The Partnership Health Check: your questions

Most clients have some rhythm of QBRs, performance reviews or appraisal conversations. The issue is usually candour, consistency and comparability.

Reviews run between the two parties tend to be shaped by the relationship itself. People are diplomatic, agendas focus on work in flight, and the same issues can circle for quarters without being named.

The Partnership Health Check gives both sides a structured, confidential way to say what they actually think, and an independent read of where the partnership stands. Every six months, on the same basis, so movement over time is visible.

Technically, yes. Practically, internal versions struggle with candour, consistency and follow-through.

Stakeholders on both sides respond differently to an independent third party. Internally run feedback tends to be filtered, softened or skipped when things get busy. And someone has to design the process, run it, chase responses, interpret the results and convert them into actions every six months.

There is also the read. Collecting scores is the easy part. The value is in the interpretation: comparing what each side is actually saying, and knowing what a gap or a slow drift usually means, because Mosaic sees these patterns across many partnerships. That layer is consistent every check. It is what turns feedback into intelligence rather than a set of numbers.

The Health Check provides that rhythm without the internal machinery, and without the results being owned by one side of the relationship.

Agency relationships are usually managed through goodwill, senior contact and day-to-day diplomacy. That means important signals get softened or lost, in both directions.

An independent process gives client stakeholders a safer way to say what they may not say across the table, and gives the agency the same. Mosaic compares the two perspectives, follows up where additional context is needed and presents the findings without a side to defend.

Independence does not replace the relationship. It strengthens it.

Handled properly, the opposite. Most agencies would rather know what the client actually thinks than guess, and generally welcome a structured, fair way to hear it.

The Health Check is explicitly two-way. Agency stakeholders score and comment as well, so it is a shared view of the partnership, not a verdict on the agency. Findings are released with context and a facilitated conversation, not raw scores dropped on the table.

That is the check doing its job. A weak or divided result surfaced through a structured process, with context attached, is far easier to deal with than the same problem surfacing at renewal.

Mosaic tests the context before anything is released: following up where a score or comment needs understanding, distinguishing isolated friction from a wider pattern, and reporting themes rather than attributing views. Findings arrive with a recommended way forward, not a raw verdict.

The facilitated conversation then does the heavy lifting: a small number of agreed actions with owners and timing, rather than a difficult score left hanging. The aim is not to referee a dispute. It is to get both sides working on the same short list.

They will if the ask is small, the purpose is clear and confidentiality is real.

Each stakeholder scores five areas, adds a short supporting comment, names what is working particularly well and the one change that would most increase the value of the partnership. It takes minutes, not hours.

Responses are confidential and unattributed, which matters more the closer someone is to the day-to-day relationship.

The stakeholder list is agreed each cycle to reflect how the relationship actually works: typically 4 to 6 people per side, spanning senior sponsors, day-to-day leads and commercial contacts, with the same core group each check so results stay comparable.

For participants, the ask is minutes. For the sponsors, it is one facilitated session to agree actions, typically around 60 minutes, and a launch-to-actions cycle measured in weeks, not months. Mosaic runs everything in between: the process, the chasing, the analysis and the write-up.

No. Scorecards measure the agency. The Health Check measures the partnership.

It looks at both sides' contribution: briefing quality, decision-making, ways of working and commercial clarity are as much about the client as the agency.

And the scores are only the starting point. The value sits in the comparison of client and agency perspectives, the themes underneath, and the actions agreed at the end of each check.

The five core areas stay consistent every check. That is what makes each check comparable with the last and shows whether the partnership is strengthening, drifting or adapting.

Within that, the check can flex. An additional question can be included where there is a specific theme to understand (data capability, creative ambition, reporting or responsiveness), and the stakeholder list is agreed each cycle to reflect how the relationship actually works.

Each check delivers a clear view of the partnership's overall health; where client and agency perspectives align or differ; strengths that should be protected or used more fully; friction or risks that would benefit from early attention; opportunities to increase the value of the partnership; a concise set of recommendations; and a facilitated conversation to agree actions, owners and timing.

Each check builds on the last. Over time you get a trend, not a snapshot, and a record of whether agreed actions are actually improving the partnership.

Responses are confidential and unattributed, and findings are reported at theme level, not by individual.

Only the data required to run the process is collected: named contacts, role information, scores, comments and response status. Data is used only for the agreed process and is not sold or shared with third parties.

How results are shared, and with whom on each side, is agreed upfront.

Replacing an agency is expensive, slow and disruptive. The cost is not just the pitch. It includes senior management time, onboarding, lost momentum, and the year or more it takes a new agency to rebuild the knowledge the old one had.

Most of the problems that end agency relationships are fixable if they are caught early. The Health Check exists to catch them early, and just as importantly, to identify where a working relationship could deliver more.

If it prevents one unnecessary review, or unlocks one meaningful improvement in what the partnership delivers, it has paid for itself.