Balanced Scorecard Example

A recent news release from Scotiabank in Canada included their Balanced Scorecard for all to see. On the one hand, its exciting to see an organization who believes strongly enough in scorecarding to share it with the outside world. On the other, one wonders how much strategy is actually present in this scorecard if they are willing to share it…

Your organization’s unique strategy to achieve long-term competitive advantage must be at the core of whatever scorecard or dashboard you implement. Whether you are confident enough in your ability to execute that strategy better than anyone else dictates whether or not you share it outside.

Financial

- Return on equity of 20-23%
- Diluted earnings per share growth of 7-12%
- Long-term shareholder value through increases in dividends and stock
price appreciation

Operational

- Productivity ratio of less than 58%
- Sound ratings
- Strong practices in corporate governance and compliance processes
- Sound capital ratios

Customer

- High levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty
- Deeper relationships with existing customers
- New customer acquisition

People

- High levels of employee satisfaction and engagement
- Enhance diversity of workforce
- Commitment to corporate social responsibility and strong community
involvement

Information Dashboard Success

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Stupid Dashboards?

How could Information Dashboards be stupid? Aren’t they the hot trend of the day? Haven’t the last 30 years been all about getting better information to executives sooner – helping them to make “data based decisions” rather than relying on intuition, gossip and rumour?

A colleague recently told me that over his career, he had come to realize that the more cynical he became, the more accurate his picture of the world became. So here are a few cynical thoughts to consider:

1. Many dashboard projects are about large software acquisitions from “BI” or “Dashboard” vendors. Very little business value follows from a huge effort to buy a bit of software, and zero effort to confront what is true about the business, why it operates as it does, and what levers might be pulled to improve it.
2. Managers frequently select Metrics or KPIs that are so abstract that no useful information could ever be derived from them. This is part of the pattern of obfuscation that blights so many career-oriented executive cultures.
3. Many dashboard projects are initially seen as “cool”, but quickly disappear below management radar. After all, a crisis oriented culture can only react to unplanned information. It cannot proactively address that which will move the organization forward.
4. Dashboards can easily reinforce negative behavior, causing people to sub-optimize on narrow objectives, game the system, blame others, or deflect responsibility.

Stupid indeed!

Its fun to be cynical, but constructive to consider the underlying causes of Dashboard project failure. This is a theme I’ll explore in this blog over the days ahead.

Information Dashboard Success