Viewing Category: Sustainability
[
clear category selection]
(displaying entries
21 - 40)
St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers is the only one of 8 Catholic acute care hospitals in New York City to survive from 2007 to 2008. St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers calls their Balanced Scorecard program the Strategic Alignment Roadmap or "STAR". STAR is powered by the Executive Strategy Manager application.
According to the article, Paul Goebel, senior vice president and chief administrative officer of St. Vincent Catholic Medical Center says "Some 400 hospital directors have been educated and trained in STAR. Each director is then responsible for implementing STAR in his or her department according to an individualized objective template." Goebel says that STAR is a key driver of a cultural renewal called "Transition to a Culture of Performance." The ESM team is proud to support this transition at such a critical institution.
Click here to read the full article.
[hide extended entry]
With the launch of ESM 5.0, bookmarking capability has expanded into the My ESM dashboard arena. We'd like to break down the feature for you so that you can gain maximum benefit.
Traditionally, ESM allowed users to bookmark strategic elements and then access those elements in one location for quick editing. ESM 5.0 makes this process simple and more central for the typical ESM end user. If you utilized bookmarks in ESM 4.5, these were copied over to ESM 5.0. If you haven't utilized bookmarks before the ESM 5.0 launch, we encourage you to navigate within the My ESM tab to manage your bookmarks. By selecting the strategic elements you are responsible for updating, you can then view them as a dashboard layout upon log in and via the quick update area, rapidly copy forward all period specific data within the selected strategic elements. Naturally, great care needs to be taken to ensure you are only copying forward data that you are responsible for reporting on. Likewise, you always want to be in the reporting period you are copying data into. This copy forward feature helps users avoid busy work of rekeying in information, especially when there are no changes to an element between a reporting period.
If you are a client administrator, via the ESM 5.0 client administration interface, you can set up and manage bookmarks for your users. This offers a simple solution to populate the dashboard of executives with critical information that they care about seeing.
While your bookmark view can sit as one of your My ESM dashboards, feel free to build additional views into the strategy via the dashboard page. Standard dashboards can contain any element that exists within your scorecard. Scorecard managers are also able to build scorecard wide dashboards that get applied throughout all the users who have access to the scorecard and viewing rights to the information. Some organizations find the scorecard wide dashboard view incredibly powerful for listing off track agenda items prior to a strategy review meeting.
Be sure to reach out to your ESM account manager with questions or for guidance.
[hide extended entry]
As I attend conferences and events around the globe promoting the Executive Strategy Manager as the Kaplan/Norton solution to drive rapid scorecard design, alignment, and best practice strategy management reporting I always hear the same question: Does this process add value?
We've blogged on a few studies that show the value of the BSC, including a
recent study on the value of the ESM application. I'm happy to see that 17 years after its creation, the BSC approach is stronger than ever, more widely used than ever, and with breakthrough results. The authors in this most recent study find three key benefit areas from applying the Kaplan/Norton BSC methodology as part of building a Strategy Focused Organization. I quote from the abstract: (1) a better translation of the strategy into operational terms, (2) the fact that strategising becomes a continuous process, and (3) the greater alignment of various processes, services, competencies and units of an organisation. Find additional information in the March 2009 European Accounting Review
here.
[hide extended entry]
In trying times like these many organizations fight to change strategy to adapt to new economic conditions. While these changes in strategic direction have clear implications for high-level objectives, management teams must also turn this strategy into unit and individual level action. Kaplan/Norton Balanced Scorecard methodology operates on the theory that while strategy is translated top-down, the real business value comes from bottom-up execution of strategy. The Executive Strategy Manager enables strategy execution by helping companies to translate strategy throughout the organization into day-to-day operations.
The Executive Strategy Manager delivers rich features that support the accountability, collaboration, and communication of your organization's performance and strategy. The application's user interface is intuitive and easy to navigate, making it ideal for strategy managers and executives alike; there is no need for specially trained IT support. By putting the right information at your finger tips, static performance data is transformed into actionable knowledge, enabling real-time decisions that drive results. The ESM is shaping the way organizations efficiently manage, execute, and communicate strategy to achieve breakthrough results.
Click here to try the FREE TRIAL of the Executive Strategy Manager!
[hide extended entry]
Bob Kaplan recently posted a noteworthy Blog on Harvard Business School Publishing's web site around measuring your company's strategic risk. His premise is that many of the recently failed institutions had a focus on short term results and not long term sustainable results.
While you and I could blame the SEC for a lack of oversight, ultimately, it is the responsibility of these organizations to shareholders and the constituents they serve to operate in fiscally responsible manners. The BSC, if constructed and managed well , should provide organizations with the forward looking insight into their strategy so that they avoid many of the pitfalls failed organizations have fallen into today.
Dr. Kaplan suggests organizations might consider including risk oriented objectives on their scorecard. He says they often present a challenge though: "The high-level objective in BSC's financial perspective is growing and sustaining shareholder value. Traditionally, we have advocated two methods to drive shareholder value: revenue growth and productivity improvements. The third method for sustaining shareholder value, missing in many companies' strategies, should be risk management. We've asked many companies why this method is missing in their plans, and consistently we hear back that their challenge is to find valid metrics of risk management, a key driver of sustainable value creation." As Palladium consultants often tell our clients, you should not select objectives based off of their ease to measure. Select the right objectives first and then worry about the measures later. Key risk indicators are often new to organizations and will take time to flush out so that they effectively measure risk in your organization. Regardless though, getting some risk oriented objectives on your scorecard is a big first step. Talking about them, regardless of if the appropriate measures are in place, is a second big step. Remember, just having the dialogue and focusing the discussion in a strategy review meeting is half the battle.
View the full blog post at: http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/kaplan-norton/2008/12/how-to-measure-your-companys-r.html
[hide extended entry]
A company's success is often determined by their ability to adapt to a changing environment. While many companies will recognize the need for change, 70% of organizational transformations fail. Jayme de Lima says this failure comes from lacking employee commitment, as written in his article "Managing Change: Winning Hearts and Minds." A lack of downward communication in an organization hinders employee understanding on a personal level, which creates difficulty when trying to win over employees. Palladium's Executive Strategy Manager helps users communicate corporate ideology throughout an organization by aligning each employee with new corporate strategy.
Companies who lack a systematic change management program often lose steam with strategic initiatives before they begin to take root. By implementing the Balanced Scorecard Concept (BSC), companies provide concrete business goals throughout the organization. With a new goal in place for their business unit or management team, employees can see how company-wide transformations affect their day to day operations. The Executive Strategy Manager (ESM) provides the perfect tool for creating alignment during change in an organization. The ESM uses interactive tools to allow employees to track their contributions to the greater corporation's. Some of these tools include Personal Balanced Scorecards for individuals, cascaded scorecards from the corporate to business unit level, and My ESM to track employee goals that align with corporate strategy.
[hide extended entry]
In today's demand-driven and increasingly competitive market; the need for effective strategic management is imperative. This need has spurred the conceptualization of several management theories. Naturally, as delivery on promise differed, some have fared better than others.
One framework in particular, that of the Balanced Scorecard, has gained sustainable ground since its introductions by Drs. Kaplan and Norton in 1992. In fact, the BSc has even been regarded as the single most important management tool in Western organization, so much so, that over 50 percent of Fortune 500 companies utilize the methodology.
The BSC methodology enables the translation of strategy into action by helping everyone in an organization to understand and work towards a shared vision. This, however, necessitates the establishment of a support infrastructure to integrate, access, and communicate relevant data to the right people.
Increasingly, companies are turning to IT solutions to facilitate information transparency and the decision making process. Automated software applications, such as the Executive Strategy Manager, can assist in BSC implementation in ways such as providing a visual representation of strategy, integrating and communicating information throughout all levels of the organization, and making strategy execution an ongoing process by providing a new framework for reporting and feedback.
Many companies, however, are still supporting their BSC implementation with unsophisticated solutions like simple spreadsheets or slideshows. Consequently, they may be afflicted by problems resultant of lacking scalability; labor intensity; collaboration limitations; and analytical impediments.
Selecting the wrong solution can result in a significant loss of time, energy and money, and more importantly, it can also undermine the entire BSC development effort. This brings rise to questions such as "How can my company extract the full benefits of the BSC model?" and "Can a technologically advanced solution, such as the ESM make a difference in the success rate of my BSC implementation and work?"
These questions, and more, will be addressed in future installments; based on the findings referenced in the August 4th blog post titled "Independent Study Confirms: ESM Will Help You Succeed!"
[hide extended entry]
One commonality I see with all successful strategy management programs is an emphasis around communicating the Balanced Scorecard and overall strategic destination to all employees in the organization. I see some organizations struggle from one reporting period to another with trying to keep all the scorecard data up to date.
When I sit down to discuss their concerns around having to (what seems like to them) continually update their BSC, nine times out of ten I see that there is one, or perhaps two owners for all the themes, objectives, measures and initiatives. These organizations are setting themselves up for failure because the entire scorecarding process cannot efficiently be performed by one person. This structure also conflicts with the natural change management aspect of scorecarding and strategy mapping.
Employees need to be exposed to the strategy. It needs to become part of daily and weekly dialogue. The best way to achieve this is to communicate the strategy through ownership. Pull as many team members into the process as possible by assigning them as "owners" or "analysts" to themes, objectives, measures and initiatives. In order to take this first step, the leadership team needs to be willing to let go of the strategy, to open it up to the organization, and to empower the employees with line of sight into their organization's strategy map and Balanced Scorecard. We are aware that some measures data and other scorecard components can be sensitive and many applications have the flexibility to restrict users from specific areas of the scorecard.
Consider the owner's job responsibility when assigning ownership. Match job function with strategic component(theme, objective, measure, initiative) in the ESM to ensure the update can be performed efficiently and intelligently each quarter. The employee doesn't have to be a manager to contribute. In fact, it's very common to see a subordinate employee draft performance analysis and recommendations for a leadership team member. It's okay to have two people who perform similar tasks contributing performance analysis and recommendations to one objective as long as it is coordinated.
A one scorecard organization could reach out to over one hundred employees by assigning ownership out for all its scorecard components (estimate 20-25 objectives, 35-40 measures, 15-25 initiatives and dozens of milestones on any given scorecard). This level of responsibility will begin to drive the communication, understanding, and execution of the strategy.
[hide extended entry]
After nearly 10 years in the strategy space certifying many of the big name business intelligence software vendors out there for their Balanced Scorecard module (meaning that their business performance management software meets the minimum standards for building and managing scorecards), I've formulated a concrete opinion on how most differ from the Executive Strategy Manager. I've seen cases where both types of applications are needed, neither is needed, and just one will meet the needs of the organization.
What the ESM is and is not
The Executive Strategy Manager is truly a strategy management platform. It should be thought of as a data presentation layer by which leadership and employees alike can review strategic performance and make informed decisions on how to proceed. It provides powerful alignment around objectives, measures and initiatives within a cascaded scorecard environment, breaks up the strategy map into digestible "theme" slices for simplified reporting meetings, and personal views into the strategic elements most important to individuals and teams. The ESM is not an application for sophisticated forecasting and trend scenarios, detailed analytics, or for managing hundreds or thousands of operational measures. Remember, it is a strategic management platform and tries to present the strategic level of information in an organization for informative decision making. It is not trying to manage all the data consolidations that some organizations demand.
The strengths and weaknesses of the BPM component within CPM applications
Most BPM solutions have a solid capability to handle thousands of measures that may or may not be organized in any logical fashion within an organization. They can consolidate them according to the rules established by the user, run analysis reports, trends, and forecasts. While they can display strategy maps and scorecards, they do not have the data presentation layer that is found to be so powerful by ESM clients worldwide. This presentation layer is precisely what creates the right dialogue within strategy review meetings and keeps the discussion at the strategic level.
So what solution is right for your organization?
My recommendation on what is the right solution for you is based off the sophistication of your organization's data needs, reporting culture, and the leadership team level buy in for managing their strategy with strategy maps and Balanced Scorecards. Larger data intensive organizations with a "bought in" leadership team require both the ESM strategy presentation layer AND a BPM/CPM solution to truly manage both their strategic and operational data (Yes the two integrate with one another nicely.). Less data intensive organizations often find they are successful with simply the ESM for managing their strategy as few measures below the strategic level are actively managed. Less data intensive organizations are also typically, but not always, smaller organizations and quickly find themselves priced out of the BPM/CPM space. And finally, I find myself turning away organizations who are looking for a measures database tool. I encourage them to seek out a good BPM/CPM solution set for their metrics management.
Need more guidance?
Please reach out to me at ksmack@thepalladiumgroup.com and I'll be happy to provide you with a frank and honest opinion on if the ESM is the right application for your organization.
[hide extended entry]
Drs. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton just published the Harvard Business Review Article "Mastering the Management System". The article begins by stating the challenge faced by most organizations: separating the operational management meeting from the strategy management meeting. Beyond the creation of strategy maps and Balanced Scorecards, the BSC co-founders profess a link from strategy to operations, which might be in the form of key process management, key process decomposition, activity based costing, analytical dashboards and more.
Some key take-away points in the article that resonated with me included setting up separate agendas for operational reviews and strategic reviews. Even if the meetings are held on the same day, and often times with the same people, it's still important to make the distinction in the agenda and supporting materials to ensure the discussion stays on point. I was happy to see the point conveyed in this article, one that I also make to my clients, which is to time in the strategy review meeting making decisions about the strategy, not reviewing data and listening to team members present the strategy. Some good steps to take to ensure compliance, populate data prior to the review meeting, pre present sensitive areas to key constituents, and get facilitators prepared to drive the team to consensus with actionable decisions.
The article concludes by coming back to the idea of a "closed loop" or feedback loop to ensure the strategy is updated to reflect the latest market environment, organizational climate, and is generally relevant. I encourage the ESM community to read the entire article and view some helpful graphics on an effective agenda, meeting structure, and the entire strategy and operations management processes.
http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbr/articles/article.jsp?ml_subscriber=true&ml_action=get-article&ml_issueid=BR0801&articleID=R0801D&pageNumber=1&cm_mmc=npv-_-listserv-_-Jan_2008-_-HBRSA
[hide extended entry]
I have an organization who is considering the ESM and wants me to build out some example reporting views with their content. This is a common request that we field with potential ESM clients who already have a scorecard in place. Naturally, they want to see what their reporting environment will look like before they commit to a new application.
Unfortunately, some of the measures they sent over to us really were 3 or 4 measures combined into one chart. This set off the caution light. Simplify, simplify, simplify I say. Leaders spend a few moments reviewing this information in review meetings and the message has to be clear. My immediate recommendation to this prospect was to break up the measure into separate measures that accurately and visually depict the performance on each and capture them under a detail performance page at the objective level.
The ESM is well structured to handle this situation as the Meeting View functionality allows for easy navigation between the hierarchical strategies, be that within a scorecard or between cascaded scorecards in an organization.
[hide extended entry]
OK, so I came up with a suitable trendline for my measure in the last post, but the proof of concept also asked for a 12 month forecast of this measure. The challenge with a forecast is also that it depends on several factors.
One factor is seasonality. Some retail companies have tremendous sales in the fourth quarter leading up to the holidays. If you ignore seasonality, you could forecast a huge Q1, but in fact have a big drop off in Q1 because most of the company sales actually occur in Q4 just before Christmas.
Some organizations are cyclical, so rather than looking at the annual season, it is important to look at the long term business conditions. You could have an organization selling heavy equipment that thrives in a great economy. If the economy weakens substantially, you would need to include this information in your forecast. Other organizations are affected by their industry overall, rather than the entire economy.
If you are not new to forecasting, this post may seem simplistic because you already have a model that helps you conduct this type of analysis, but if your organization has not conducted forecasting before, it is important to determine which of these factors or combination of factors has the highest correlation to your business. Once you determine that, then you will begin to have a good model to begin predicting the future.
Of course, once you factor in the forecast based off of earlier this year, last year, your industry, and the economy, then you need to look at how you could improve your forecast. The description above describes a forecast of business as usual. You want to use the leading indicators or objectives in the internal and learning and growth perspective to help drive change and improve your forecast of performance. More on that later.
[hide extended entry]
I recently was asked to build a proof of concept in the ESM that showed the trends for measures and then a forecast for 12 months in the future. I was not given much information to start with, but as I researched it, I realized that companies trying to do this have a few challenges on their hands.
Since one of the ESM chart types is the Office Web Component from Microsoft, I started by looking at how Excel handles trends. I quickly learned that you can do linear trends, logarithmic trends, or rolling averages (among others). My quick take-away is that the type of trend would have to relate to the type of measure and the growth rate of that particular measure.
Another trend that I find useful is located within Yahoo Finance. You can get the stock chart for a company, and you can add to it, the 50 day or 200 day rolling average. These lines are a great way to take out the daily movements of stocks. Personally, I find that the 200 day rolling average is usually a smooth line that shows how a stock is performing over the long haul, independent of individual events. Comparing the current stock price against the rolling average can give you some information (which is probably good for a conversation on a different day).
So back to my conundrum, how should I mock up a chart that shows both a trend and a forecast? For the trend, I decided that a three month rolling average was useful for a measure that was reported monthly. A three quarter rolling average for a measure that was reported quarterly would be similar.
If you have different ways of showing trends, please comment to this blog. I am very interested. I'll cover the forecast in my next post.
[hide extended entry]
Report Frequently
I am an advocate of holding brief reporting meetings at the end of the first and second month of each quarter (focusing on key initiatives or poor performing areas) and then holding a full strategy review meeting immediately after quarter close.
When it comes to reviewing the data during a reporting meeting, you should work with what you have. If measures are collected quarterly but you report monthly, provide some performance analysis but be sure to mention that it is based off of incomplete data or trends. Likewise, if you collect data monthly but report quarterly, it's ok to report out on all three months during the quarterly review.
Get it Automated The number one reason why Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel fail those who attempt to manage their BSC program in it is because it's a cumbersome process; there is next to no automation.
If you are like many and have data sitting on various databases, you can configure many applications to automatically pull the data right into your BSC reporting system. You'll still need to include performance analysis but the data feeds should reduce you ongoing reporting time commitment.
Go the Extra Mile Every successful scorecarding program that I've seen has had a champion who isn't afraid to put in extra work to ensure the program takes root. This could entail inputting other's performance analysis or measures data or rallying the leadership team to show up to the strategy review meeting. This up front reporting effort will pay off with handsome dividends in the years that follow.
[hide extended entry]
So you've been reading articles on the BSC Hall of Fame for 7 years now and you're trying to figure out how they do it. How have these organizations been able to go the distance with their strategy management program? Here are some key steps to take to ensure your project survives the transition from development to execution and beyond.
Own it, Share it, Live it One commonality I see with all successful strategy management programs is an emphasis around communicating the Balanced Scorecard and overall strategic destination to all employees in the organization. I see some organizations struggle from one reporting period to another with trying to keep all the scorecard data up to date. When I sit down to discuss their concerns around having to (what seems like to them) continually update their BSC, nine times out of ten I see that there is one, or perhaps two owners for all the themes, objectives, measures and initiatives. These organizations are setting themselves up for failure because the entire scorecarding process cannot efficiently be performed by one person. This structure also conflicts with the natural change management aspect of scorecarding and strategy mapping.
Employees need to be exposed to the strategy. It needs to become part of daily and weekly dialogue. The best way to achieve this is to communicate the strategy through ownership.
The first step a Balanced Scorecard core team needs to take when beginning to report is to pull as many team members into the process as possible by assigning them as "owners" or "analysts" to themes, objectives, measures and initiatives. In order to take this first step, the leadership team needs to be willing to let go of the strategy, to open it up to the organization, and to empower the employees with line of sight into their organization's strategy map and Balanced Scorecard. We are aware that some measures data and other scorecard components can be sensitive and many applications have the flexibility to restrict users from specific areas of the scorecard.
Consider the owner's job responsibility when assigning ownership. Match function with strategic component(objective, measure, initiative) in the ESM to ensure the update can be performed efficiently and intelligently each quarter. The employee doesn't have to be a manager to contribute. In fact, it's very common to see a subordinate employee draft performance analysis and recommendations for a leadership team member. It's okay to have two people who perform similar tasks contributing performance analysis and recommendations to one objective as long as it is coordinated.
A one scorecard organization could reach out to over one hundred employees by assigning ownership out for all its scorecard components (estimate 20-25 objectives, 35-40 measures, 15-25 initiatives and dozens of milestones on any given scorecard). This level of responsibility will begin to drive the communication, understanding, and execution of the strategy.
[hide extended entry]
We mentally prepared ourselves for a photo finish. We ran through all the possible race scenarios. We were all but sure the race would come down to the last few strokes. We were wrong. At the 800 meter mark, I looked across the course and counted 4 boats. I counted again and again to make sure my mind was not playing tricks on me. We had open water on China, Greece, Slovenia, and Belgium and we were a seat up on the Ukrainians. We had only rowed in our line-up for a month and we executed our strategy. We were going to the Olympics!
What's interesting to note in my short recount of our 2004 Athens Olympic qualification race is that we were prepared to react to our environment and augment our strategy to succeed. Likewise, the scorecard is only as good as its execution. You could pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for scorecards from the board room right down to the front line employee, but if the employee doesn't understand the strategy and how he or she contributes to the strategy, you won't be able to react in time and thereby fail to execute. Let me provide some tips and tricks in the Executive Strategy Manager that organizations can apply to ensure your workforce is ready to execute.
Again, the design phase is important, but ultimately, it's all about the execution. To set your organization up for a fast start, select your all stars and put them on the team. Your strategy is worth the best.
Second, get everyone into the Executive Strategy Manager right from day one. The application is built for easy navigation by all types of users.
Third, when the scorecard is fairly set, share ownership of objectives, measures, initiatives, and milestones with as many employees as possible. This reduces the ongoing reporting effort required by any one person, drives communication, analysis, and reflection on the strategy, and ultimately, drives execution.
Forth, drive all reporting meetings with the ESM. The ESM has a simple interface that allows you to navigate between your scorecard and get at the story behind the strategy. Whether it's a corporate executive team or a divisional support unit group, the ESM creates the right structure to execute your strategy.
[hide extended entry]
While there are a lot of early wins that the Balanced Scorecard provides (i.e., eliminating or consolidating redundant initiatives, getting everyone reading from the same playbook, actually articulating the strategy, etc.), the real power of the Balanced Scorecard comes over time.
That's because it takes time to execute strategy, and it takes time to mobilize and change the direction of a major organization. We see the "excitement curve" about the Balanced Scorecard start to wane in many organizations around the 12-15 month mark. At this point, many of the early wins have already been celebrated, but the long-term benefits have not yet been realized.
Now, this isn't to say that the Balanced Scorecard slows down the change process. In fact, the opposite is true: The Balanced Scorecard is accelerating and guiding the change. But when you're right in the middle of things, seeing some improvements in Learning and Growth and Internal Process measures, but more limited improvements on the top line, it's easy to get frustrated.
Fortunately, however, this low point on the curve only lasts for a few months, as the Balanced Scorecard accelerates the organization's ability to grow and change. Many of our Hall of Fame companies have seen breakthrough strategic results (last to first) in as little as 24 months.
So, if you're getting discouraged by the slow pace of change, take a step back and think about what it would be like without the Balanced Scorecard there as your roadmap. And keep your head up, as those who keep with the program can and will get great results.
[hide extended entry]
I've been surprised by the relatively limited use of the Balanced Scorecard among boards of directors. To me, the BSC and the board are a perfect fit. Why? Because the Balanced Scorecard gives the board a great "dashboard" to check in on corporate and CEO performance.
With the recent push for greater transparency and greater accountability for boards, the value of the Balanced Scorecard is even greater. It's no longer acceptable to join a board, take a few great boondoggles a year, and rubberstamp the CEO's decision. Institutional investors, activist investors, and employees all now look to the board as the owner's representatives.
So what do you need to know as the owner's rep? The financials, of course, but you also need to know much more -- are customers happy and growing? -- are operations running smoothly? -- is the employee base satisfied and productive. Exactly the things that the Balanced Scorecard was designed to report on.
The strategy map is also a great tool to help the CEO communicate to the board about the strategy and the performance of the organization against that strategy. Instead of a thick binder filled with conjecture and footnotes, the strategy map is a one-page view that articulates the strategy in a clear cause and effect fashion that even board members can understand!
If you're currently using the BSC to manage your board (or vice-versa), please let us know -- we'd love to learn more. Or if you're interested in learning more about how the BSC and ESM can help make your board or CEO more productive, please don't hesitate to reach out!
[hide extended entry]
I continue my dialogue on building a scorecarding program that will stand the test of time. The idea of automation is thrown around a lot with technology, yet we all know that if the right process or data isn't automated correctly, you'll probably spend more time cleaning up mess than had you simply kept it manual.
The number one reason why Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel fail those who attempt to manage their BSC program in it is because
it's a cumbersome process; there is next to no automation. The Executive Strategy Manager creates a repeatable process that allows for what I will call three levels of automation.
The first level of automation is included in the core functionality in the strategy management platform. Automatic features include clicking a button to instantly copy forward subjective performance analysis and recommendations or color coded performance labels. The ESM includes automatic target status setting and email reminders when performance hits a certain threshold or a user has made an edit to a scorecard component.
The second level of automation is data sourcing measures, and it is available in our enterprise license (if you are ESM user, you most likely license our enterprise version, the most popular option). Data sourcing simply means that if you can export data from any type of database in Excel or CSV, you can upload it into the ESM. Once you establish the links in the ESM, by means of a simply query, you can simply upload one or many files and have your content automatically refreshed for your data sourced measures.
The third level of automation is to build a mini application or web service that can pull data (including text and numbers) directly from databases and data marts. The web service can be entirely automatic or contain manual steps if desired. The web service can also automatically push updated data from the ESM into virtually any type of output desired. Web services is typically employed when the scorecard is well established. This level of automation can make for a much more hands-free scorecard upkeep approach. Some degree of human reflection on the strategy will be required, regardless of if it takes place in the ESM or another application. This analysis, as reviewed by peers in strategy review meetings is where the real power of the BSC process is realized.
If you are using the ESM, reach out to your client manager to discuss these services. If you are considering another application, be sure that these levels of automation exist as part of the core license (not a customizable feature).
[hide extended entry]
There have been a lot of major implementations of the Balanced Scorecard: US Army, Mobil, CIGNA, Petrobras, etc., but there's something really interesting going on down here in Brazil. More and more Brazilian government and non-governmentatl organizations are using the BSC to mobilize the transformation of their country.
CNI has developed a scorecard to help drive the economic development of the country. As Dave Norton notes, there have been some big scorecards, but this is the first time that a scorecard has been used to guide an entire economy.
Todos Pela Educacao is using the BSC to help reinvigorate the education sector in Brazil. A consortium of public sector, celebrity, and business leaders has come together to try to address the systemic issues with the educational system in Brazil.
Both of these BIG implementations (featured at the Latin American Summit in Rio) show that the Balanced Scorecard movement is alive (actually thriving) here in Brazil, and that organizations are pushing the envelope and using the four perspectives of the BSC to change their perspective.
[hide extended entry]
