Recommended Book

The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action

by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton
Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996.

Reviewed by Xenia Stanford, Editor-in-Chief, KnowMap

This book was an immediately talked about, but more importantly, utilized management tool. Although many claimed to have improved upon it and perhaps they have, the balanced scorecard (BSC) approach has been used and found to work for many organizations, including the one at which I was employed at the time it was released.

Many systems only propose to measure. Benchmarking is such a tool. However, we benchmark against others, what we need is best practices that meet our organization's goals. Those may need to be unique or even better practices than our competitors.

What Kaplan and Norton have done is create a system that not only measures but also shows how to manage in alignment with corporate goals - such as mission, vision, customer and employee satisfaction. Dividing the scope of the goals into four quadrants based on the organization's aims will ensure that all significant fronts are in focus.

The difficulty based on first-hand experience is firstly this system is grounded in buy-in of both senior management and non-management employees. Secondly, the understanding of the goals and measures are important before embarking on the plan. Otherwise it turns out to be just more jibber-jabber and corporate speak.

However, through a series of exercises with my team we were able to explore the alignment of our functions with the business drivers of the organization. Thus rather than remaining merely an overhead department, we were able to align with business needs and show how information professionals directly contributed to the core competencies and integral goals of the organization.

The authors guide you step-by-step through the process with roadmaps and other visuals to improve the ability to follow this method to success.

Robert S. Kaplan, the Arthur Lowes Dickinson Professor of Accounting at the Harvard Business School and David P. Norton, president of Renaissance Solutions, Inc. are the authors of three seminal Harvard Business Review articles on the Balanced Scorecard.
You can sample 18 pages of the text for free.

Buy it, use it, it works!

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