Overview Tab
Your Overview Page contains all you need to get started on your Balanced Scorecard and see instant results.
Common Pitfall - trying to add additional Perspectives, Objectives and Metrics when the existing ones already total 100%. You have a total of 8 Perspectives, 4 Objectives for each perspective and 6 Metrics per Objective. To add additional Perspectives, Objectives or Metrics you need to ensure the combined weighting is less than 100%. You have a total possible combination of 192, or more commonly, for 4 Perspectives 96 metrics using 4 Objective headings per Perspective. This is more than enough to cater for most organisations. If you feel you need more you may want to consider revising your Strategy as too many metrics often results in spreading resources too thinly and nothing gets achieved (see initiatives).
A quick glance shows the screen is divided into four major areas:
- Add/Edit a Business (Division, Reporting Group, Operational Group, Business Unit)
- Add/Edit a Perspective
- Add/Edit an Objective
- Add/Edit a Metric/Measure
To Start
What to note... Each Content Box: Business, Perspective, Objective and Metric; contain name and weight edit functions, a progress bar for achieving expectations and the number of sub components present.
Simply add a business - enter the Business Name, email address (for report sending) the month end in your Fiscal Year and whether you would like to duplicate this business from an existing Scorecard Business. Duplicating the Business will transfer all Perspectives, Objectives and Metrics to your new business (without the data). Ideal for multiple "like" operations such as franchise or multiple like stores. The number of Perspectives, Objectives and Metrics assignment to each business is clearly shown.
Next is to add your Perspectives. The system defaults to the standard balanced scorecard perspectives, that is, Finance, Customer, Internal Process, and, Knowledge and Growth. If your business operation uses different terminology, simply edit the perspective labels (mouse over left of label). Or add an additional perspective if needed. You cannot add addition Perspectives unless your combined "weighting" is less than 100%. You can change the "weighting" at any time by clicking the weight measure. More on weighting your measures below.
Next add your Objectives. Simply add your Objective Name and the weighting attached to the objective. You can also link objectives here to visualize relationships within your Strategy Map. (This can also be done from the Strategy Map itself). You can edit the name, weighting and strategy links at any time.
Lastly your Metrics or Measures. You have a total of six metrics per objective. Enter your Metric Name, the Weighting, adjust your direction arrow for variances, the format of your measure and who is the Owner responsible for the metric (not compulsory). Your Metric box contains your Actual and Target numbers, these are monitored using the Progress Bar. Your total Metrics must have a combined weighting of 100%. You can change the owner at any time. Where an Owner has not been assigned will appear Black - otherwise green and the Owner's name will appear. You can drill down on your metric for further graphical interpretation using the Analytics feature. Mouse over the line graphs to get the details. The relevant weighting of the metric also appears - this can be clicked and altered, remembering however that the sum total of the metrics need to equal 100%. To the right Delete and Archiving functionality is also present along with links to any Initiatives.
Owners are people responsible for that metric. This has implications for data input.
Entering Data - you can enter directly into the matrix screen any Actual or Targeted figures. Alternatively, you can use the Quick Entry function located top right.
A Note on WEIGHTING. The facility exists to alter the weighting of your numbers, depending on the importance to strategy, the Perspective, Objective or Metric may have. This can provide a more focused approach to strategy execution. There are arguments both sides of the fence here - if in doubt just assign your numbers in equally weightings.
ADDITIONAL PAGE FEATURES
Mouse over text Change descriptions by mouse over and click
Two Menu Options (Top Right) Select from a range of option functions.
Quick Entry - allows quick entry of the metrics for a selected date and Objective, just enter your data and TAB through the fields.
Select Date Range (Top Right) Select the Date Range you need. Prior years data available. Simply select from the drop-down box.