Suggested Length: Two Days

Using the Balanced Scorecard to Map Your Strategy

An Approach to a Strategy-Focused Organization

Overview of the Balanced Scorecard (the BSC)

• The BSC: Moving beyond managing only the bottom-line
• Why the economic environment demands a better approach
• A look at the Kaplan/Norton strategy-focused approach
• Who uses the scorecard and what are best practices
• Basic requirements of an effective scorecard process
• Benefits and pitfalls in adopting a scorecard
• It doesn’t work without executive buy-in
• Adapting the BSC for the IT unit

Key components of a balanced scorecard

• Securing top-level consensus and commitment
• Criteria for selecting the BSC Champion
• It starts with a mission/vision and strategic platform
• The Big Four: Financial, Internal Processes, Customers, People/Capacity
• Determining enterprise objectives, key metrics, target baselines, and data sources
• Design elements of the Scorecard and dashboard
• Six structural attributes of an IT scorecard
• Avoiding the risk of over-complicating the BSC

The BSC strategy development process

• Strategy as a continual process of everyone’s job
• Creating a Strategy Map – finding cause-effect links for the Big Four (a hands-on exercise)
• Linking the scorecard to strategic goals and measures
• Developing a framework to transform strategy into an operational management tool
• Put the organizational rewards where the strategy is
• Key steps in developing an enterprise implementation plan
• Developing support unit scorecards for Finance, IT, and HR
• Defining the activities, resources, and business processes needed to implement the BSC
• Cascading the strategy map and performance model to the team and individual employee level

Identifying and defining key scorecard measures

• Determining how product/service value is perceived by your customer
• Reviewing your company’s current metrics
• Making the shift from lagging to leading performance indicators
• Seven metrics commonly used in IT scorecards
• Aligning meaningful indicators at each level of the organization
• Assigning ownership and accountability for metrics
• Assuring data quality: GIGO
• Streamlining the reporting process for real-time measures

Technology Enablers

• Determining the role of technology in implementing your balanced scorecard
• Design elements of a business intelligence architecture for scorecard accuracy
• Should you buy scorecard software or develop your own?
• Guidelines for selecting scorecard software
• Streamlining front-line performance data to the scorecard
• Debriefing the use of the BSC to make corrections

It’s all about communicating

• How the BSC simplifies communicating critical business information
• Creating a common BSC vocabulary for all to understand and use
• Using the BSC to explain your strategy as day-to-day performance targets
• Maintaining two-way communications to keep the scorecard current and relevant

Using the Balanced Scorecard to manage change

• Analyzing how implementation of the scorecard affects all employees
• Aligning operating units with the organizational strategy
• How to match compensation and rewards with the scorecard’s strategic metrics
• Best practices in helping employees learn to apply the new scorecard in their work

Monitoring and assessing the scorecard

• Creating a BSC report
• Using the dashboard and reports to examine forward-looking metrics
• Communicating the results of the scorecard
• Reviewing performance and making adjustments to potential problems
• Revising the scorecard in real time to reflect emerging strategic changes
• Keeping the BSC a dynamic process: Best Practices
• Leveraging dashboard data into organizational learning: what have you learned?