Executive Strategy Manager - On-Demand Balanced Scorecard Software

Action Planning

Strategy is nothing without execution. You can build the best strategy in the world and if it's not implemented and managed correctly, you will gain very little benefit. ESM not only offers best practice guidance for rapid scorecard creation and cascading, but the structure required for running effective meetings, tracking actions and driving accountability.

Initiative & Milestone Management

Realizing the value from initiative investments—the very activities designed to advance strategic change—is a major component to successful strategy execution and thus, a significant piece of the ESM. As part of the Balanced Scorecard framework, the sole purpose of initiatives is to drive a positive impact on the objectives they support.

The ESM takes an organization through the process of identifying and collecting potential initiatives, evaluating and mapping them to determine priorities, and then identifying milestones and tasks required to manage it through to completion. Initiative portfolio management is handled right inside the ESM, integrated into your organizations Balanced Scorecard.
View Tutorial: Initiatives and Milestone Management

Follow-up Accountability

ESM contains a best practice approach to ensure accountability for strategy execution. ESM encourages the identification of owners for every theme, objective, measure, driver measure, initiative, milestone, and action item within your scorecard. These strategic element owners can then manage their elements through a My ESM page for easy reporting and follow up. Client administrators have the power to manage these bookmarks, deploy reminder emails for data updates, and track updates through to completion.

Action items assigned to users are easily tracked through the individuals My Action Items page which displays open and closed actions, complete with performance status indicators.

Strategy execution requires alignment and engagement from an entire organization. The coordination of this activity should be driven through the Balanced Scorecard champion or Office of Strategy Management. Individual and group level awareness is reinforced through subscribing to strategic elements for when performance matches a certain threshold or even when an element is updated. ESM serves as a communication vehicle and drives the accountability necessary to manage a successful strategy management program.

Gantt Chart

As part of initiative project management, ESM contains multiple views for reviewing and managing initiatives and milestones. A Gantt chart provides a visual representation of your programs, tasks, accountable parties, dates, and performance in one view. Interdependencies can be clearly identified and managed. The ESM Gantt chart can be edited and presented online or exported as an image for print and email. View Tutorial: Gantt Charts