It takes time to get an Executive Management Team (EMT) ready for its first structured Balanced Scorecard (BSC) business review. They first have to cascade scorecards, gather the data, configure their scorecard software, and train the users. Despite all this pre-work, I believe it's critical that the CEO makes sure there's a corporate scorecard review by month 4 of deployment.
Why? I believe the CEO can fulfill 3 of his/her 4 main functions as they relate to the BSC by month four (too often, these CEO reviews get pushed out to month eight, nine, or later awaiting some unrealistic "scorecard perfection").
So what are these 3 functions and what should be discussed for a BSC that's still "under construction"?
- Communicate the strategy - as I've mentioned before, the
strategy lives in the wording of those verb/noun objectives, the cause
and effect relationships between the objectives, and the targets set on
measures.
Prior to users being trained on software and data being loaded into measures, the EMT needs to discuss these 3 topics. Start by having the CEO designate an Executive owner of each objective. Their task during the first BSC review will be to host the discussion on their objective. They should know how it's defined, what other objectives it relies on and/or affects, and what initiatives will have the greatest impact on its achievement.
- Ensure alignment - think of alignment in two ways - alignment of initiatives to the corporate objectives AND alignment of cascaded objectives to corporate objectives.
When the EMT designates those initiatives that have the greatest impact on achieving the strategy, it's helping to sequence work being done by resources that are typically stretched thin. It also makes sure their completion is a priority.
We also want the EMT to confirm the cause and effect each Executive's scorecard has on the corporate BSC. Objectives are often reworded during cascading, which is to be expected, but make sure the definitions point to clear cause and effect.
- Role model behavior - as a dear friend of mine once said,
"The fish rots from the head down." If the organization doesn't see the
CEO holding consistent reviews, why should they?
Beyond this simple reason, we want the CEO to start early in role modeling the behaviors they want to see become part of the culture. This all starts in the first BSC review in terms of the agenda that's set for the review, the line of questioning the CEO takes on each objective, and the constructive "win/win" atmosphere the CEO creates.
If you want to know the 4th function the CEO serves in the BSC framework, send me an email or make a comment and I'll give you my opinion.
Good to see this being discussed, as our client experience has also shown this to be a key milestone towards a successful implementation.
It's also good to hear that Active Strategy's technology solution enables this rapid deployment. Software needs to be implemented effectively and swiftly able to be a value add from the get go.
Posted by: Keith | January 14, 2008 at 05:01 PM