What is a Balanced ScoreCard?

An Executive “Cockpit”: Balanced ScoreCards are company-wide performance measurement systems that focus your company on carefully chosen strategic themes. ScoreCards track strategic initiatives as well as operational results in a balanced set of metrics, reported on a Dashboard. Each metric has a “drill down” slide that tells you where you’ve been and are now, compared to your targets. Leading indicators provide “early warning” of where the company is headed – early enough to affect results this quarter. Rather than each Executive having sole access to his/her own data, ScoreCards provide an Executive Cockpit, a shared window into all corners of the business.

A Tool for Company Focus: ScoreCards are tremendous communication tools, focusing the entire company on executives’ top priorities. Used regularly at middle management, and even “all hands” meetings, ScoreCards keep the entire company aligned on strategy, and prevent any gap between lower echelon and executive priorities. For more on ScoreCards as a tool for company focus, click here.

First developed in the 1990’s, ScoreCards have become popular for focusing scarce resources on key priorities in tough economic environments.