Scorecard Best Practices

Effect of Rationale on Implementation

It is important that the rationale for implementing a scorecard system include the benefits expected. Benefits that enable the implementation to succeed may relate to its use as a strategic performance management tool (e.g., linking and aligning an organization around its strategy, communicating strategy to everyone simply and clearly, and the need to make strategy everyone's job), or as an operational management tool (e.g., improving efficiency and effectiveness as it relates to organizational goals). Respondents to the SHAPs study who selected reasons like these for implementing their systems reported receiving the greatest level of benefits.

Some organizations implement a scorecard system for reasons unrelated to the expected benefits. For example, “The stock market now expects a well‐run organization to have [a scorecard],” or “It was part of another initiative,” or “Government regulation required it.” Other examples cited were that the project was designed to simply automate the current manual system and the added benefits were secondary. Not surprisingly, organizations stating these reasons for implementation also reported the fewest benefits from their scorecard initiatives.

Knowing the “right” reasons for implementing a scorecard system will help guide your organization as it designs and implements its system, and help to ensure that it produces benefits.