Scorecard Best Practices

Implementation Time Frame and the Approach

As discussed in Chapter 7, there are various approaches that can be taken in scorecard implementation, including the top‐down, bottom‐up, and pilot project. The SHAPs study indicated that implementations using a pilot project approach are most likely to be implemented quickly. This makes sense, as these projects have a limited scope and can be completed in a short time frame. Organizations that use a bottom‐up approach and are implemented for operational management purposes are also completed relatively quickly. Systems that are implemented using a top‐down approach, especially those implemented down to the departmental level, tend to take the longest time to implement.

While the bottom‐up or pilot project approaches typically take less time to implement, it may be more difficult to link the performance measures on the scorecards back to your organization's vision and strategy when you begin to rollout to other areas.

Also, when implementing a system using a bottom‐up approach, flexibility in the automation of the system is essential, especially with regard to data availability. For example, a large financial institution used a bottom‐up approach to implement its scorecard system. At the beginning of the project, each branch was told to choose its own scorecard measures. Each branch's scorecard had its own unique flavor. Without specific direction from corporate, each branch had to make a leap of faith that the measures they chose to ...