|
Collecting all the data for a district wide scorecard takes quite a bit of support staff time. However, our leadership and board of directors feel that this data is vital to the accuracy of their decision making. We understand the need for data driven decisions but what is the optimal balance of time between strategy review meetings so we are not reporting excessively? Is monthly too often, annual to infrequently? Any advice is appreciated! |
|
2GC Active Management recently published a summary report of the findings from its 2GC Balanced Scorecard Usage Survey 2010. This summary report can be downloaded for free from the 2GC web site. One of the questions participants were asked how often they review their Balanced Scorecard. Almost 75% indicated that they reviewed their Balanced Scorecard either monthly or quarterly (see the report for the detailed break-down). This finding is consistent with 2GC's advice, based on our decade long experience of working with a wide variety of organisations on Balanced Scorecard design and implementation. Crudely put, the only way a Balanced Scorecard can trigger improved performance is by it being reviewed: the more you review it, the more opportunities there are for you to take decisions based on what it is telling you about performance within your organisation. For strategic issues (and most Balanced Scorecards are designed to track strategic issues - see the survey results for this information too!) there is a limit to the value of how often you check, based on how quickly things change, and / or how quickly things get done. For these we find monthly is on the limit of what an organisation can afford (collecting up, reporting and reviewing Balanced Scorecard data takes up resources), and the limit of what can be discerned - most of our clients end up reporting strategic Balanced Scorecards on a quarterly basis. For Balanced Scorecards that are reported more frequently (and where this reporting is actually useful) we find that these Balanced Scorecards have a significant amount of operational reporting within their design - which justifies the more frequent reporting and the commitment of resources to this task. Hope this helps Best regards Gavin Lawrie 2GC Active Management |
