Source Network Health Checks

A source network is infrastructure, and infrastructure requires maintenance. The quarterly health check evaluates the network across five dimensions: coverage (are there new gaps in the coverage matrix?), credibility (have any source scores degraded?), timeliness (are sources delivering signals fast enough to be actionable?), redundancy (are critical cells still covered by multiple independent sources?), and cost efficiency (is the time and money invested in each source justified by the intelligence it produces?).

1. Coverage Audit Review the coverage matrix. Have new ecosystem actors emerged that need coverage? Have existing actors become less relevant? Add or remove rows and columns as the ecosystem evolves. The matrix should reflect the current ecosystem, not the one that existed when you built it.
2. Credibility Refresh Update credibility scores for every active source based on the trailing quarter's accuracy data. Flag any source that dropped a full point. Investigate the cause — was it a one-time error or structural degradation? Begin replacement sourcing for any source showing sustained degradation.
3. Cost-Value Assessment For each paid source, calculate the cost per actionable signal. For each time-intensive source (communities, conferences), estimate the hours invested per actionable signal. Compare across sources. Some expensive sources are worth every dollar. Some cheap sources are not worth the time to check them. Optimize based on value delivered, not sticker price.