Every surface in Boardroom is easier to understand as a step in one workflow rather than as an item in a menu. This is that workflow, in the order an allocator actually hits it.
The path below is written for an LP evaluating a manager. A GP raising a fund runs it in reverse, and the topics in the firms track say how for each firm type.
One. Frame the universe
Start at Institutions and narrow to the kind of firm you are looking for: private equity managers, private credit shops, venture firms, real assets. The type filters exist because a PE manager and a private credit manager are not comparable objects, and a universe that mixes them produces a peer set that means nothing later.
Rankings is the shortcut when you want the top of a category rather than a filtered list. It is a starting point for a search, not a verdict on quality.
Two. Read the manager
Open the firm and read what it has actually done: the funds it has raised, the vintages, the strategy drift between them, and the people who ran the deals. Funds is where the vehicle-level record lives, and it is the difference between "this firm returned 2.1x" and "this firm's 2018 vintage returned 2.1x and its 2021 vintage is unmarked".
Three. Put it against peers
Benchmarks is the surface that turns a number into a judgement. A 14 percent IRR is not good or bad until you know the vintage, the strategy and the geography it was earned in, and what the median and top-quartile manager did in that same cell.
This is the step that most often changes a decision, because a manager's own materials are always framed to flatter. The benchmark is the only thing in the process that is indifferent to who is selling.
Four. Check the room
Network, People and Relationships answer the questions the documents will not: who else has committed, who on the team actually ran the track record and whether they are still there, and who introduced whom. The Tape records commitments as they happen, so the relationship map is a live record rather than a snapshot.
Five. Diligence and keep it
Due Diligence holds the workstreams and the documents. CRM holds the relationship and the history so the next fund from the same manager starts where this one ended, and Notes and Watchlist keep the thinking attached to the entity it was about.
That last step is the one most teams skip and most regret. Diligence that lives in one analyst's folder is diligence the firm loses when they leave.