score Measurement Criteria
30 questions. 10 dimensions. 0–100 total score. The ten dimensions and their meanings are listed below:
D1) Process Documentation: Are your critical operational processes documented in a form that anyone could follow independently?
D2) Key Person Redundancy: If your three most operationally critical people were unavailable tomorrow, what happens?
D3) Vendor Contract Quality: Do your vendor contracts protect your interests at the clause level that actually matters?
D4) Team Structure Clarity: Does every person on your operations team know exactly which decisions they can make without asking?
D5) Measurement Sophistication: Does your operations dashboard include leading indicators or only lagging financial metrics?
D6) Technology Coherence: Is your technology stack architecturally intentional, or has it accumulated through ad hoc problem-solving?
D7) Decision Rights Clarity: Is decision authority explicitly documented, or does every significant decision require an informal negotiation about who has the authority to make it?
D8) Meeting Design Quality: Do your operational meetings consistently produce documented decisions with named owners or primarily produce updates?
D9) Onboarding Effectiveness: Could a competent new hire follow your documented processes independently on their first day?
D10) Operational Leverage: Are your operational costs growing more slowly than revenue or faster?
HQ Score Result Assessment
0–30: Informal Operations
The company runs on specific people, not documented systems. Future growth will strain the company before it strains the market.
31–50: Early Systematization
Some processes are documented, and a few systems exist, but coverage is inconsistent and key-person dependency remains high.
51–70: Developing Maturity
Formal systems are in place for most critical functions. The primary challenge is consistency of use and measurement.
71–85: Operational Maturity
Documented systems, distributed authority, and measurement sophistication are present. The company can absorb growth without operational crisis.
86–100: Institutional Excellence
This is rare at the mid-market stage. The operations function operates as a strategic competitive advantage, not just a support function.
HQ Score Requirements
If you work in operations, procurement, finance or are someone whose function impacts operations and revenue in mid-market companies, the HQ Score Assessment is the correct choice for you.
It takes 10 minutes only and is completely free. You receive your results at the end of the free HQ Score assessment.
Take the HQ Score Assessment
The HQ Score is a proprietary assessment developed by Headroom HQ through extensive research. The HQ Score methodology is protected intellectual property. The benchmark data is published in aggregate and anonymized form only.
For feedback on the HQ Score assessment, methodology or anything related to HQ Score, reach out to us at hello@theheadroomhq.com