Peter Drucker said, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all”. I can certainly understand this quote’s applicability in today’s corporate climate of mass measurements and broad focus.T.P.S. report, anyone? But what, exactly, should be done? Where, exactly, should we focus?

The answers vary by company, industry, and even change with the economic times. The secret to your company’s success is complicated and specific and is ever evolving. Scorecarding applications allow you to clearly map out and perform along your own path to corporate success. Benefits of implementing thoughtful, actionable scorecarding include:

• Strategy focused organization
• Agility – well equipped to handle internal and external change
• Greater results focus
• Better accuracy in forecasting business results
• More holistic view of performance
• Clear cause and effect leading to better decision making

Understanding potential corporate culture risks are key to a successful implementation. Contemplating the following risks will help you more thoughtfully implement components at the right levels and in the right way at your own organization:

• Accountability and visibility – Think about your own organization’s tolerance for broadcasting results.This is truly putting a metric to a name…in some form.
• Need to trust the tool – If your ‘check engine’ light is glowing and you ignore it, is it doing any good?
• Adversity to change – If your implementation is meant to guide change in your company, give thought to how willing you are to accept change.
• Time constraints – Many decision makers are completely bogged down living only in the operational management space (day to day)…how can you best introduce strategy based decisions? Who should learn the new system? How?

Recognizing the right kind of scorecarding opportunity is another key to a successful implementation. Often times, meaningful corporate change projects are started with little thought around how to influence, measure, and communicate results. Do your best to piggy-back on just that sort of project. Opportunities include:

• Whenever performance becomes an issue (under performing, aggressive growth plans, acquisitions of new businesses, etc.)
• Corporate or departmental strategic initiatives
• ‘Franchise’ type opportunities (i.e. – bank branch performance)
• Senior leaders looking for new ways to manage their portion of the business
• Process improvement or change management initiatives
• Incentive programs

Now that we’ve covered some of the key benefits, potential risks, and common opportunities…. we’ll touch on scorecarding 101 and requirements gathering during next week’s post.