Balanced Scorecard Template

The key is to select the measures that you want (close stats, Average Collected Balances, Credit Losses, etc.) then put them in an Excel spreadsheet and manage the data/monitor the results. Pretty simple. The issue is maintaining the discipline and publishing the results (can be a team meeting with short duration)>

I agree with Linda. The key is to do the legwork up front and determine the leading indicators of what drives performance (by dept, by organization, etc). The easy part is setting up the Excel sheet to monitor trends and against targets. Keep in mind that your KPI's need to support the overall company objectives.

I implemented the Balanced Scorecard in my last manufacturing organization and agree with Linda and David. The eye opener for us was when we drove down deeper into the KPI's and identified the process issues deeper in the organization that impacted them. For example, on time performance was a key measure, but driving into the measure, one could find factors impacting the on time performance such as the time to enter order from receipt. We set up a process to pick one measure per month and have a team dig deeper into it to identify all of the processes in the business that impacted that KPI.

The quick answer to your question is to use the "standard" template with columns or: Objectives, Measure, Target, for your scorecard. Then for your dashboard or scorecard monitoring/managing tool to show performance linked to each of these objectives including: status, in/out of target zone, and trending. Color should indicate need for attention (e.g. RYG). This can be done in Excel, but if you are making a commitment to using the scorecard, I HIGHLY recommend software that will automate the data collection and display. I could recommend some, but that might be construed as advertising. As others have said, "it's what you measure that's more important than how you measure" - get the right measures for your organization.

I'm not aware of any software or template. As you know the purpose of Balanced Scorecard is for management to determine what area they'd like to improve and then define the overall financial metric that would best summarize performance within that area. You then figure out what KPIs drive the performance of that financial metric, with those KPIs most typically emanating from "financial", "customer", "internal process", and "learning and growth" (you may use other categories but these are common and robust). As you can imagine, BS tends to focus heavily on internal metrics that are business process oriented, and by improving those business processes (commonly through employee training aka "learning and growth") you can improve and impact the overall performance metric. Just remember, you are what you measure, so choose wisely!

I've seen BS used to improve everything from manufacturing to sales department efficiency and effectiveness. It's a great tool.

Does anyone have one to share that we can post on Proformative? This is the issue with the "Balanced Scorecard". People talk about how great they are, but someone who wants to develop there own can never get anyone else to share one to use as a baseline.