About the event

Watermelon reporting: green on the outside, red on the inside. Status reports look healthy while hiding real problems, and rarely because anyone is lying. Updates get summarized, numbers get averaged, data goes stale, and each layer passes up a slightly rosier picture in good faith. By the time performance reaches the board, nobody in the room knows there's a problem. BSI and Cascade dig into how watermelons form, why they survive review after review, and what changes when leadership sees live numbers instead of a summary of a summary.

What we'll cover

How Green Reports Go Bad

We'll unpack how a report ends up green when nobody intended to hide anything: the summarizing, averaging, and stale data that build a rosier picture layer by layer, and where the red actually hides.

Spot the Warning Signs Early

If nobody in the room knows it's red, asking for more honesty won't help. We'll cover the signals that should make an executive suspicious of a report that looks perfectly fine, and which projects, initiatives, and KPIs grow watermelons most often.

Fix the Measures & the System

Better scorecard design surfaces the truth earlier. Live, connected data replaces the chain of summaries that turns red into green on its way up. We'll look at both, and ask the honest question: does live data kill the watermelon, or does the polishing just move somewhere else?

Our speakers

David Wilsey

CEO

As CEO of the Balanced Scorecard Institute (BSI), David leads a team of strategy professionals who help organizations of all sizes and sectors achieve their vision and mission. He draws on his expertise in balanced scorecard, key performance indicators, and performance measurement to design and deliver customized consulting services and training programs.

Alex Lee

Chief Customer Officer

Alex is a revenue growth and delivery executive with a proven track record of scaling a FinTech SaaS division from $15M to $100M in revenue, playing a key role in its successful PE acquisition and subsequent post-merger integration. He brings extensive expertise in go-to-market execution, process efficiency, and running high-performing client delivery organizations to maximize retention and scalable growth. He holds an MA in Statistics and a BA in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University.

Past Events

Explore an extensive collection of webinars and bootcamps designed to help you maximize your strategy knowledge. Whether you're just starting out or looking to deepen your expertise, our resources offer valuable insights to guide you every step of the way. Dive in and start enhancing your strategic skills today!

“If you’re using PowerPoint or pdf documents of your strategy, know that people aren’t interacting with your strategy as meaningfully as they could be. Cascade helped us go from a document to something that people are living and breathing every day. Strategies are intended to be operationalized—that’s why they exist."

Rebecca Wilson

Director of Strategy and Transformation

FAQs

What are Cascade Academy webinars?

Cascade Academy webinars are one of our most popular event series, bringing together senior leaders from the global business community. In these 60-minute sessions, you'll hear from experts on topics like strategy execution, planning, governance, frameworks, and more. The webinars are free and online, giving leaders from around the world a chance to share real stories of what worked, what didn't, and what they learned along the way.

Who should attend?

Anyone in a leadership or decision-making role who wants practical knowledge and tools to build and execute better strategies.

When are the webinars?

We usually run one webinar per month, each with a specific live date. Once you register, you'll get the details and access link in your confirmation email. Can't make it live? We still encourage you to sign up so you get the recording afterwards. You can also browse past sessions anytime in our event library.

Are the webinars recorded?

Yes. All webinars are recorded and shared with everyone who registers.

What is Cascade?

Cascade is the AI-powered platform for Strategy-Led Performance. It helps leadership teams make better decisions by connecting their data, context, and AI in one place, so strategy doesn't live in a slide deck but becomes how the business actually runs. Thousands of organizations use Cascade to build plans, track initiatives, and keep execution on course. Our customers are redefining the world as we know it, from battling the AIDS epidemic and establishing a supply chain for COVID-19 vaccines to building the world's fastest Formula One car.

The Watermelon Effect:

Register for this event