When does a scorecard become a dashboard?

My thoughts on this are pretty simple: If it's about the strategy, it's a scorecard. If it's about operations, it's a dashboard. So, if you're on the shop floor looking at your throughput, you're probably looking at a dashboard. If you're in the executive suite evaluating your strategy, you're probably looking at a scorecard (and hopefully a Balanced Scorecard).

As with many words in this area, they are used loosly. If helps if there are distinctions. It helps if you use plain English.

I use scorecard when I am looking at a table of figures with results on them. Its a set of scores on a card (hence scorecard).

I use dashboard when the presentation is much more graphical and especially when full of dials and sliders. The image of the report is more like the dashboard of a car or aircraft. Personally I am not keen on dashboards as they are often a triumph of presentation over content and information. Also vehicle dashboards tend to display what is happening now or current state, rather than what has been happening (eg how fuel consulption of speed varied). This "instant" view is not that helpful for a business. Unfortunately dashboard gets used a lot for any graphical performance report.

There is a richer report format that includes graphs of performance over time, (Rarely seen on a car dashboard) together with commentary, and actions that are being taken to resolve or address problems. This is much more a performance report. It is how good balanced scorecard reports are presented, but is not as simplistic as a simple scorecard.

Phil