Reviewing your business with Balanced Scorecard

One of the great things about the Balanced Scorecard is how effective a tool it is for regular business reviews. How often have you sat in management team meetings in which a broad range of topics are discussed, but very little is decided upon and even fewer actions are forthcoming? Alternatively, you may have sat in meetings where KPIs are discussed, but the causes and issues arising from how the targets have been met are barely mentioned.

Because the Balanced Scorecard will have been entirely tailored to your business – reflecting your aims, processes, challenges and successes – it makes an excellent tool from which to run review meetings. Many of my clients have scrapped their old meeting agendas and now used the scorecard as the basis of all discussion in management review meetings. The reason for this is simple: The Balanced Scorecard gives you a dashboard for how every aspect of your business is performing and progressing. You can use it as a summary or an overview, or drill down into specific areas to find detailed information on every aspect of your business.

One of the challenges businesses may face when introducing the Balanced Scorecard is getting ‘buy in’ from staff and management. People often like to stick to the way they have always done something, unable to see that their approach is what may be holding the company back. That’s why I recommend making sure that the balanced Scorecard is not imposed on a team, but rather that it is methodically introduced and that the benefits to the business are made clear at every level.

Because the Balanced Scorecard is so flexible and adaptable, it suits any type of business or organisation and can be an extremely valuable management tool. The opportunities it gives your management team for reviewing your business are exceptional.

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