Balanced Scorecard Strategy For Dummies

Chuck Hannabarger: Chuck (Tyler, Texas) is founder and president of PSI Associates, a business consulting and training firm founded in 1992 with headquarters in Tyler, Texas. As a business consultant, Chuck has consulted with many of the Fortune 100 companies and is recognized throughout the world for his work in the areas of Balanced Scorecards, Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, Business Process Reengineering and Project Management. Chuck’s course on Project Management has been offered at UC Berkeley, Pepperdine University, San Diego State University, and Michigan State University, to name a few. He received his BSBA and his MBA in technology management from the University of Phoenix. Rick Buchman: Rick, who lives in Woodland Hills, CA, has worked with many of the Fortune 100 companies for over 20 years, as both an organizational member of executive management, and as an external consultant, in designing, developing, and implementing operational excellence and continuous improvement programs worldwide. He received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Western Illinois University, his MBA in business from California Coast University in Santa Ana, CA, and has completed all but the dissertation for his PhD in management as well. Currently, Rick is working as a consultant with several major global clients toward designing and implementing their continuous improvement programs, focusing on lean leadership and improving the flow of value to deliver products and services to their customers worldwide.Peter Economy: Peter is Associate Editor for the award-winning magazine Leader to Leader, Senior Consultant for The Jana Matthews Group, a member of the National Advisory Council of the Creativity Connection of the Arts and Business Council of Americans for the Arts, and bestselling coauthor of The SAIC Solution: How We Built an $8 Billion Employee-Owned Technology Company, as well as Managing For Dummies, The Management Bible, Enterprising Nonprofits: A Toolkit for Social Entrepreneurs, Writing Children’s Books For Dummies, and many others.

• Introduction 1About This Book 2Conventions Used in This Book 2What You’re Not to Read 3Foolish Assumptions 3How This Book Is Organized 3Part I: The ABC’s of Balanced Scorecard 3Part II: The Customer — The Critical Leg 4Part III: Financial Measurement — The Foundation Leg 4Part IV: Internal Business Processes — The Value Creation Leg 4Part V: Knowledge, Education, and Growth — the Learning Leg 4Part VI: The Part of Tens 5Icons Used in This Book 5Where to Go from Here 5Part I: The ABC’s of Balanced Scorecard 7Chapter 1: Goals, Scores, and the Balanced Scorecard 9Getting Familiar with Balanced Scorecard 10Just what is Balanced Scorecard, anyway? 10Leaning on the four legs of the scorecard 10Achieving Organizational Balance 11Analyzing Your Customers: Critical Leg 12Knowing who you sell to 12Focusing on future customers 13Considering your internal customers 14Following the Money: Foundation Leg 14Measuring your financial health 15Common mistakes made in finance 17Tracking Your Internal Business Processes: Value-Creation Leg 18Assessing the current state of your business 18Installing effective measures for tracking processes 19Anticipating your business’s future state 20The top five process-tracking problems 20Managing Company-wide Knowledge, Education, and Growth: Learning Leg 21Understanding the importance of taking care of your own 22Measuring knowledge, education, and growth 23Staying on the right course in the fourth leg of the scorecard 25Using Dashboards to Apply Balanced Scorecards to Your Business 25Market, environmental, and technology considerations for your dashboards 27Reviewing strategy, operational, and tactical scorecards and dashboards 28Chapter 2: Building and Balancing Scorecard Strategies 31Understanding How the Four Legs Interact and Link to Strategies 32Putting strategies in the driver’s seat 32Focusing resources on your strategies 33Borrowing from Other Companies’ Success 34Translating strategies into operational terms 35Aligning your organization to the strategies 36Making strategies everyone’s daily job 36Turning strategic deployment into a continual process 36Mobilizing change through your executive leadership team 37Developing Your Strategy Map: A Balancing Act 38Doing your mapping homework 38Drafting the strategy map 39Ensuring a Balanced Scorecard (And What to Do When Yours Isn’t) 40Adapting to Changes in Your Markets or Business 43Spotlighting external influences and their effect on your business 43Recognizing early warning signals 47Balancing in today’s environment — a moving platform 48Chapter 3: Planning For the Balanced Scorecard 49Getting Your Planning in Order 49Planning Your Work and Working Your Plan 51Planning for the resources you will need 51Garnering support from management and others 52Building the Foundation and the Structure of a Scorecard 53Stacking the building blocks for implementing a scorecard 54Adding flexibility so you can adjust a scorecard for effectiveness 55Contingency planning methods 57Adding the Final Touches 58Taking care of the details 58Ensuring that your scorecard is fireproof 59Performing a final inspection 59Chapter 4: Putting Your Balanced Scorecard into Action 61Deciding When to Launch Your Balanced Scorecard 61The Scorecard passed the pilot, and everyone knows it! 61The Scorecard is seen as genuinely adding value 62Sustaining the Balanced Scorecard 62Promoting the scorecard concept 63Making scorecard the talk of the town 64Cooking up the best time to launch 66Mastering the Art of Communicating Your Balanced Scorecards 66The view from the top: Senior executives 67Surviving scorecards as a middle manager 68Spreading the word from the front line 69Avoiding communication pitfalls 70Part II: The Customer — The Critical Leg 73Chapter 5: Understanding Your Role with Customers 75Five Things You Must Know about Customers 76Not all customers are created equal 76Customers can go away 77You must master the art of customer service 78Customers watch you closely 79Do right by your customer 79Using Customer Info to Keep Your Customers Happy 80Gathering info about your customers’ satisfaction levels 80Being proactive to find out what your customers desire 82Walking miles (and miles) in your customers’ shoes 84Setting customer-based strategic measures 84Linking Customer Measures to Your Strategies, Policies, and Plans 85Developing customer strategies 85Creating customer plans and tactics 86Taking action when your customers don’t get what they want 86Following Up With Your Customers for Adjustments 87Chapter 6: Creating a Customer Scorecard 89Zeroing In on the Right Customer Measures 90Weeding out the wrong measures 91Discovering customer measures that matter 91Understanding customer loyalty 92Taking customer measurements 94Getting Dependable Data 96Hocus, pocus — the focus group 97Asking all the wrong questions 98Keeping data charts simple 99Avoiding Interpretation Pitfalls 100Drawing wrong conclusions 100Communicating timely with your customers 102Reading between the lines 102Building the Customer Scorecard 103Strategic-level scorecards 103Operational-level scorecards 105Tactical-level scorecards 106Analyzing a Scorecard and Determining a Course of Action 107Knowing which way to go 107Making sure you stay on course 109Chapter 7: Building the Customer Leg Dashboard 111Customer Dashboard Fundamentals 112Dashboard basics 112Determining ownership and responsibility 113Taking appropriate action: Who, when and how 114Building the Customer Dashboard 115Keeping-it-simple-style dashboards (KISS) 115High-end dashboards with all the fluff 116Just-in-time versus just-too-late dashboards 118Tracking and Analyzing the Customer Dashboard 120Figuring out who needs to know 121Updating the customer dashboard 122Drilling down to root causes 123Part III: Financial Measurement — The Foundation Leg 125Chapter 8: Understanding Your Role in Financial Measurement 127Five Things You Must Know About Financial Measurement 128Your financial measures must be accurate and highly dependable 128Your financial measures must truly reflect the value of your business 129Your financial measures must cascade easily from top to bottom 131Your financial measures must be easy to use and explain 132Your financial measures must adhere to current regulatory and tax laws 134Finding The Financial Data Gold Mines 135Scratching the surface of a goldmine 135Knowing your business equals leveraging your financial data 135Using key measures to gain a significant competitive edge 136Turning difficulties to your advantage 137Measuring and Interpreting with Accuracy 139Making sure the right people do your measuring 140Using consistent and dependable measures 141Avoiding measurement pitfalls 141Turning Numbers into Information 142Examining reporting pitfalls 142Showing financial info simply 143Linking Financial Measurements To Strategies, Plans And Tactics 144Financial measurement is dependant on strategic focus 145What you do depends on what you want 145Using Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) to assess risk 146Chapter 9: Building the Financial Leg Scorecard 149Key Aspects of Financial Measures 150Focusing on the right things 150The WIIFM (What’s in it for me?) station everyone tunes into 151Timeliness is your competitive edge 152Financial Measures That Matter 152Key questions help you see what to measure 153Selecting key performance indicators (KPIs) 155Tips for finding key measures 155How measures differ 156Ensure competitive success by revisiting measurement 158Creating The Financial Scorecard 159Select either a strategic, operational, or tactical level 159Customizing your financial measures, and how to score them 160Examining examples 162A word or two (or three) about information management 166Interpreting Financial Measures for Balanced Scorecards 168Understanding scorecard financial measures, and what they tell you 168Pointing toward additional information and insight 170Structures for decision making from scorecard financial measure 171Understanding the Essence of Accuracy 173Oh no, the numbers are wrong! 174The right numbers, the wrong analysis 174Tracking the numbers by automatic pilot 175Chapter 10: Building the Financial Leg Dashboard 177The Basics of Financial Dashboards 177Determining ownership and responsibility of the financials 178An emphasis on real-time measurement and response 179Taking appropriate action: Who, when, and how 180Creating Financial Dashboards That Have Impact 181Keep it simple, complete, and effective! 182Types of dashboards 183Some examples of dashboards that work! 186Enabling response and adjustment agility and flexibility 189Avoiding Pitfalls While Designing Dashboards 190Selecting the wrong measures 190Organizing goals and objectives poorly 191Having the wrong number of financial measures 191Thinking in the short-term thinking 191Understanding Your Financial Dashboard 192Make it part of your daily work 193So what does it mean, and how will I know what to do next? 194Follow through — it’s what’s for breakfast 196Part IV: Internal Business Processes — The Value-Creation Leg 197Chapter 11: Understanding Your Role in Internal Business Processes 199Five Things You Must Know about Internal Business Processes 200Waste abounds in your processes 200Many process measures don’t link to the customer 202Your measurement system is probably broken 202Process workers are under-utilized and unappreciated 203Technology isn’t always the right answer 204Creating Value 205Looking at your value streams’ current state 205Where you want to be when: The future state 206You Get What You Reward 207Sending mixed messages 207Old rewards do not create new behaviors 208Rewards that matter 209Building-In Continuous Improvement 210Process improvement in a nutshell 211Determining, what, when, and where to measure 211How to measure your performance 213Acceptance and ownership means getting everyone involved 213Pitfalls to Continuous Improvement 215Implementing continuous improvement 215Identifying core processes and outsourcing 217Technology isn’t always the answer 218The Weakest Links in Internal Business Processes 219The problem with integrating strategies, plans, and tactics 220Systems thinking and internal business processes 222It’s a people thing 224Tying Internal Processes to Your Strategies, Plans, and Tactics 226Playing catchball: The art and science of deployment 226Developing your process strategies, plans, and tactics 227Chapter 12: Building the Internal Business Process Scorecard 229Finding the Right Measures for Internal Business Processes 230Identifying the critical few measures 230The Input-Process-Output diagram: Your best friend 232Waste, scrap, and other bad things 233Where’s the variation? 234Building Scorecards for Internal Business Processes 235Strategic level scorecards 235Operational level scorecards 236Tactical level scorecards 236Making Process Decisions That Give Competitive Advantage 239Involving the right people in process decisions 239Staying ahead of the competition: Tools that help 240Common mistakes made with internal business process scorecards 241Chapter 13: Building Dashboards for Internal Business Processes 243Understanding Internal Business Process Dashboards 244The what and why of internal process dashboards 244Getting to real-time data and information 246Drilling down to get the gold 247Creating Your Internal Business Process Dashboards 248Who should be involved with your dashboards and how 248Making sure you’re hitting the right targets 250Ten common mistakes with business process dashboards 251What Your Internal Business Process Dashboard is Telling You 251Analyzing your dashboards 252What to do if you’re not getting there 253Five common mistakes made in business process dashboard analysis 254Part V: Knowledge, Education, and Growth — The Learning Leg 255Chapter 14: Understanding Your Role in Learning and Growth 257Getting Schooled on Knowledge, Education, and Growth 258Putting your finger on the elements of productivity 258Understanding how information flows 260Examining leadership style and culture 261Identifying and filling competency needs 262Aligning your employees organization 263Have a Clear Direction for the Future 264Growing means changing: the concern of complacency 265Getting clarity from learning and growth chaos 266Having a plan for growth and development 267Knowing and Understanding Liabilities 269Turning liabilities into assets, weaknesses into strengths 270The dangers of shortcutting training for growth 272Inventorying Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities 273Your company’s wish list: Defining what you need 274Step away from the office! Getting to know your people 275Mind the gaps: Determining knowledge and skill gaps and filling them 277Linking Your Strategies, Operations, and Tactics for Learning and Growth 280Balancing at the strategic level for organizational knowledge and growth 281Having an operational focus for the future 282Acting tactically for growth, capability improvement, and retention 283Chapter 15: Creating the Knowledge, Education, and Growth Scorecard 285Finding The Right Measures For Knowledge, Education And Growth 286Determine key growth goals for the future 286Identifying operational goals, measurements for growth 287Indicators at the action level 288Constructing The Knowledge Management Growth Scorecard 291Aligning key growth measurements, for strategies and their impact 291Determining the right measures for today and tomorrow 292Always reassess and adjust, per market changes as well 293Some examples of growth and development scorecards 294Determining What Your Scorecard Is Telling You 300How to read your future 301Adjusting when it’s not what you want 302Some mistakes to avoid in interpretation 303Chapter 16: Creating The Knowledge, Education, and Growth Dashboard 305Requirements For Knowledge, Education, and Growth Dashboards 306Translating growth goals into meaningful daily measures 306Selecting key short- and long-term measures 307Wait! It’s time to do a sanity check! 308Creating Dashboards That Increase Knowledge Management 309Formulating the structure of your growth dashboard for action 309Setting up feedback systems 311Using the dashboard to achieve greater potential 311Analyzing Your Knowledge, Education And Growth Dashboard 312How to use the growth dashboard to make adjustments to scorecard balance 313What your dashboard is telling you as you work toward achieving your future 314The importance — and the risks — of being truthful 315Understanding the Pitfalls of Analysis 316Performance results alone do not a benchmark make 317Comparing apples and elephants: best practices where? 318Beware of cookbook approaches and case studies 319Part VI: The Part of Tens 321Chapter 17: Ten Tips for Balanced Scorecard Success 323Establish (and Remember) Where Your Company is Headed 323Understand and Stay Current with What Your Customers Want 324Define Your Scorecard and Dashboard Roles and Responsibilities 325Charter Effective Steering Committees 325Establish and Maintain Accountability 326Link Your Scorecards and Dashboards to Your Strategies, Goals, and Objectives 326Communicate Your Personalized Four - Legs Approach to Everyone 327Use Feedback and Feed-Forward Loops 327Plan and Execute Your Balanced Scorecards Relentlessly 328Synergize Your Scorecards for Competitive Advantage and New-Market Entrance 329Chapter 18: Ten Biggest Scorecard Mistakes to Avoid 331Cherry Picking 331Following Case Studies Too Closely 332Delegating Responsibility without Authority 333Ignoring the Soft Stuff 333Focusing Too Much on the Tools 335Overanalyzing 335Not Dealing with Key Detractors 336Sending Mixed Messages 337Exaggerating the Returns 337Ignoring the Customer 338Chapter 19: Ten Tips for Overcoming Barriers 339Empower Your Employees 339Be Flexible 341Apply Psychology 341Identify and Use Influential People 342Limit the Use of Force 342Don’t Shoot the Messenger; Make Everyone the Messenger 342Implement Stage-Gate Reviews 343Reward, Recognize, and Celebrate Success 343Communicate, Communicate, Communicate (And Don’t Forget to Talk) 344Provide Structure for Coaching, Mentoring, and Learning from Mistakes 344Index 345